Unseen Chains: In the Shadow of Control

Chapter Sixteen: The Voice That Echoed

Aarya's POV

The computer lab was too cold, as always. Aarya rubbed her arms through her full-sleeve kurti and tapped on the keyboard, half-listening to the instructor explain logic gates for the fifth time. She'd already figured the worksheet out. What she hadn't figured out — what she couldn't shake — was that voice.

That day by the admin block, the short "Hey, careful" had echoed too deep. Familiar. Not just a passing familiarity like someone she'd brushed by before. It meant something. But what?

She frowned, minimizing the browser window and flipping open her notebook instead, letting her pen wander in lines and loops that slowly became a face. Strong jaw. Angled cheekbones. She paused, startled at what she'd sketched.

No face. Just shadows.

Why is it bothering me this much?

Later in the cafeteria, she spotted Reeva laughing with a few seniors at the staff-free corner table. Not that unusual — Reeva was everywhere. But something was off today. Reeva caught her eye for just a second. The smirk was too sharp. Calculated.

Aarya turned away.

"I feel like the air's weird on campus lately," she muttered to Tanya as they carried their trays.

Tanya laughed. "It's the chemical lab fumes. Or your overly dramatic brain again."

"Maybe," Aarya said, but her eyes drifted to the security camera mounted high in the corner of the mess. A little red light blinking.

Someone watches those feeds.

The thought had never bothered her before. Now it felt... intimate. Like she was being seen in ways she didn't consent to. But she shoved the thought away.

That evening, in the library, she couldn't focus on her Physics notes.

The same loop played in her mind: The admin block. That voice. Her sketchbook drenched in mud. The boy who had handed it back.

She'd barely seen his face then, shadowed by the rain and his hoodie. She hadn't seen him since. But the way he'd spoken... it matched.

And she hated unfinished puzzles.

She pulled out her sketchbook and flipped to a clean page.

Eyes narrowed, she began to draw.

Not his face. Just the curve of a neck. The way his fingers had held her sketchbook, careful. The fall of his hair, rain-slicked and dark. A presence made of shadows and instinct.

She didn't even realize she was smiling until Tanya returned and said, "That's so not physics."

Aarya rolled her eyes. "It's still analysis."

But even as they laughed, a whisper in her chest said: you're being watched.

And this time, it didn't feel like paranoia.

It felt like a truth waiting to rise.