It is time...

Lightning tears open a cloud, but the rain is yet to fall. A worried Abhas looks outside the window, before slipping into the darkness of ink. The sound of the pages turning echoes in the hall, lit only by a dim flame.

He looks outside the window once again, as he hears the sound of the falling rain. Distracted, he shakes his head and gets back to work. As he looks into the words, he reminisces. He falls into himself, and tries to remember the time he had in the whole school year. The teachers, the books, those sneakers, the way they looked. He remembers and trips to nostalgia...
The friends, the enemies, the ends, the remedies. But he fails to remember, and is unable to get his facts right. He finds it not only difficult, but near to impossible to make sense of the letters they've written in the books. And now, there's only a month to go.

But he promises himself. He swears never to fall. He swears he will stand tall.

Boards are getting nearer by the second, and for now, all that he knows is that, pretty soon, they'll be giving him a number, and taking away his name.