Foreshadowing Child

Every riddle was a warning.

At nine, Rudra Verma slipped into a coma. Two years later he woke at exactly twelve o'clock, on the day his grandfather died, and from then on he spoke only in riddles taken from his Dadaji's pale green diary.

He pushed his best friend off a terrace. He poisoned an old man's food. Yet in a psychologist's cabin he is polite, brilliant and smiling, and he calls her his best friend.

She plays his games and solves his riddles. Meanwhile his crayon drawings and a stopped clock are quietly telling her how this ends.

Some children keep secrets. This one kept a countdown.