Horizon Z

Chapter 1: The Reunion

The old Himachal Roadways bus gasps up the final stretch of winding switchbacks, all tin rattle and engine complaint, and comes to a wheezing stop at the Shimla bus stand. Netra Roy peels herself from the cracked vinyl seat and stands in the aisle, backpack in one hand, phone clutched white-knuckled in the other. Through the warped glass, the ridge town is braced against a late-March wind, which sweeps downhill and flings itself against her as soon as she steps off.

The air is much colder than she remembers, thin and edged with the menthol sting of pine. She closes her eyes and counts backward from five: Five, her right heel sinks into a slush puddle; four, the cold goes through her woolen leggings and chews at her knees; three, her heart is already skittering, outpacing the rhythm she's set for it; two, her ears fill with the thrum of memories; one, the school bell echoes somewhere behind her ribs.

She stands like a pillar, letting the taxis and rickshaws orbit around her. Drivers nudge each other, shuffle over, try to read her face. She won't need a ride. The walk is less than a kilometer, mostly uphill, and she has already mapped the route three times. If she speaks, she will lose the momentum she's built up since Chandigarh, so she keeps her mouth locked and her steps staccato sharp on the old colonial stones.

Her hotel is called The Euphoria, and it's painted a color that might once have been cheerful but has aged into a jaundiced yellow. She presses the buzzer with her elbow, the way her therapist once told her to do with public surfaces, and the door is answered by a man with a clipboard and a thick mustache that sours when he sees she is alone.

"You have reservation, madam?"

She nods, thrusts her phone under the plastic shield, and waits as he squints at the glowing confirmation number.

"Netra...Roy," he reads, voice flattening into routine. He gestures toward the guest register, the kind with creased blue columns and ink blots from a thousand other hands. Netra grips the pen, knuckles bone-white, and writes her name in block letters, the N and R pressed so hard the page underneath dents in sympathy. He asks for ID; she produces it. There is an awkward silence as he flips the page and compares the name to the phone screen, then makes a show of sanitizing the pen.

"Room 303. Third floor. Sorry, no lift, still being fixed," he says, and then, seeing her tiny frame and oversized backpack, adds, "You want help with luggage?"

She shakes her head, thanks him, and hoists the backpack onto her shoulder. The staircase is so narrow she must turn sideways, her own breathing echoing up the well. She counts steps, twelve to the first landing, sixteen to the second, then a final flight of fourteen. Each landing is marked by a window, each window by a thin rim of condensation and the faint green of moss. She notices the sound of her boots, rubber over concrete, and how her pulse syncs with the rhythm for a moment before they start to diverge again.

The third-floor corridor is lined with a run of faded red carpet, the kind with little gold fleurs-de-lis repeating forever. She finds 303 and stands in front of it, chest tight, not because she is nervous but because her brain refuses to let go of old habits. She sets her bag down, inhales through her nose, holds it, lets out a careful exhale, and only then slides the key into the lock.

The door opens into a room just large enough for a bed, a writing desk, and a radiator that rattles in its sleep. The wallpaper is a field of pink and blue roses, aged into a blurred pastel haze, like someone tried to remember a floral print from their grandmother's sari and got it almost right. The bed is made up with a scratchy brown blanket and one pillow. A writing desk sits next to the single window, which looks out onto a thin strip of pine forest before the mountain drops off into fog. She drops her bag onto the desk and inspects the nightstand: cheap wood, plastic water pitcher, rotary phone, Bible in English.