Chapter 4: Echoes Without Faces
Was it all in my head or....?
The first thing Sharv noticed was the silence.
Then the sweat on the back of his neck.
And then, the strange hollowness in his chest. Like an echo that didn’t belong to him.
He sat up slowly, not quite awake, not quite dreaming. Something heavy sat in his throat. Not fear. Not panic. But Guilt.
He couldn’t recall the words, but the tone lingered, soft, broken, almost apologetic
He was arguing with her. That much he remembered. But she wasn’t shouting back. She was… ashamed. Her eyes, though blurry in memory, held something raw. And it wasn’t Supriya.
That was the most certain part of it all. The woman was not Supriya. But the argument felt real. Personal. Like it carried weight built over time.
Sharv tried to trace her face, hold on to a feature, anything. A mole, a scarf, a smell. Nothing stuck. Just the ache that lingered like the aftertaste of a bitter medicine.
He muttered under his breath, rubbing his face, “Kya ajeeb sapna tha…”
The guilt didn’t make sense. But it was there, settling behind his ribs like a truth that refused to introduce itself.
No point chasing shadows. Not right now.
He swung his legs off the bed, stood up, and walked to the kitchen.
The morning routine unfolded almost without thought, muscle memory wrapped in habit.
He turned the gas knob, set the kettle on the flame, and filled it with water from the filter. On the counter, he placed two Parle-G biscuits on a steel plate, one for himself, one for the birds, as always. His mother’s ritual, passed down like family silver.
The tea boiled too long, he liked it that way. Slightly harsh. Slightly nostalgic.
He poured it out, took a slow sip. Still bitter. Still exactly how it was meant to be.
The clock on the wall read 7:48 AM.
Outside the window, the triangular park across the lane was starting to stir. A boy kicked a ball towards a disinterested dog. A woman called out to her son in half-scold, half-lullaby tones. The newspaper guy did his usual Olympic routine, hurling rolls across gates like practiced darts.
Sharv stood there for a moment longer, sipping.
The dream was fading. But the feeling wasn’t.
He tapped his fingers on the edge of the counter, then walked toward the bathroom.
By 8:10, he had slipped into the narrow bathroom.
The red plastic bucket under the tap welcomed the cold water with a familiar, hollow drumming sound.
He let it fill to the halfway mark, then turned the knob sideways, adjusting the shower flow.
Five seconds.
Just like always he waited five seconds before stepping in. Long enough for the transition, short enough to not think about it.
From the corner shelf, his Bluetooth speaker crackled to life, the opening hum of Krishna Das’s Hanuman Chalisa spilling into the steam.
No shuffle. No playlist. Just this one track, every morning.
Not for devotion. For discipline. Asusual.
He moved through the motions, lather, rinse, stand still for a second under the water as if baptizing the day.
Then came the final steps. Switch knob back to tap. Shut off water.
The towel hung behind the door, dual-sided like always. One side black, one side yellow. Black for the legs. Yellow for the face.
Some things didn’t need explaining. They just needed doing.
He dressed within the bathroom. Even though he was alone. Always had.
Only the combing happened outside, by the cracked mirror nailed to the old wooden almirah in the hallway.
By the time he zipped up his bag, the Hanuman Chalisa had looped twice. The kettle had cooled. The shoes by the door were waiting, laces loose, tongues flared slightly open like they were ready to speak.
He paused.
The guilt was still there.
But now it had company, a creeping unease he couldn’t name.
He locked the door behind him, the latch clicking into place with its usual hollow echo, and took the stairs two at a time.
Outside, Chandigarh was waking up. Quietly. Precisely. Like it always did.
But inside him, something wasn’t following the script anymore
The drive to the office was muscle memory now. Sector 21 to Panchkula. Twenty-five minutes if he caught the signal near Sector 20. A little longer if the milk truck decided to break down near the old petrol pump.
This morning, it was twenty-seven.
Sharv turned into the narrow lane beside the government complex, parked his car beside the crooked boundary wall, and stepped out just as a white Ola cab pulled up to the gate.
The back door opened and Ira stepped out, clutching her bag, her dupatta caught between the seatbelt and the seat. She untangled it quickly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she noticed him.
“Good morning, sir,” she said, a little breathless but steady.
“Morning,” Sharv nodded. “Cutting it close today?”
“Cab got stuck behind a tractor on the highway,” she smiled sheepishly. “I told him to fly over it, but apparently Ola doesn’t support that feature yet.”
Sharv chuckled lightly, then began walking toward the staircase.
She matched his pace, both climbing in step.
Ira spoke about the dataset, something about filters skipping validation.
Sharv nodded, but only half-heard her words.
His mind was somewhere else.
Not in the dream this time. But in two conversations that had wedged themselves deep in his chest, one with Ashish, the other with Supriya.
“I think if you keep asking yourself whether you're losing your mind, maybe it's time to talk to someone who can help you find it.”
“Promise me you’ll at least consider therapy.”
He wasn’t sure what he felt about it. Defensive? Curious? Afraid?
“I think the primary ID mapping is still pulling from the October batch,” Ira continued, a gentle frown forming between her eyebrows.
“Huh? Yeah... that shouldn’t happen,” Sharv replied quickly, blinking out of his fog. “We should lock the Q3 filters. We’ll recheck it together post-lunch.”
She nodded, a bit confused and trying to focus on the work talk, her voice crisp, but her glances softer. As they climbed the stairs, her eyes flicked sideways, not full turns, just side glances. She tried to keep her voice focused, tried to make it sound strictly work. But her knuckles tightened slightly when their arms brushed briefly near the landing.
She wasn’t looking for a connection. She was trying to avoid it.
They reached the corridor, and she adjusted her dupatta as they passed the flickering tube light.
He didn’t notice the way she smiled faintly at the floor. And she didn’t ask why his eyes looked a little heavier than usual.
When they entered the office, the hum of desktop fans and printer wheels greeted them.
What surprised Sharv most was Ashish, already there.
He was usually the last to arrive, always with a sleepy excuse and chai in hand.
But today, he sat upright at his desk, typing something quickly, then looking up and smiling, wide, genuine, unusually warm.
“Arrey! Look who finally made it!” Ashish grinned, standing up to stretch.
Sharv raised an eyebrow. “What parallel universe am I in where you reached before me?”
Ashish shrugged. “Fresh start. 2025 resolution, be your own alarm clock.”
“Sure,” Sharv smiled. “I’ll believe it when it lasts a week.”
“Challenge accepted.”
Ira greeted him with a polite “Good morning,” to which Ashish nodded in reply, more muted than his usual boisterous self.
The rest of the team was settling in. Kunal was already halfway through his regular Excel warm-up, a spreadsheet named test_test_FINAL3_real.xlsx open with a blinking cursor. Suresh was stirring his tea with surgical precision, reading the paper headlines aloud to himself.
Sharv took his seat and opened his laptop. The inbox buzzed with the usual, script auto-triggers, data push notifications, and three failed ping attempts from the server backup node.
And then the weekly round-up from Delhi HQ.
He opened it.
Subject line: Progress Review: NH&PG North Zone 2 - Weekly Report
He skimmed through the summary:
“Zone 2 team progress logged at 67%. Other nodes are averaging at 81-84%. Please investigate delays in data upload and validation checkpoints.
Reminder: Regional Quarterly Meet scheduled for 24th January. All regional leads and associates are to report to Delhi Head Office for sessions, followed by a formal dinner at Hotel Vasant View. Hotel accommodations have been pre-arranged. Teams are expected to manage their travel.”
Sharv read the line again, “Zone 2 progress at 67%”, and let out a breath through his nose.
They were last. Not by much. But last nonetheless.
He closed the mail and leaned back in his chair for a second, just long enough for his thoughts to catch up.
Then he sat up again and called out:
“Ashish, Suresh, Kunal, Ira, come to my desk for five minutes.”
They gathered around, pulling chairs or leaning against desks.
“Team, I won’t sugarcoat this,” he began. “We’re trailing behind. Zone 2 is dead last on this week’s review.”
Ira looked concerned, Kunal winced. Suresh quietly sipped his tea.
“I want to understand why. What’s holding us up? And please, don’t sugarcoat either.”
Ashish spoke first. “Honestly? I think the initial logs were okay, but we lost time during the re-validation round. That Delhi sync issue last week wiped half of what we’d pushed.”
Ira nodded. “And the October mapping error, that set me back two whole days. I had to go through each entry again.”
Kunal hesitated. “Sir, I think... I was too cautious. I double-checked everything before the final push, and maybe that slowed me down. Sorry.”
Sharv held up a hand. “This is not about blame. It’s about identifying the lag.”
He paused.
“And I’ll say this, part of the delay is on me too. I’ve been... off. I’ve been slow in running final merge scripts. I should’ve caught some of these mismatches earlier.”
Suresh smiled faintly. “Aap jaise samajhdar boss kam milte hain, sir. Blame bhi khud pe le lete ho.”
They chuckled. The tension softened slightly.
“We’re not far off,” Sharv continued. “If we streamline today and tomorrow, we can meet next week’s checkpoint. But I’ll need everyone to be sharp. If anything blocks you, don’t sit on it.”
They all nodded, more serious now.
“And during lunch, we’ll align on Delhi travel plans. That meet is important.”
The team dispersed, back to desks and databases.
Sharv remained still for a few seconds longer, staring at the screen, the line from the mail still replaying in his mind.
Zone 2 progress: 67%.
He could handle slow progress.
What he wasn’t sure he could handle... were glitches he couldn’t trace.
After the group discussion, Sharv had a detailed one-on-one with each team member, wrapping up just before lunch. The conversations were part performance, part confession, he wanted to nudge them toward better outcomes without sounding like he was falling apart himself. By the end of it, he had nodded so many times he wasn’t sure if he had agreed or simply survived the hour.
Over lunch, in the warmth of aluminium tiffin boxes and oil-stained napkins, the team hashed out their travel plans for the upcoming Delhi review meet.
“So, 24th. That’s a Friday,” Sharv said, tearing a piece of roti. “Let’s aim to leave early in the morning. Meet at the office by 5 am?”
“Sorted,” Kunal chimed in.
“I’ll drive,” Ashish added. “Suresh, you coming with me?”
“Of course,” Suresh replied, dabbing his lips with a tissue. “Waise bhi, aapke gaadi ka music system alag hi level ka hai”
“Ira, Kunal, you’re with me,” Sharv said. “Let’s sync bags the previous evening. Keep it tight.”
They agreed, laughter light, food heavy. The kind of moment that made everything feel fine, even when it wasn’t.
Post-lunch hours moved slower, heavy with digestion and mild caffeine dependence. Around 3 PM, Sharv and Ashish made their way to the server room to check on the data logs for their latest upload batch.
The hallway leading to it always felt like it belonged to another world, colder, quieter, a little too polished compared to the rest of the building. The air smelled faintly of wires, sterilized and secret.
Inside, the server room buzzed, old machines speaking a language only they understood.
Sharv tapped into the logs.
Something was off.
“These timestamps,” he said, pointing. “Batch upload shows discrepancies. Two files processed at the same second with conflicting IDs. That shouldn’t be possible.”
Ashish peered closer, then cross-checked the server console. “This doesn’t make sense. It’s logging entries that weren’t triggered. Let’s hook in manually, check from our systems.”
They left the room and returned with their laptops. But as soon as they re-entered, the room felt... different.
The main monitor displayed a clean log, pristine, perfect, unmarred.
“No way,” Sharv whispered.
Ashish stood frozen. “This was broken two minutes ago.”
Sharv stepped forward, scrolled through the console’s event history. Everything had been rewritten, as if the glitch had never occurred.
“This isn’t possible,” he muttered. “We both saw it.”
Sharv was quiet. Then, slowly, he turned to Ashish.
“You were saying something about therapy, right?”
Ashish’s breath caught.
“I thought it was just me,” he whispered. “But now... this isn't a memory. It’s not perception.”
Ashish nodded, solemn. “This was real. Whatever this is, you’re not imagining it.”
Sharv looked at the machines, their calm blinking lights, their silence too smooth.
“I’m not crazy,” he said, voice steadier now. “Something else is happening.”
As they turned to leave, neither of them noticed the movement behind them.
In the corner of the ceiling, a small, black CCTV camera pivoted silently, almost curiously.
A single red LED blinked once.
Then again.
A tiny speaker embedded inside let out a sound.
Not quite a laugh.
Not quite a growl.
A slow, wet chuckle, as if someone was amused… or watching.
No one heard it.
But it was real.
After the server room incident Ashish decided to go home for the day.
Sharv... I’m going home. I need to think. This is... a lot.
He did not want to discuss the incident any further, not with Sharv at least.
Back at his desk, Sharv opened his system and stared at the project folder. He couldn’t shake what had just happened. A shared glitch. A witness. For once, he wasn’t the only one holding a version of the truth.
He tried to focus on routine work when Ira approached with her laptop,“Sir, that validation error I was troubleshooting? I think it’s that quarter filter thing we fixed over the weekend.”
Sharv looked up, confused. “Fixed?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Sunday evening? You stayed back with me, we worked on the filters. You suggested locking them again, and we made that fix. You remember, right?”
He stared at her blankly.
“I... thought of the filter fix this morning,” he said slowly.
Ira looked puzzled. “No, we did it together. You even said it was a temporary patch but should hold.”
“I said that?”
She nodded.
Sharv opened the validation script on his system. Searched for the timestamp.
The fix was there. Logged under his credentials. Last modified: Sunday, 8:17 PM.
He had made it.
But he remembered nothing.
No coffee, no conversation, no click of the keyboard.
Just blank space where a memory should be.
He forced a laugh, shaking his head. “Must be all blending together in my head.”
Ira smiled, a little awkwardly, and headed back to her desk.
Sharv didn’t move.
His hands hovered over the keyboard, motionless.
The glitch didn’t feel like a flicker anymore.
It felt like a fog.
A fog that rewrote things when he wasn’t looking.
He packed his bag in silence. Slipped out of the office without a word.
Outside, the city looked normal, dusk folding into night, headlights cutting through fog, a milk van honking somewhere in the distance.
In the car, he reached into his bag, pulled out a creased slip of paper.
The ink was smudged along the folds, but the name was still there.
Dr. Sanchit – Clinical Psychologist
He stared at the number.
His thumb hovered over the call button for a full second.
Then pressed.
Three rings.
Then a voice.
“Hello?”
Sharv hesitated.
Then finally said, “Hi..my friend Ashish gave me your number, I think I need to book a session.”
Because this time, even the silence was watching.
