The chawl was a hollowed-out carcass after the storm. The water had receded with the dawn, leaving behind a thick, grey silt that coated every surface like a shroud of liquid ash. It smelled of ancient rust, open sewers, and the suffocating scent of ruined lives. The rhythmic dripping of the leaking ceiling sounded like a ticking clock in the absolute silence of the room—a room that had once held six people and now felt cavernously, hauntingly empty.

Shaurya and Kabir had returned for supplies. They needed blankets, whatever few dry clothes remained, and the heavy leather boots Kabir had left behind in the frantic, heart-stopping rush to get Ananya to the hospital. The room was colder than the municipal morgue. It felt like a crime scene where the victim was still fighting for a jagged breath three miles away, and the perpetrators had returned to the site of their sin.