Crack Code: Semester 1

Chapter One — The Bell - I

July had turned the campus into a punishment. The pathways shimmered. The fountain in the middle of the grounds kept bubbling as if it had been hired specifically to insult everyone who could not climb into it.

Ishwaak wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and pushed through the crowd toward the academic block. Freshers drifted everywhere in bright clothes and louder confidence, stopping in clusters, admiring themselves in phone screens, laughing like the heat had made a private arrangement with them.

“Same species, different packaging,” he muttered. “Vanity survives all weather.”

By the time he reached the stairs, Gabbriel ma’am’s lecture was already leaking through the classroom door: precise, fast, and dangerous. He paused with one hand on the handle, listening for a gap that never came.

The door creaked anyway.

Thirty heads turned.

Gabbriel ma’am stopped writing. Her chalk remained pressed to the board, mid-word.

“Ah, Ishwaak,” she said. “We were wondering whether time had finally accepted you as its superior.”

The room rippled. Dhritil bent over his notebook, shoulders shaking. Ishwaak lowered his eyes.

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Then behave like someone who lives inside it. Sit.”

He slipped into his seat beside Gargi, trying to make the least possible sound. The chair still scraped the floor with the confidence of a betrayal.

Gargi did not turn toward him. Only her lips moved. “Historic moment. Ishwaak attends class while class is still happening.”

“Frame it,” he whispered, pulling out his pen. “Gift it to my descendants.”

Gabbriel ma’am resumed. “Semiconductors,” she said, underlining the word hard enough to leave a dent. “Without them, your phones, laptops, calculators, and the memes you consider culture would all collapse.”

From the row ahead, Della spoke with grave conviction. “Everything is material. Even memes.”

Gabbriel ma’am did not turn. “Miss Kaur, if that thought has completed its spiritual journey, allow it to rest.”

The laughter moved through the class quickly and died just as quickly. Ishwaak exhaled. The spotlight had moved, and survival was still possible.

“Lab file?” Dhritil whispered from behind him.

Ishwaak kept his eyes on the board. “Obviously.”

“That means no.”

“That means obviously no.”

Across the room, Isabel looked back. Her eyebrows asked the whole question.

File?

Ishwaak gave the smallest possible shake of his head. Isabel closed her eyes for one long second, then jabbed Ikrut in the arm. Ikrut startled, opened his bag, and handed over a file so badly written it looked brave for existing. Isabel passed it across two benches with the smooth efficiency of someone who had been born managing emergencies.

You owe him, she mouthed.

Ishwaak pressed the file to his chest and mouthed back, I owe civilization.

Ikrut, catching none of this except the loss of his file, looked personally betrayed.

When the bell finally rang, the class stood as if released from a court order. Gabbriel ma’am’s voice followed them into the aisle.

“Files are due tomorrow. Late submissions will not be accepted. This is not a decorative sentence.”

In the hallway the air felt only slightly less cooked. The group gathered by instinct: Ishwaak, Gargi, Dhritil, Isabel, Della, Divyant, Illiana, Ikrut, and Jane half-drifting near the edge with the expression of someone waiting for better gossip.

“Physics lab next,” Dhritil said, already defeated.

“Of course,” Della replied. “Pain must maintain a timetable.”

“You sound like Gabbriel ma’am after reading a motivational quote,” Dhritil said.

Divyant appeared beside Illiana, grin loaded and ready. “Noodle shop later?”

Illiana did not slow down. “Divyant, I would rather attend a private lecture on punctuality with Gabbriel ma’am.”

“So not a hard no?”

“It is a carved-in-stone no.”

Jane pointed toward the lab corridor. “You know what is actually funny? The AC has been broken for a week.”

“That is not funny,” Isabel said.

“Exactly. That is the joke.”

“They care,” Della said, deadpan. “They are testing how long it takes students to become a cautionary tale.”

Dhritil wiped sweat from his neck. “Let’s petition for shorts.”

“HOD sir would introduce a compulsory course called Civil Engineering in Formal Wear,” Jane said.

“I’d top that,” Divyant said.

Illiana glanced at him. “You would injure yourself during attendance.”

The canteen smell hit them as they turned the corner: samosas, fried dough, and the specific cruelty of food being nearby when duty had other plans.

Divyant stopped. “Detour?”

Isabel did not even look at him. “No.”

“One samosa.”

“No.”

“Half?”

“Graduate first.”

Ishwaak laughed, then felt Gargi looking at him.

“What?” he asked.

“You still have Ikrut’s file.”

He looked down. He did.

Ikrut, walking two steps behind, extended his hand with quiet tragedy.

“Right,” Ishwaak said, handing it back. “Your heroic document.”

Ikrut opened it, checked the first page, and frowned. “Why is there a new sweat mark?”

“Historical evidence,” Ishwaak said.

They reached the lab entrance together. Behind the door came the faint smell of hot wires and old equipment. The laughter thinned. Even Divyant put his phone away.

Ishwaak adjusted his bag strap. “Well. Let’s face the music.”

Jane pushed open the door. “Or the heat.”

They went in with a shared groan, still joking because none of them had learned a better method of courage.