The House of Ashes

The next day, the group gathered in Rishabh’s small study, laptops open, old files scattered across the desk. Sunlight cut sharp angles across the room, but their faces were heavy with concentration.

Aisha: (scrolling through old archives) “Got something. Local newspaper—June 2003. ‘Mob burns down residence of scientist Arvind Shastri.’”

Kabir leaned forward.

Kabir: “Shastri? Who was he?”

Rishabh: (reading aloud) “A government researcher accused of treason… of selling classified data to foreign agencies. Declared a fraud. Disappeared soon after. No body ever found.”

Ananya frowned, her voice calm but cold.

Ananya: “So the house we walked into—used to belong to him?”

Meera shivered slightly.

Meera: “But… the door. Why would it still work? The house was burned.”

Karan: (half-grinning, half-serious) “Maybe fire can’t burn secrets.”

Nobody laughed this time.

Aisha turned her laptop so everyone could see. A black-and-white photo of a bespectacled man stared back—intense eyes, tired face.

Aisha: “That’s him. Shastri.”

Kabir exhaled slowly.

Kabir: “If he really built this… maybe the door isn’t just a door. Maybe it’s his invention. His… escape.”

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Later that evening, they stood once again before the abandoned house. Its charred walls still carried the smell of smoke even decades later. Wind whistled through broken windows, making the place feel alive, like it was breathing.

Karan pushed the familiar door open, his usual smirk hiding the nervous tremor in his hand.

Karan: “Round two, everyone. Try not to freak out this time.”

They stepped through.

The air changed instantly—thicker, warmer. The streets outside were no longer littered with self-driving bikes and glass towers of 2035. Instead, smaller billboards, dusty cars, and people in early-2000s clothes filled the road.

Meera: (whispering) “It’s real… again.”

Kabir pulled the newspaper he carried from his backpack. The headline read November 2005. He held it next to a vendor’s stall where the exact same issue was on display.

Kabir: “We’re in.”

Ananya pressed a hand to her forehead, half in disbelief, half in awe.

Ananya: “This is insane. We’re walking through ghosts.”

Karan: (looking around eagerly) “Not ghosts. Opportunities.”

Rishabh’s voice cut through, steady and sharp.

Rishabh: “Don’t forget—every step you take here leaves a footprint. Change the wrong thing, and the future we go back to may not exist the way we know it.”

The group fell silent, the weight of his words sinking in. And yet, none of them turned back.

They had crossed the door again.

And this time, they weren’t just curious.

They were searching.

When they walked back through the door and found themselves in the soot-streaked present of 2035 again, the excitement that had buzzed between them began to cool into something harder — fear, responsibility, a rough kind of resolve.

They gathered in Karan’s room that night: pizza boxes half-empty, a map of the city pinned crooked to the wall, the old newspaper unfolded on the bed like evidence. Conversation at first rambled — jokes about Kabir’s “haunted makeout spot,” Meera’s threats to throttle Karan, Ananya’s eye-rolls — until Rishabh’s calm voice cut through.

“We need rules,” he said. “Now. Before anyone else gets ideas.”

It was practical, almost military. One by one they agreed and wrote them down, each rule rubbed into their minds with more seriousness than any school punishment.

No one goes alone. Ever. No walks back to the house by yourself, no sneaking off at night. If you want to go, you ask. Two or more, always.

No travel without group permission. No one travels to 2005 without the group’s consent. No exceptions.

No personal business there. This place is not for romance, thrills, or dares. If you want to make out, pick a cinema, not a burned-down scientist’s house. (The room exploded into laughter and a blushed Kabir; the rule stayed.)

Do not change anything intentionally. Observe only. Do not steal, do not warn, do not prevent anything — even if it seems small. The tiniest move can ripple.

No ‘blenders’. (Karan rolled his eyes but listened.) A ‘blender’ is any large, reckless action that rewrites people’s lives — the kind of thing that could wipe us out of existence. Karan, especially, was put on strict notice: no blenders. Hands off the big moves.

They all signed their names on the paper — a childish oath with adult consequences — and slid it under a heavy book on Karan’s shelf. The signing felt ridiculous and necessary both at once.

Karan lit a cigarette he didn’t need, then stubbed it out. “Fine,” he said, half-joking, half-real. “No blenders. Got it.” But when he laughed, there was a shadow in his voice that none of them missed.

They laughed anyway, because sometimes humor was the only shield left against the unknown. Then they went to bed, each with the rules pressed under their tongue like a warning — and a promise.

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