POV: Meher
The air tastes like static.Not metaphorical static — the literal kind that crawls under your skin and whispers, "Run."
We're moving through a hallway that wasn't here five minutes ago. The building keeps rearranging itself like it's procrastinating its own death. Lights flicker overhead, too bright, too white, too clean — like they're ashamed to illuminate what's actually happening.
Nivaan walks ahead of me.
Or the thing that used to be Nivaan.
His steps are too precise.His shoulders too still.His silhouette keeps lagging for half a second before correcting itself.
He's glitching like a memory that refuses to delete.
"Are you okay?" I whisper.
He doesn't answer.He just tilts his head, like he heard something inside the walls.
Kiyan walks beside me, jittering like a broken nerve cell. His breathing is fast enough to be its own alarm system.
"Meher," he whispers, "if he turns around and his face is—"
"Don't." I cut him off.
We don't have space for imagining horrors. The real ones are enough.
Avni brings up the rear. She's calm. Too calm. The calm that feels like it's hiding a detonator.
She suddenly stops.
"Wait."
Nivaan stops instantly — not because he heard her, but because something inside him synced to her command.
Kiyan and I freeze.
Avni steps forward and places two fingers on Nivaan's neck.
There's no pulse.
None.
But he's standing.
Breathing.
Looking alive.
My stomach drops like an elevator with its cables cut.
"I knew it," Avni murmurs. "The integration's stabilizing. Faster than projected."
Kiyan swallows hard. "Say that in human language, please."
Avni looks up, and her eyes are almost apologetic.
"He's not just synced to the system anymore," she says."He's becoming part of it."
Nivaan turns his head — too slow, too smooth, too… calculated.
His eyes land on me.
For a heartbeat, I see him.My Nivaan.Warm, messy, stubborn, alive.
Then it flickers out.Replaced by something cold, something engineered.
"Meher," he says.
But the voice doesn't hit the air — it hits my mind. A vibration behind my skull. A coded knock.
I stumble back, hitting the metal railing.
Kiyan curses under his breath. "Nope. No. Absolutely not."
Nivaan reaches out — almost tenderly — and touches my wrist.
The world pixelates.
The corridor dissolves.
The lights dim.
A hum rises — deep, resonant, ancient.
Suddenly I'm seeing two timelines at once:
1. The real corridor.2. And beneath it — a red-lit maze pulsing like an artery.
The Red Corridor.
I gasp, snapping back.
Avni's eyes widen. "He shared it with you."
"What… what is that place?" I whisper.
Nivaan's voice echoes in my mind again, no glitches, no distortion — perfectly clean.
"The place they built to keep us.The place they think I can't access.But I can."
Avni steps back like she's seen a ghost.
"Nivaan, stop."
He doesn't.
His eyes stay locked on mine.
"Meher, I need you to trust me."The air warps. The metal railing vibrates. The lights tremble.
"Because I'm going to take you there."
Kiyan grabs my arm. "Take her where, bro?! We don't want the premium tour—"
Too late.
The floor drops into red light.
And the three of us fall with him.