They didn't talk on the way back.
Not because there was nothing to say — but because too much had already surfaced. Ruhan's mind buzzed with fragments. A white ribbon in the wind. A photograph burning at the edges. A dare someone never backed down from.
He kept hearing the bell in the silence between steps, even though it had stopped hours ago.
Back home, the walls of his room felt thinner. Like they remembered too.
He sat at his desk, pulled out a notebook, and began to draw.
Not just the lighthouse.
This time, he drew four figures standing at its base. Each turned away from the light. Each frozen in the moment just before something irreversible.
And one — one was beginning to step off the edge.
The next morning, he found a note inside his shoe locker at school.
Just one line, written in faded blue ink:
"She left something behind in the water."
There was no name, but he knew who it was from.
He met Samaya during recess under the old banyan tree.
"You got it too?" she asked.
He nodded. "Why now?"
"Because the timeline is shifting," she said, her voice quiet, her eyes on the ground. "We're disturbing things. Old memories. Old promises."
"What did she leave behind?"
Samaya hesitated. "Not what. Who."
That evening, they returned to the lighthouse — only this time, with flashlights and a single candle.
The door at the base of the tower groaned open.
It wasn't locked.
Dust danced in their beams as they stepped inside. The walls were cracked, names carved into the stone, initials that Ruhan suddenly recognized but couldn't place.
Halfway up the spiral staircase, Samaya stopped. "This is where he used to sing," she whispered.
"Who?"
"The boy with the limp. Dev."
Ruhan froze. "He had a guitar. A red one."
"Yes," Samaya said, her voice softening. "He played it on the last night. She listened from the railing."
They climbed higher. The top room was empty, except for a broken telescope, a shattered mug, and a single notebook on the floor, damp with time.
Ruhan picked it up. Opened to the first page.
There, in childlike handwriting:
"Rules of the Lighthouse Club."
He read aloud:
No adults allowed.
No lies — not even the kind that saves someone.
If someone falls, we all fall together.
His voice trembled at the last line.
Samaya took the book gently and held it to her chest. "We made a pact. All four of us."
"We broke it," Ruhan said.
"We forgot it," Samaya corrected. "And that's worse."
They sat there in silence, watching the candle burn lower, shadows stretching against the tower walls like ghosts finding shape.
Outside, the night pressed closer.
Inside, their memories whispered louder.
Something unfinished had begun to stir.
And it was time they remembered what they'd tried so hard to forget.