đź“ś Kritika's Diary
Princess of Jaipur | Year: 1892
🗓️ 14th January 1892
Today was Bhaiyya's wedding. Our palace is lit like Diwali. Everywhere I go, someone pulls me to dance or tease me with sweets. I've never seen Papa this happy. As the only daughter of Jaipur, I've been pampered, but tonight feels like I'm floating in love and laughter.
But... something strange happened. When I walked past the inner courtyard, I felt... pulled. The marigolds blurred, my feet faltered, and my vision faded. Then suddenly—I was not in our palace anymore.
It looked like our palace, but outside it... was not Jaipur. There were strange lights and giant machines on the road. The air smelled different. And I heard music playing from something with no musicians! I was about to touch a glowing sign when—
Flash—I was back, standing behind Maasa near the mandap.
What was that?
🗓️ 16th January 1892
It happened again.
This time I was near the sheesh mahal, resting. The marble was cool under my feet. I told Bhaiyya (not the groom)but Seeransh bhaiya about what I saw. He laughed and said I was reading too many fantasy stories. But I know it was real.
And then... it pulled me again. The same warmth behind my ears, the same static in the air.
I found myself standing under a banyan tree inside the same palace—but there was a big black carriage with no horses standing outside. The palace had modern railings.
And then... I saw him.
A boy. About my age. Wearing clothes, I've never seen before—pants of blue, shirt with writing on it. But it was his face. I knew him.
He looked just like Yuvraj Dev, Bhaiyya's friend from the Mewar Kingdom. But different. Sharper. Tired. Familiar.
I called his name. "Yuvraj?"
He didn't hear me.
I was about to touch his shoulder when I was pulled back again.
🗓️ 19th January 1892
Today, I made sure I was alone in my room when I felt the pull.
I let it take me.
This time, I landed right in front of the boy again. But he was different now dressed in a different clothing than I have seen, talking to someone in a modern tongue. English, but faster and blended.
I touched his arm.
He turned.
And he saw me.
He blinked like he couldn't believe I existed.
"You... Are you real?" he asked.
I didn't know what to say. "Do you know me?"
He studied my face and said, "You're not supposed to be here."
Not suppose? What does that mean?
After I explained what was happening to me.
He led me to a quiet corner of the courtyard and asked, "Do you always appear in this attire?"
I looked down. I was still in my wedding lehenga. I hadn't changed before the shift.
He said, "This isn't the first time I've seen you. You come and go. But last time, I thought you were a dream."
🗓️ 22nd January 1892
I don't even know how to begin writing this.
Today... was not like the others.
The shifting happened again. It always comes unannounced—like a wind whispering secrets I don't understand. One second, I was in the palace courtyard watching the lanterns being lit for Bhaiya's wedding celebration, and the next, I was back in that other place. The strange one. Where the air hums differently. The palace is the same—but outside the walls, the world is unrecognizable. No elephants. No guard posts. No temple bells. Just strange glowing boxes, shiny pathways, and people dressed as though they've forgotten time.
But this time... he was waiting.
Sarthak Rajput.
The boy who looks like Bhaiya's friend Yuvraj Dev from the Marwar kingdom. But he isn't. He wears strange clothes, speaks in the same tongue but with strange words. There is something about his eyes—like he knows more than he says. Today, he didn't pretend. He didn't look away or act surprised.
Instead... he looked at me and said, "Kritika, you're not supposed to be here this early. I haven't written this part yet."
I asked him what he meant. My hands were trembling. I couldn't make sense of anything.
And then he said the words that split my entire existence in half:
"You're a fictional character in a story I'm writing."
I laughed.
I laughed because it sounded absurd. I am fictional. Me, Kritika Singh Rathore, Princess of Jaipur? Daughter of Maharaja Veerendra Pratap Singh?
But he wasn't joking. He took out a strange shining book—a flat glowing box he called a tablet. It showed letters, moving words—pages you could touch but not feel. And there... there I was. My name. My world. My family. My thoughts.
He said he came across a painting in the archives of this palace during a tour last year. A girl in a portrait—dressed in red lehenga, a ruby tikka on her forehead, her gaze staring straight at the painter. Me. He said her eyes haunted him.
He couldn't forget her. So, he began to write a story. A fictional tale, he claimed. But somehow... I am real. I feel everything. The laughter. The pain. The confusion. The love.
I asked him, "If I'm fictional, how am I standing here? Talking to you?"
He looked just as lost. He whispered, "Maybe you're not fictional anymore. Maybe... you crossed the page."
And before I could ask another word, I felt the pull.
It's always like being yanked by invisible hands. My vision blurred. My body melted into light. And then I was back standing by the jharokha of my room, the sound of wedding shehnais echoing through the marble halls.
But something inside me has changed.
If I am a story... then who am I when no one is reading?
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He closed the diary gently, fingers trembling, eyes frozen on the name "Kritika." The room was silent. But inside him, a storm raged.
"Kritika..."
It wasn't just a diary. It wasn't just an old record of a girl gone mad in the history books. It was her. A voice echoing across time. A scream trapped in ink. And it was my story too.
Everything makes sense now. The shifting. The blank spaces in my memory. The moments I speak things I don't remember. The times I look in the mirror and don't recognize the man staring back.
I am not sick. I am not broken.
I am not hallucinating.
I am being written.
Just like Kritika.
She crossed into the world of her writer—Sarthak. And I... I think I'm crossing too.
But here's the question that's clawing at my chest:
Am I the writer's puppet... or a character trying to rewrite his fate?
Maybe that's why when I'm with Aaradhya, I feel that pull. That flicker in the air, the split-second delay in my breath. Like something is watching. Penning each step. Or worse—editing it.
What if the other presence inside me isn't a disorder... but a draft?
What if I'm caught in a story that's still being written?
And if that's true...
Who's the author of my pain?
And if they're writing me...
Why do I remember things that never happened?
Why do I feel love so deep it hurts... even when it's not in the script?
Kritika was inspired by a painting.
What if I was inspired by Veer Singh Rathore, the forgotten prince? Or maybe I was never real to begin with.
Maybe I am fiction trying to become real.
But Aaradhya is real.
I know that. I feel that.
And I swear on everything in me—fictional or not, glitch or ghost—I will fight for her. I will not let some invisible pen decide who I become.
Even if I was created... I choose to live. I choose her.
This...
This changes everything.