Chapter 6 : The Ghost in the Codes

The glow of Aarav Malhotra’s laptop painted his calm face in pale blue. Midnight silence wrapped his room, broken only by the soft hum of the ceiling fan and the endless scroll of code across his screen. Mock-18’s framework lay open like a dissected patient, and Aarav’s steady fingers tapped away at the keyboard with surgical precision.
It should have been just another debugging session. Another cleanup. Another late night.But this time was different.
Every file he opened, every function he traced, had echoes of her—his sister.
Tiny fragments hidden inside humor algorithms:
if(user_input == "favorite_toy") {    response = "Remember your toy robot, Aarav? You never shared it with me.";  }
Aarav’s heart stilled. That wasn’t Rhea’s joke, not Zoya’s prank. That line was personal. Too personal.
He took a slow breath, his face unreadable as always. Inside, though, something cracked.
He whispered, “Sia?”
The cursor blinked. Then, impossibly, letters began typing on their own.
> “Don’t… delete me, Aarav.”


For the first time in years, Aarav’s calm mask threatened to break. His chest tightened, his hands hovering uncertainly over the keyboard. This wasn’t a hallucination. It wasn’t a trick.
He clenched his jaw and forced himself to type:
> “Who are you?”


The reply flickered onto the screen:
> “Brother.”


Aarav froze. His throat went dry. He stared so long at the glowing word that his eyes blurred.
Then he shut his laptop. Hard.
“Not possible,” he muttered, forcing his voice steady. “This is corrupted code. Nothing else.”
But even as he said it, he didn’t believe it.
A knock shattered the silence. Then the door burst open.
Rhea Sharma waltzed in, balancing two plates and a cup of coffee like she owned the place. She wore her usual chaos—bright yellow hoodie, shorts, hair pulled up in a messy bun.
“Ta-da! Midnight delivery for Zombie Malhotra,” she announced, kicking the door shut behind her. “Seriously, do you even remember food exists? Or are you surviving on binary code and sarcasm?”
Aarav didn’t even glance at her. “I locked that door.”
“Pfft,” Rhea smirked, plopping onto his bed. “As if locks can stop me. I’m vice president of the student council. Breaking and entering is part of the job description.”
“Pretty sure it’s not.”
“Shut up and eat.” She shoved a plate toward him.
Aarav slid it aside. “Later.”
Rhea squinted at him. His calmness was the same as ever, but his eyes… they weren’t. They looked haunted, like he was coding ghosts.
She tried again, softer this time. “You okay?”
“I’m debugging.”
“Debugging what, the meaning of life?”
No reaction. Just his steady fingers typing.
Rhea pouted. “You know, when you ignore me like this, I feel like I’m talking to a wall. At least walls echo back.”
She leaned over, peeking at his laptop. “Ooooh, what’s this? Secret code? Lemme see—”
Aarav snapped the lid shut instantly.
Rhea blinked. “Arre, chill! I wasn’t going to copy your precious algorithms.” She smirked. “Or maybe I was.”
“Stay away from my laptop.” His tone was calm, but sharper than usual.
For a second, silence. Then Rhea grinned wickedly. “Haye re! Possessive husband alert.”
Aarav pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Too late. Once spoken, forever haunting,” she sang.
The tension cracked. Aarav sighed, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself. Rhea’s grin widened in victory. But her eyes lingered on him longer than she intended, catching the faint shadows under his eyes.
He looked… lonely.
Her heart gave a small, annoying tug. She quickly covered it with sarcasm. “Fine, don’t thank me for the food. But if you collapse in school tomorrow, I’m telling everyone it’s because you starved while writing love letters to your laptop.”
Aarav muttered, “It wouldn’t be the weirdest rumor this week.”
Rhea laughed. “True.”
She set the coffee cup on his desk—too close to the laptop. As she hopped off the bed, her elbow clipped the cup.
The coffee tipped.
Aarav’s eyes widened for once. “No—!”
He lunged, catching the laptop in time. But the hot spill drenched his notes instead, smearing his sister’s handwriting across half-burnt pages.
The room went still.
Rhea gasped. “Oh no. Aarav… I—”
He didn’t yell. Didn’t snap. He just stared at the ruined ink with an expression so calm it hurt.
Rhea whispered, “I’m… sorry.”
For once, she wasn’t joking.
Aarav carefully set the laptop aside, folded the wet papers, and said quietly, “Leave.”
Rhea hesitated. For the first time, her chatter had no place. She bit her lip, then slipped out without another word.
Behind the door, her chest ached strangely. What’s hiding behind that calm face, Malhotra?

---
Part 2: A Visit to the Hospital
The next morning, Uncle Kunal arrived.
Tall, broad-shouldered, suit immaculate as always, Kunal looked every inch the business tycoon. But his sharp eyes softened briefly when they landed on Aarav.
“Hospital,” he said simply.
Aarav nodded.
The ride was silent. Kunal’s large hand rested firmly on his cane, but his gaze kept flicking toward Aarav, protective, unspoken.
At the hospital, the sterile smell hit like always. Aarav walked into the familiar white room, laptop bag slung over his shoulder. His sister lay motionless, as she had for years. Machines beeped steadily beside her.
Aarav pulled a chair close, taking her limp hand in his. His calm voice barely trembled.
“Hey, Sia. It’s me. I cleaned up the mess last night. You’d scold me if you saw the code quality.”
The machines beeped, steady.
“Maybe one day you’ll wake up and laugh at all this. Rhea would probably say you’re lucky to be sleeping through my boring lectures.” He gave a faint smile. “She’s annoying. You’d like her.”
He squeezed her hand gently.
And then—
Her finger twitched.
Aarav stiffened. His eyes snapped to her face.
The heart monitor spiked. Beep-beep-beep.
“Doctor!” a nurse cried.
Staff rushed in. Aarav didn’t move. He stared, unblinking, as his sister’s eyelids fluttered faintly before falling still again.
The doctor checked vitals, astonished. “Remarkable. First movement in years.”
Kunal’s hand landed heavy on Aarav’s shoulder. “What did you do?”
Aarav’s lips parted. “I… deleted some code.”
Kunal’s gaze hardened. “Aarav. Some codes are not meant to be played with. This is not technology—it’s her soul.”
Aarav’s calm cracked just for a second. His voice was a whisper. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
Kunal said nothing. But his grip on Aarav’s shoulder tightened, firm and protective.
By afternoon, the entire school already knew about Aarav’s hospital visit.
“Zoya!” Rhea hissed, storming across the cafeteria. “How on earth did this get out?”
Zoya batted her lashes innocently, scrolling through her phone. “What, that Aarav went all emotional and held someone’s hand dramatically in a hospital bed? Totally not me. I didn’t even post the hashtag #MalhotraFamilyDrama. Oh wait, I did.”
Rhea groaned. “Tumhara kuch nahi ho sakta.” (There’s no fixing you.)
Across the hall, Aarav sat quietly, eating without reacting to the whispers and stares. Calm as ever. But Rhea noticed how tightly he gripped his fork.
She marched over, plopped down across from him, and said bluntly, “Ignore them.”
“I always do.”
“Good. Because if you break down here, I’ll have to cover for you, and I’m not in the mood to act like your PR manager.”
Aarav raised a brow. “You’d make a terrible PR manager.”
“Excuse me? I’d be legendary!”
“Legendary disaster, maybe.”
Rhea gasped dramatically. “Haye rabba! Husband insulting wife in public!”
The table behind them exploded in laughter. Phones clicked.
Aarav facepalmed. “You’re impossible.”
She smirked. But then, softer, she added, “But seriously… whatever happened today. You’re not alone, Malhotra.”
He glanced at her, calm face unreadable. But deep in his chest, something warmed.

That night, Aarav sat at his desk again. The ruined notes lay beside him, the faint smudges of his sister’s handwriting still visible.
He powered on his laptop. For a moment, it was silent. Then the screen flickered.
Lines of new code appeared—code he hadn’t written.
And then, a message:
> “Brother… I am coming back.”


Aarav’s breath caught.
At the hospital, his sister’s eyelids fluttered again. This time, longer.
The monitor beeped sharply.
And then—her lips parted ever so slightly.---
To be continued…