The thing that crawled out of the hole stopped halfway into the room.
One knee on the concrete.One hand gripping the floor like it needed the friction to stay real.
It looked like me.
Not metaphorically.Not symbolically.
Me.
Same height.Same shoulders.Same face—only wrong in the ways mirrors get wrong when they remember you badly.
Static bled from its eyes like tears made of broken signal.Its mouth twitched between expressions I recognized too well: confusion, rage, disbelief.
The girl staggered back a step.
"Ishaan…" she whispered. "That's—"
"—not me," I finished quietly.
But the lie tasted thin.
Because it was me.
Or rather—
A version of me that didn't make it.
A version the world tried to erase when I refused to follow the script.
The air around it crackled, pressure folding inward.Lights flickered violently, sparks snapping from exposed wires.
