Except strangers.
At exactly 1:13 a.m., the shop door opened with a creak. A young woman stepped inside wearing a dark green raincoat and carrying a small locked metal box against her chest. Water dripped from her sleeves onto the cracked floor.
“Tea?” Dev asked.
She nodded silently and sat near the window, constantly looking outside as if expecting someone. Dev noticed her hands trembling.
A few minutes later, another man entered. Tall, clean-shaven, wearing expensive shoes completely ruined by mud. He scanned the room once before smiling politely.
“Terrible weather,” he said.
Dev grunted. The woman lowered her head.
The man ordered black coffee and chose the table directly behind her. For several minutes nobody spoke. Only thunder answered the radio.
Then the electricity went out.
Darkness swallowed the tea shop instantly.
The woman gasped.
A match struck. Dev lit an old lantern hanging behind the counter, filling the room with weak orange light. Shadows stretched long across the walls.
The man leaned forward slightly. “You shouldn’t have taken it.”
The woman tightened her grip on the metal box. “I had no choice.”
Dev pretended not to listen, though every word reached him clearly.
“They’re searching the entire city,” the man continued calmly. “You can still return it.”
“It doesn’t belong to them.”
Outside, headlights flashed briefly through the rain. A vehicle had stopped nearby.
The woman stood up immediately. “They found me.”
Three black SUVs rolled slowly onto the empty road outside. Men carrying umbrellas stepped out.
Dev sighed deeply, like a man remembering an old pain.
“You brought trouble into my shop,” he muttered.
The tall man suddenly smiled. “You still don’t recognize me, do you, Dev?”
Dev froze.
For the first time, he looked carefully at the stranger’s face. Beneath the polished appearance was a boy he had once known — a boy who disappeared twenty years ago after a factory fire killed seventeen workers.
“Arjun?” Dev whispered.
The stranger nodded once.
Before Dev could reply, the tea shop door burst open. Two armed men entered.
“Hand over the box,” one demanded.
The woman backed away. “No.”
The lantern flickered violently as thunder cracked overhead.
Then something impossible happened.
The metal box began glowing faint blue through its edges.
Everyone stared.
The armed men moved closer, but the box suddenly emitted a sharp humming sound. Glasses shattered across the shop. The radio exploded in sparks.
One of the men shouted, “Move back!”
Too late.
A pulse of blue light erupted outward, throwing everyone to the ground. For a brief second, the entire room became silent — unnaturally silent — as if the storm itself had stopped breathing.
When Dev slowly lifted his head, the woman was gone.
So was the box.
Only wet footprints remained on the floor, leading toward the locked back door that had not been opened in years.
Arjun stared at the empty space in disbelief.
Dev quietly picked up a broken teacup and whispered, almost to himself, “Some doors open only during storms.”
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