Two soldiers

The exam hall, usually a dull room with peeling paint and creaky fans, suddenly felt like the Colosseum. And at the center of it—two gladiators sharpening their swords.

Misha walked in first, her gait composed, lips pressed in quiet focus. She slid into her front-row seat like a queen taking her throne, opened her pencil pouch with surgical precision, and arranged her pens in a flawless line. Blue, black, extra lead, eraser, sharpener—each item touched the desk like a soldier being assigned position.

Behind her, Arjun arrived with his usual swift efficiency. He plopped down, unzipped his bag, and began pulling out his tools like a field surgeon preparing for a high-stakes operation. Ruler, calculator (even though it wasn't allowed—just for flex), three pens, two pencils, one metal compass that looked suspiciously like a weapon, and a mini periodic table for last-minute cramming

The other students slowly trickled in, chatting, yawning, munching on glucose biscuits. But as they glanced toward the front two rows, they froze.

There they were.

Arjun and Misha. The school’s academic titans. Sitting eerily still. Polishing their pens. Staring straight ahead like assassins waiting for the signal.

One boy whispered, “Dude, she brought five pens. Five.”

Another murmured, “Bro, he just aligned his eraser with the magnetic north. We’re dead.”

Even the class topper from last year quietly backed into a corner seat, praying for mercy.

The invigilator, Mrs. D’Silva, marched in, heels clicking like a ticking time bomb. She distributed the papers with military discipline, glaring over her glasses like she could smell fear and last-minute cramming.

“Eyes on your paper. No talking. No flipping the sheet until I say.”

The room went dead silent.

The Chemistry exam had begun.

Arjun and Misha sat like statues in the front row, pens gliding smoothly over the sheets. Their backs straight, posture divine, expressions calm. The "we were born ready" duo. Watching them was like watching two skilled surgeons perform open-heart surgery—with glitter pens.

Meanwhile, the rest of the class?

Pure chaos.

Three rows back, Suyash muttered, “Bro, what's an isotope again? A Pokémon?”

His friend whispered, “I don’t know, I wrote Ice-Stop. Sounds science-y.”

At the last bench, Priya was clutching her pen like it was a wand.

“Dear Lord, if you put even one reaction in my head right now, I swear I’ll go to the temple this Sunday.”

She paused, blinked at her paper.

Nothing.

“Okay maybe next Sunday…”

Pens clicked. Pages flipped.

And just as she turned her head to scrawl a note, the true exam began—for everyone else, that is.

A low whisper from the third row:

“Question 5 is what?”

A paper ball flew with surgical aim from one corner to another.

A boy in the back was trying to lip-read his friend’s answer key like a silent movie scene.

Another had a water bottle label peeled halfway, revealing a microscopic handwritten formula inside—he sipped it like holy water.

Meanwhile, Arjun wrote like a printer—clean, precise, page after page.

Misha, calm and radiant, switched pens mid-answer like a tennis player swapping rackets. She didn’t even blink.

But the rest of the room?

Chaos.

Seconds later, another paper-chit slid under the desks like a secret scroll being passed in a spy mission.

Amidst all this, Arjun’s pencil rolled off his desk and landed beside Misha. She picked it up and placed it on his table without saying a word, their fingers almost brushing.

He didn’t thank her.

She didn’t expect it.

They just continued writing—one mark at a time, chasing each other

The invigilator, Mrs. D’Silva, looked up from her phone and gave that stare.

Instantly, thirty kids straightened like they’d been electrocuted. One even raised his hand to pretend he was thinking, eyes wide, mouthing,

“Ummm... hmmm… very interesting…”

He was just pretending to write.

His paper was blank.

A boy had sneakily slid a paper inside his geometry box. He tried to open it—but the compass poked his finger.

“Ouch—! Karma’s real,” he whispered, sucking his finger dramatically.

In the corner, a girl folded her hands.

“Dear God, you got me through three seasons of drama with my ex, I know you can do this. Let the answers fall like Manna from heaven.”

The funniest part?

They all kept glancing at Arjun and Misha.

If either of them frowned—even a tiny crease—the class sighed in relief.

“If they’re struggling, we’re okay.”

But both of them were writing like printers on Red Bull.

Page after page.

Misha changed pens like an artist switching brushes.

Arjun flipped his periodic table like it was a scroll of destiny.

And the class?

Panicking harder.

Someone dropped their pen. Another kid began fake-sneezing to signal answers. A boy at the end was scribbling nonsense just to look busy.

“H2SO4 + love \= panic”

Mrs. D’Silva narrowed her eyes.

“Everyone stay in your seats.”

Someone muttered, “Ma’am, we’ve already left… spiritually.”

Finally, the bell rang.

A wave of sound erupted.

Groans. Cheers. One kid hugged his paper. Another whispered, “I survived. Barely. Tell my parents I love them.”

As the class flooded out like survivors of a war, someone looked back at Misha and Arjun still calmly sitting.

“Dude,” he said, “they weren’t writing answers. They were writing the next NCERT textbook.

The exam was over—but peace was a distant dream.

As Arjun and Misha stepped out of the classroom, side by side like academic grim reapers, the hallway turned into a battlefield of emotions.

Students were slouched on benches like fallen warriors. Others leaned against walls, eyes wide, lips whispering last prayers. Some looked at Misha and Arjun like they had just returned from Mount Olympus with the answer key engraved on stone.

A guy near the stairs dramatically ripped his question paper in half.

“I’m done. I’m changing streams. Goodbye Chemistry, hello Art.”

One boy clutched his chest.

“Bro, I gave my heart, soul, and two kidneys into that paper. And the MCQs still betrayed me.”

Near the water cooler, a group of boys gathered around Arjun like he was Moses parting the Red Sea.

“Question 3,” one said, “the answer was clearly B. I cross-checked with the diagram—”

Arjun blinked. “It was D. The reaction required a catalyst, not heat. It’s in the third paragraph of the textbook. Page 142.”

The group collectively nodded with fake confidence.

“Yeah… yeah, I knew that.”

Then one of them turned to the wall, whispering,

“Page 142? There’s a page 142?”

Another boy stood at the back, holding a sheet like it was his will.

“I wrote a letter to the examiner,” he confessed. “I told them I was a good kid, and that marks aren’t everything. I even included a quote from Abdul Kalam.”

His friend smacked his forehead.

“I just circled ‘C’ for every MCQ. Now praying the teacher has a thing for patterns.”

Meanwhile, the girls were grouped together near the lockers—some hugging, some laughing out of pure panic, some dramatically sliding down walls like in a K-drama.

“I just want to pass,” one sobbed. “That’s all I ask. Lord, I’ll even stop cheating. Just… let me pass.”

One girl whispered, “Misha was using two pens. Two! Who uses two pens in one exam?”

Another added, “I heard she wrote the answer and the logic. Who even does that? Is she a human or a syllabus fairy?”

Misha walked past them, calm and cool, hair tied back, blazer sharp, and not a single sign of post-exam stress on her face. She sipped from her water bottle like she had just ended a meeting, not a chemistry warzone.

Arjun was behind her, adjusting his bag strap, calmly analysing his own paper in his mind, but there was a little smirk on his face—just enough to make three boys panic.

“Is that a victory smirk?” one asked.

“No, it’s worse,” another whispered. “It’s the ‘I destroyed the paper while you were doodling on the margin’ smirk.”

The bell rang for the next period, but no one moved.

One boy looked around the room, dead serious:

“Can someone call a counselor?”

Another kid had gone full philosophical.

“You know what, guys… life isn’t about marks. It’s about inner peace.”

Someone slapped his back.

“Shut up, Vedant. You wrote ‘NaCl’ in every reaction.”

Arjun and Misha walked off, side by side. They didn’t look back. They didn’t have to.

They were the storm

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