The deeper we walked into the city,the more the world behaved like it was remembering itself.

Streetlamps flickered awake one by one.Storefronts cleaned their own windows.Graffiti sharpened into readable letters.

Reality was rebuilding—not for us,but around us.

As if preparing a stage.

Aaryan led the way with lazy confidence, glancing over his shoulder occasionally to make sure we followed — or to make sure we witnessed his stride.

The girl walked beside me now,not holding my sleeve,not hiding behind me—

Choosing her place.

[ System Notice: Character identity — strengthening ]

[ Influence balance shifting… ]

Balance.

Between me. The girl. Aaryan. And the things that watched above.

We turned onto a long avenue where skyscrapers leaned like tired giants —glass cracked, steel exposed, the sky reflected in broken shards.

Something about this place felt familiar.

Not memory.Warning.

Aaryan stopped abruptly.

"You hear that?"

The girl tilted her head."I don't—"

Static.

Soft at first.Barely a whisper.

Then—

chhh—k—kk—

A strained crackle through the air,like an old radio trying to tune into the wrong timeline.

My heart tightened.

The bracelet in my pocket vibrated.

Not physically—narratively.

I pulled it out slowly.

The wolf fang charm was shaking.

The girl gasped."That's—"

"Arjun," I whispered.

The static sharpened—not sound now,voice-like distortion.

"—shh—haan—"

Aaryan raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"Your missing survivor?"

I didn't answer.

The bracelet pulled—literally pulled—like a compass dragged by a magnet.

It pointed down the street.

Toward a collapsed subway entrance,half-swallowed by concrete and vines.

The static grew louder.

"—haan… don't—come—"

The girl's eyes widened."He's alive."

Aaryan smirked softly.

"Or something wants you to believe he is."

He wasn't wrong.

But the voice — even twisted —held Arjun's cadence.

His panic.His way of swallowing breath between syllables.

It wasn't fabricated.

It was him.Distorted by pain or distance or something worse.

I stepped toward the subway.

The world responded instantly—streetlights flickered,air thinned,road cracked slightly underfoot.

Aaryan placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't rush," he said calmly."Tests hide inside hope too."

"I'm not rushing," I said.

He squeezed once, amused.

"Yes, you are."

The girl stepped between us.

"I trust him," she said.Clear, steady.

Aaryan smiled.

"I know. That's why the world will test that trust next."

He gestured to the subway entrance.

"Lead. It's better when the protagonist walks first."

I didn't question the role.

I walked.

✦

The stairs were steep and dust-coated.Every sound echoed twice—here and somewhere else.

Halfway down,a broken LED screen flickered to life on the wall.

A face—distorted—blurry—Arjun's outline.

Eyes wide.Breathing ragged.

"—don't—come—" the static voice repeated.

But the mouth shape—was saying something different entirely.

Not don't come.

It was mouthing:

"Help me."

The girl grabbed my arm.

"Ishaan. He's trapped."

"I know."

Aaryan watched the screen, interested."He's in a collapsed space between timelines," he said."Not dead. Not alive. A pocket the world forgot."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've read enough worlds to recognize a limbo when I see one."

The screen glitched.Arjun's face jerked left, right—then froze on an image of his hand reaching toward the camera.

Blood smeared across the lens.

The bracelet in my palm burned hot.

[ System Notice: Branching Event Approaching ][ Survivor Trace — confirmed authentic ][ Recommendation: Proceed with caution ]

I stepped deeper.

The girl followed without hesitation.

Aaryan's footsteps echoed behind —steady, curious, not rushing.

At the bottom of the stairs,the subway tunnel opened into darkness.

Long.Silent.Breathing.

Something metallic clinked nearby.

I turned.

A sign lay face-down on the ground.

I flipped it.

TRACK CLOSED.UNSTABLE STRUCTURE.DO NOT ENTER.

Aaryan snorted softly.

"The warnings in this world are adorable."

The girl frowned.

"Where is he?"

The bracelet tugged again—toward the darkness on the right.

Not ahead.Not left.

To a small maintenance door,half-welded shut.

Static crackled violently now,almost screaming:

"—Ishaan—!—hel—p—"

My pulse spiked.

I grabbed the door handle.

It resisted—then slowly, painfully,opened.

A gust of cold air rushed out.

Not normal cold.

Story-cold.Empty-cold.The kind that erases breath before bodies.

The girl shivered.

"Ishaan… something's wrong.This doesn't feel like Arjun's fear.It feels like…"

She swallowed hard.

"Like something is afraid of him."

Aaryan's smile faded.

Just a fraction.

"Now that," he murmured,"is interesting."

We stepped into the darkness.

Three shadows,one narrow path,and a voice calling from somewhere between life and ending.

Arjun wasn't gone.

He was waiting.

✦

The maintenance tunnel swallowed our footsteps.

Concrete walls dripped with condensation.Pipes rattled with breaths not belonging to machines.Shadows bent the wrong way — toward us, not away.

Arjun's voice flickered through the static like a heartbeat fighting to reach the surface.

"—Ish…aan—hur—ry—"

The girl pressed closer, not from fear — from instinct.Her shadow stayed solid.

Aaryan, behind us, walked with hands in pockets, humming softly.

"This place is stitched together," he said."Not a real tunnel. A patchwork of leftover scenes."

He was right.

Every few meters, the wall texture changed:

Tiles → brick → metal → raw concrete.Like walking through discarded drafts of the city.

The bracelet in my hand pulled harder, vibrating with each pulse of Arjun's voice.

The girl whispered:

"What if he's trapped between these— these versions?"

"He is," Aaryan replied."Question is: who put him there?"

I didn't answer.

Because I already suspected the truth.

The world itself.

It doesn't delete valuable characters.It shelves them.Stores them.Saves them for later conflict.

Arjun wasn't erased.

He was being held.

✦

We rounded a bend.

The tunnel widened into a large room —a forgotten electrical hub.

Panels hummed.A single overhead bulb flickered violently.

And in the center of the room was—

A hole.

Not a pit.Not a shaft.

A hole in reality.

Edges frayed with static.Darkness swirling like a wounded timeline bleeding into ours.

The bracelet tugged toward it so violently I almost dropped it.

The girl gasped, covering her mouth.

"Ishaan… he's in there."

Aaryan crouched beside the hole, studying it thoughtfully.

"Interesting. A compression pocket."

He tapped the air —it rippled like liquid light.

"Someone forced a survivor into a collapsed scene."

"Someone?" I echoed.

He smiled.

"Or something.Maybe the world.Maybe a god.Maybe… Arjun himself."

The girl shook her head violently.

"Arjun wouldn't trap himself!"

Aaryan shrugged."People do strange things when the story abandons them."

I stepped closer.

Looked into the hole.

Inside the swirling dark, there were flashes:

A hand reaching.A face contorted in panic.A hallway collapsing.A breathless scream.

But every time the image focused—

A violent static struck it out.

The world refusing to show.

I knelt and called quietly:

"Arjun."

Silence.

Then—

A weak voice, muffled and twisted, pushed through:

"—Ishaan… I knew… you'd come—"

The girl's eyes filled with relief and fear at the same time.

"He hears us!"

But Aaryan raised a hand.

"Wait."

I felt it too now.

His voice wasn't coming from the bottom of the hole.

It was echoing from multiple directions —multi-layered, distorted, as if being routed through several timelines at once.

A world that couldn't decide where Arjun belonged.

[ System Warning: Survivor instability detected ][ Temporal echo count: 7 ][ Risk of interaction: High ]

Seven echoes.

Seven versions of his voice trying to reach us.

None aligned.

This wasn't a trap.

This was a fracture.

The girl clutched my arm.

"Please… do something…"

I held the bracelet tighter.

The wolf fang charm glowed faintly — not light, but memory.

A promise of someone who used to walk beside me.

"Arjun," I said softly."I'm here. Tell me where you are."

Static surged—

Then a single clear whisper broke through:

"—behind me——run—"

Behind him?That meant something was in there with him.

The lights flickered violently.

Aaryan straightened.

"Oh. There it is."

The hole widened.

Not downward —outward.

Spreading along the ground like ink.

And something inside it moved.

Not human.Not monster.

A shape without shape.

A silhouette built from failed timelines.

A broken story trying to attach itself.

The girl froze.

"Ishaan… something's coming out."

I stepped in front of her.

Aaryan smirked slightly.

"Well then. Show me the reason the world chose you."

The hole shuddered.

Ink surged upward.

And a figure crawled out of the collapsing pocket—

Clawing at the ground.Screaming through static.Outline flickering.

A human silhouette.

A familiar silhouette.

The girl gasped in horror.

A second Ishaan.

Not erased.Not complete.

The half-formed version of me from a timeline that died.

The one that shouldn't exist.

The one the world tried to erase when I broke the script.

He lifted his head.

Static dripping from his eyes.

And whispered:

"—give me… back…what you stole—"

The room shook.

Aaryan grinned like fate just got interesting.

"Now this," he said,

"is a story."

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