When Ruhan got home that night, he didn't turn on the lights.
He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the candle stub in his pocket — the one they'd used at the lighthouse. It had melted unevenly, wax clinging to his jeans, like it didn't want to be forgotten.
He couldn't shake the feeling that someone had followed them back. Not a person. A weight. A presence. Like the air itself had grown aware of them again.
The next day, Samaya brought the notebook to school. They skipped class and sat in the last row of the empty auditorium, their knees touching, the book open between them.
Each page was a time capsule.
Drawings of them in stick figure form.
Secret codes they'd made up to pass notes during class.
Lists of dares — stupid ones — like stealing a chalk from the staff room or ringing the temple bell at midnight.
Then came a page titled:
"The Real Promise."
Samaya's fingers trembled as she read aloud:
_"When one of us is in pain, the others will know.
When one of us disappears, the others will find.
When one of us forgets, the others will remind.
Until all four remember,
We are incomplete."_
Ruhan's voice was barely a whisper. "We really wrote this?"
Samaya nodded. "And we broke it the night of the flood."
Flashback.
They were twelve.
There had been rain for days, and the lake had spilled into the lower parts of the village. Their parents had forbidden them from going near the lighthouse, but they went anyway — because they always did.
Dev had been the last one in. His red guitar case strapped to his back, limping faster than he ever had before.
And then — the sound.
Not of water.
Not of thunder.
But of something cracking inside them all.
They never spoke about what happened at the top of the tower. Not even after the rescue boats came. Not even when the village said Dev's family moved away in the night. Not even when Aarya stopped coming to school and never returned.
They simply… un-remembered.
In the auditorium, Ruhan felt a pressure behind his eyes. The beginnings of something ancient and sharp.
"We still have time," Samaya said. "We can fix it."
He looked at her. "How?"
She pulled out the envelope.
Ruhan blinked. "What is that?"
Samaya placed it in his hands. "I got it last week. From Aarya."
He didn't open it at first. Just stared at her neat handwriting, the way his name was curved gently, like she had hesitated at every letter.
Then slowly, he unfolded the flap.
Inside was a single polaroid.
All four of them at the edge of the lighthouse, drenched, smiling, Dev's red guitar slung between them like a badge of honour.
On the back, in Aarya's handwriting:
"Come back. It's almost time."
Ruhan's fingers clenched the photo.
Somewhere deep inside, the pact they'd buried years ago stirred beneath his skin — like something sacred returning from the dark.
Incomplete no more.
They were going to finish what they started.