The school went into lockdown before anyone understood what had happened.
Teachers herded students back to their classrooms. The principal shouted orders into a phone. Someone screamed in the hallway, someone fainted, someone kept insisting the entire thing was a prank. Desks scraped. Doors slammed. Footsteps thundered like a stampede.
Eshan walked through it all as if underwater.
He wasn't numb—he was overwhelmed. His senses felt too sharp. Every sound magnified. Every movement triggering the echo of that instant when the Possibility lunged.
His chest burned subtly, the fracture mark pulsing as if reacting to the air.
Riya stuck close to him, eyes flicking everywhere, protective without announcing it.
"What is going on?" she muttered. "What was that thing that came out of the floor? And why did you move like—like you've been training your whole life?"
"I don't know," Eshan said.
That was the truth.
But something deeper was waking inside him, something that wasn't just fear. It felt like a sense his body didn't know it had—a sixth instinct reacting to anomalies the way pupils shrink in sunlight.
They reached their classroom. The door slammed behind them. Desks clustered. Students talked over each other.
"Did you see that shadow?"
"It looked like him—exactly like him—"
"He floated. He floated, bro—"
"The lights went crazy—"
"What if this is happening everywhere?"
Eshan slipped into his seat, chest tightening. He wasn't sure if the pressure was panic or his Fracture Core reacting again.
The boy from 10-D—Rahul, that was his name—was taken to the infirmary. His friends whispered that he wasn't speaking anymore. Not crying. Not screaming. Just staring at the ceiling.
Shadows under his eyes. Shaking hands. Breathing fine but not responding.
As if something had brushed his soul and left fingerprints.
Eshan swallowed.
He knew that feeling.
He felt it every time the fracture pulsed.
Riya slid into the seat beside him and leaned close. "You need to tell me everything. Not now—after school. I'm not letting this go."
He gave a tiny nod. He couldn't lie to her—not anymore. She had already stood too close to the danger.
The teacher tried to call for silence, but her voice shook. No one listened.
Eshan stared at his fingers on the desk.
The fracture inside him pulsed.
Once.
Hard enough to make him flinch.
Then something happened.
The classroom window flickered.
Not a light. Not a shadow.
A glitch.
Like the world briefly froze again.
And in the reflection of the glass—
A silhouette stood behind him.
Not Riya.
Not any student.
His silhouette.
Sharper. Confident. Calm.
His Possibility.
Eshan's spine locked.
He didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
In the reflection, his alternate self tilted its head in that same terrifyingly familiar way—
And then, without turning, it looked at him through the glass.
His breath caught in his throat.
He didn't turn around.
Couldn't turn around.
The figure raised one hand.
Pressed its palm to the inside of the glass, exactly over Eshan's chest in the reflection.
Just like yesterday.
The fracture in his chest responded violently, burning like a brand.
Eshan gasped, gripping the edge of his desk.
Riya touched his arm instantly. "Eshan? Hey—are you okay?"
He forced his breathing steady.
But he could still see it in the glass.
The Possibility's lips moved.
Only one word.
"Soon."
The glass blinked back to normal.
The reflection was only his.
His chest throbbed like a second heartbeat.
The bell rang for break, but no one moved.
The teacher excused herself to "speak with administration." Which meant: panic elsewhere.
Riya kept her hand on his sleeve.
"Eshan… who is 'soon' for?"
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because a cold truth had landed in his stomach like a stone:
His Possibility wasn't trying to kill him.
Not yet.
But it wasn't leaving him alone either.
It was… waiting.
For what?
For him to make the wrong choice?
For another Audit?
For the world to crack in just the right place?
Eshan rubbed his chest, feeling the faint heat through his uniform. The fracture mark pulsed again, weak but present.
He closed his eyes.
And then—
A whisper.
Not in his ears.
Inside his mind.
Clear as breath against the back of his skull:
"Not everyone gets a second life."
Eshan jerked upright, hitting his knee on the desk.
Riya grabbed his wrist again. "Talk to me. Please."
He swallowed hard. The room felt too small. His lungs too tight.
"I think…" he whispered, "this is only the beginning."
Riya's face went still. "How bad?"
He looked at the window again.
The reflection didn't glitch this time.
But he felt watched.
Hunted.
Guided.
All at once.
"…The worst part?" he said quietly. "I think he's trying to help me."
Riya blinked. "Help you? That thing tried to kill you."
"I know." His voice cracked. "But it stopped. Both times. It could've finished me. It didn't."
Riya shook her head. "Why would something that wants your life save you?"
He whispered the answer he didn't want to believe:
"Because maybe… he needs me alive."
Before she could respond, the intercom crackled.
"ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO THE MAIN HALL IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
Riya grabbed her bag. "What now?"
Eshan already knew.
He could feel it before the words came.
Inside his chest, the fracture pulsed like a countdown.
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