The conference room was already filled when Rudra walked in. The long oval table gleamed under the lights, and the board members sat frozen in their seats like students waiting for exam results.
The air was thick. Too thick. Nobody dared to cough.
Rudra didn’t sit immediately. He walked around the table once, his polished shoes clicking on the floor, his sharp gaze sliding over each face. A few throats bobbed nervously, a few hands clenched under the table.
He stopped at the head of the table, sat down slowly, and opened the project file. The silence was suffocating.
“Quarter Four project,” Rudra said, his voice deep and controlled. “Status?”
No one answered.
A bead of sweat rolled down the forehead of the head manager. He fumbled with his pen, accidentally dropping it on the table. The clink echoed like a gunshot. Everyone jumped.
“Well?” Rudra asked again, his tone calm. Too calm.
“Sir, it’s… it’s almost ready,” the manager stammered.
“Almost,” Rudra repeated, shutting the file with a soft thud. The sound made three people flinch. “Explain.”
The poor manager opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “W-we had a few delays. But the team is working overtime, and by next week, we will—”
Rudra raised one eyebrow. That was all.
The man’s voice cracked. “I-I mean… this week. Very soon. Possibly… tomorrow?”
From the other end of the table, one of the junior members muttered under his breath, “We’ll need a miracle tomorrow…” and then instantly slapped his own mouth shut when Rudra’s gaze shifted in his direction.
The room went dead silent again. You could hear the air conditioner hum.
“Tomorrow,” Rudra said, his voice dangerously smooth. “If it’s not complete tomorrow…” He paused, leaning back in his chair. Everyone leaned back with him as if trying to avoid being directly in his line of sight. “…then I will personally find out why.”
A collective chill went down every spine.
“Yes, sir!” the manager yelped, his pen snapping in half between his fingers.
Rudra stood, buttoning his coat with crisp precision. “Meeting over.”
Everyone scrambled to their feet so quickly that a chair toppled with a loud crash. No one dared pick it up until Rudra left the room.
The moment the door closed behind him, chaos erupted.
“Tomorrow?! He said tomorrow! Are you insane?”
“Do you want to die?!”
“Does anyone know a priest? I need my last rites done tonight!”
“I’m not going home. I’m working until sunrise.”
“You think working will save us? He’ll smell fear on us tomorrow!”
Meanwhile, Rudra walked back to his office in complete silence, his expression unreadable. To him, it was just another day. To everyone else, it was survival.
😏 So we get the contrast: Rudra calm and terrifying → everyone else panicking in absurd, funny ways.
By nine o’clock the next morning, the office looked less like a corporate empire and more like a disaster relief camp.
to be continued.....
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