The room smelled of stale cigarettes and cheap disinfectant. Interrogation rooms always did—walls that had heard more lies than confessions, more denials than truths.

Detective Aarya Sen puffed out the smoke, her sharp eyes yet fixed on the man across the table. He was wiry, in his forties, sweat gathering at his brow though the fan above whirred mercilessly. His lips curled into what he must have thought was a convincing smile.

“I didn’t kill her,” he said, voice steady, rehearsed.

To anyone else, the words carried conviction. Smooth. Measured. Practiced.

But, Aarya was not like anyone else.

The moment he spoke, the words didn’t vanish into the air. They formed—hovering, shimmering, painting themselves across her vision. Letters sharp and jagged, bleeding into *C**rimson** Red***.

Aarya didn’t even blink. She couldn’t afford to.

Red meant deceit. Always! It didn’t matter how calmly the sentence was delivered, how composed the speaker was, how airtight the alibi sounded. Red never lied.

She tightened her grip on the file in her hands, letting silence stretch until the suspect shifted in his seat. Her Mother—Commissioner Devangi Sen — had always mentioned to her, “Silence was an Officer’s Sharpest Weapon”. She’d been a legend in her time, a woman who commanded fear and respect in equal measure. Aarya had inherited not just her badge, but her expectations.

The Sens served justice. They carried Law like blood in their veins.

And Aarya was determined to honor that.

But what her mother never knew—what no one knew—was her secret weapon. She didn’t rely on testimony or instinct. She relied on colors.

Truth glowed Green, soft and steady.

Sorrow whispered in Blue, heavy and unyielding.

Serenity drifted White, pure and quiet.

And lies… lies bled Red, angry and sharp.

“Your neighbor heard shouting that night,” Aarya said evenly, flipping a page in the file. “She claims she heard your voice.”

The man swallowed, his jaw twitching. “She’s lying. I wasn’t there.”

The words floated again. Scarlet slashes. Crimson smears.

A Lie so heavy she almost tasted the bitterness of it.

Aarya closed the file and stood, her chair scraping against the floor. “We’ll continue tomorrow.”

She didn’t need more. The colors had already spoken.

...----------------...

Across the city, in another world entirely, dreams stirred.

Abhimanyu Gupta’s body tensed beneath the sheets. His parents, asleep in the next room, heard nothing. To them, he was still their dutiful son, their brilliant boy who had grown into a responsible man.

But Abhi was no longer in his room. Not in his mind.

The dream began in fragments, as it always did.

▪️A clock striking midnight.

▪️Shards of broken glass glinting.

▪️A van parked beneath a flickering lamp.

▪️A gloved hand reaching for something gleaming.

Images came sharp but broken, fractured like pieces of a mirror scattered across a floor. They never made sense on their own. He had to solve them, decode them, and arrange them like puzzles.

Most people would wake with unease, dismissing such fragments as the nonsense of sleep. But Abhi, had learned long ago—these were not nonsense. They were maps ~ Blueprints.

Visions of what could happen.

And in his hands, what would happen.

He jolted awake, sweat dampening his temples. His chest rose and fell quickly, like he’d been running. He glanced at the clock—3:17 a.m.—then pushed back the blanket and stumbled to his desk.

There, a notebook waited. Its pages were already filled with scribbles—symbols, half-sentences, sketches of things he’d seen in sleep. He picked up his pen and began to write furiously. Numbers. Patterns. Connections.

By dawn, the fragments had aligned. A plan had taken shape. A flawless one.

And by breakfast, he was just Abhimanyu Gupta again.

“Abhi, eat something more,” his mother chided as she placed an extra paratha on his plate.

“Yes, Ma,” he said with a smile, sliding into his chair.

His father adjusted his spectacles, sipping tea while flipping through the morning newspaper. “Big project at the firm today?”

“Just revisions for the new housing plan,” Abhi replied casually. “Shouldn’t take long.”

To them, he was their pride—a twenty-eight-year-old architect with a stable job, a modest apartment of his own, and a reputation for reliability. To the neighbors, he was polite and ordinary, a young man who never caused trouble.

And yet, when the sun dipped low and the city lights blinked awake, the mask slipped.

The city whispered his other name,

“Spectre”.

A thief who left no trace.

A ghost who walked into vaults and vanished without a sound.

A criminal who was everywhere and nowhere, infamous but faceless.

Some said he was a myth, an invention of the media. Others swore, He was a genius who turned crime into art.

Both were right.

...----------------...

Two lives. Two gifts.

Aarya Sen, The cop who saw truth painted in colors, fighting to live up to her mother’s legacy while hiding the very thing that made her extraordinary.

Abhimanyu Gupta, The architect who blended into the crowd by day, but by night followed the visions of his dreams to become Spectre, the city’s most elusive thief.

One chasing truth in colors.

The other bending fate in shadows.

Both bound by secrets.

Both walking paths that could only lead to collision.

And when they finally met, the truth would not be clean.

Justice would not be simple.

Because the world was never black or white.

It was painted only in Shades of Lies.