Darren's blog

Sometime after 2:00 a.m., the train eased into an unplanned halt. No station announcement, no bustle, no vendors but just a long mechanical sigh as the wheels settled. Outside, the world was coated in cold fog, thick enough to blur the platform lights into pale halos. The temperature had dropped sharply; the air carried a wet chill that slipped beneath fabric and pressed directly against skin.

Inside the coupe, Veer stirred first.

His body remembered the fight before his mind did. Ribs stiff, jaw aching, shoulders bruised deep. The compartment felt too warm, too close, as though the very walls were holding the memory of fists and sweat.

He pushed himself upright with a slow breath, swung his legs down, and stood.

He needed cold air.

The corridor was empty as he walked, quiet except for the soft hum of the train’s resting machinery. Outside, the platform waited still, fog-wrapped, and almost unreal in its silence. The cold hit him instantly, a clean shock along his spine. He breathed it in as though it might wash something out of him.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the railing. Smoke curled upward, disappearing into pale mist.

The coupe door slid open again.

Footsteps.

Ayan stepped out.

No coat. Sleeves pushed up. Bruised, but steady. His breath emerged in thin white streams in front of him. He saw Veer—in the same moment Veer saw him—and the pause that followed was heavy, but not with surprise.

Just recognition.

Ayan came to stand beside him, not too close, not distant either. They stared out at the same empty stretch of platform, the sharp cold cutting through their clothes.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Ayan murmured.

Veer exhaled smoke. “Could you?”

A faint, humorless huff left Ayan.

“No.”

The fog drifted around them, quiet as snowfall.

“You still hurting?” Ayan asked.

Veer finally turned to look at him fully. “Enough to remember. You?”

Ayan’s eyes held firm. “Not enough to stop.”

The air shifted.

Not suddenly.

Not explosively.

But with the slow, unmistakable pull of gravity drawing two objects back into collision.

Veer flicked the cigarette away, ember vanishing into fog.

“So we finish it?” he asked.

Ayan didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

“You think we’re done?”

The cold wind moved between them.

Their blood ran hot despite it.

They stepped closer, until their bodies nearly touched, their breaths mixing in the icy air.

“You have anything left?” Ayan asked, voice rough and low.

Veer’s reply was immediate.

“I’ll take whatever you have.”

The space between them collapsed.

Ayan shoved Veer hard, sending him stumbling back across the damp concrete. Veer caught his footing just in time to see the punch coming, a heavy right hook meant to break through, not test.

It landed.

Veer’s jaw snapped sideways; pain flared. He answered with a hook of his own, sharp and precise, cracking against Ayan’s cheekbone. Both men felt it. Both men steadied.

The fog swirled as they clashed, footsteps echoing across empty cement.

Ayan drove Veer back toward a steel pillar, shoulder lowered, weight behind every movement. Veer grunted as his back met cold metal, the shock running down his spine. Ayan followed with two body strikes deep, punishing shots that thudded into muscle.

Veer didn’t fold.

He struck back with instinct and grit. His knee drove up into Ayan’s thigh, throwing off his stance, and his forearm scraped hard across Ayan’s jaw, snapping his head aside. With the tiniest gap created, he shoved Ayan backward to reclaim space, lungs burning in the cold.

They circled now, breath ragged, limbs heavy but still dangerous.

Ayan lunged again, a wide, furious swing. Veer ducked it and countered with a tight uppercut that forced Ayan back but Ayan absorbed it, stepped through it, and wrapped both arms around Veer’s torso, driving him bodily into the carriage wall.

The impact boomed through the empty platform.

Veer’s teeth clenched against the pain. Ayan’s weight pressed against him, pinning him there. A short, brutal flurry followed close-quarters strikes, shoulder, fist, knee, elbow like less technique, more survival.

Veer pushed back with what remained in him, palms flat against Ayan’s chest, refusing to fold. His breaths were sharp, uneven. His legs tremored from exertion.

Ayan landed two more heavy blows to Veer’s side  so hard they rattled his breath. Veer responded by hooking Ayan’s leg and dragging him down. They hit the ground hard  rolling, punching, choking, mud and blood mixing across the concrete.

But the train horn blasted long and urgent.

The signal had switched.

Time was up.

They broke apart, panting, faces bloodied, bodies aching.

Ayan wiped blood from his eyebrow, spit red onto the ground, and stared.

Veer stared right back.

No satisfaction.

No closure.

Only a deeper, hotter hate.

They had one win each now.

And that felt unbearably incomplete and they got back on the train in silence.

Side by side.

Not rivals.

Not strangers.

Enemies.