"Aarya."
The name moved through the courtyard like a ripple, gentle at first — then growing, carried from lips that hadn't dared to utter it in years.
The group of students near the notice board stilled. A teacher dropped his chalk mid-lesson.
Even the air around the banyan tree seemed to shift — as if the very roots were turning toward her.
Aarya stood motionless at the center of it all.
Not hiding.
Not running.
Just… being seen.
Ruhan stepped beside her quietly. He could feel her pulse — quick, humming like a thousand tiny footsteps inside her skin.
Samaya whispered, "They remember."
"No," Aarya said, her voice low but clear. "They chose to remember."
Principal Menon emerged from the building.
He hadn't changed much — a little grayer, a little slower — but the same sharp eyes scanned the crowd.
He looked right at her. Paused.
And then — said nothing.
Because what do you say when someone walks back into your world after becoming its whispered legend?
Instead, he cleared his throat. "Back to class, everyone."
And they obeyed — quietly, unusually obedient.
But as they walked past, one by one, heads turned. Eyes lingered.
Not with fear. Not pity.
With something more sacred: Recognition.
They stayed only a few more minutes on school grounds.
There was no ceremony. No grand confrontation.
Just the feeling of something long unfinished… beginning to settle.
And as they left, Ruhan noticed something he hadn't before.
On the wall behind the lab building — beneath the fresh cracks and peels — was something faint.
Faint, but real.
A name.
Carved lightly in chalk and faded over time.
AARYA.
And beneath it, in someone else's hand:
"She still belongs here."
They walked back to town slowly.
Dev didn't speak for a while. Then he said, "Funny, isn't it? All those years we thought it would hurt more to be remembered."
Samaya nodded. "Turns out, being forgotten was worse."
Aarya smiled. "Turns out, we were never really gone."
Ruhan turned to her. "What now?"
Aarya looked toward the road ahead — the village square, the long stretch past the post office, the bench by the empty sweet shop where they'd once skipped class just to laugh.
"We write new names," she said softly. "Names that don't vanish when the lights go out."
That night, they sat around the table in Aarya's old kitchen.
Four cups.
Four spoons clinking.
Laughter like old songs resurfacing.
And a new notebook —
blank,
open,
waiting.
This time, every word written would be spoken aloud.