POV: Meher
The air feels wrong.
Not dangerous, not heavy—just… missing.Like the world forgot how to exist properly. Colors fade at the edges. Sound lags half a second. Even gravity feels like it's checking its calendar before working.
And right in the middle of this glitching mess stands it.
The Entity.
Or rather—the absence of it.
A silhouette made of… nothing.Not darkness. Darkness at least has presence.This thing looks like someone deleted a character from a photo but forgot to fill the hole.
Every instinct in my body screams one thing—
How the hell do you fight something that doesn't exist?
Kiyan paces next to me, jaw locked, gun trembling slightly even though he'd deny it.Avni is scanning the void-form like she's debugging reality.Nivaan? He looks like he's two seconds away from rewriting the laws of physics out of spite.
The Entity flickers.
A ripple spreads across the ground—erasing a tree. Clean. Smooth.Gone like it was never there.
"Okay," Kiyan mutters, "so bullets are useless."
"They won't hit anything," Avni says. "There's no surface."
"It's not about hitting it," Nivaan murmurs. "It's about defining it."
I whip around. "Explain. Preferably before the world collapses like a budget laptop."
Nivaan takes a shaky breath. He's pale—really pale.That only happens when the Architect is out of ideas.
"Nothing-that-exists doesn't work unless the universe recognizes the 'nothing' as something," he says. "We gave it shape with fear. With belief. With contradictions. We made the absence solid."
"So we stop believing?" Avni asks skeptically.
"Impossible," he says. "Humans are wired to fill blanks. We make monsters out of shadows. Patterns out of noise. Meaning out of static."
I exhale sharply. "So we're basically fighting our own psychology."
Kiyan snorts. "Oh great. We're all screwed."
The Entity ripples again—this time erasing a chunk of sky.
"Focus!" Avni snaps. "Think. What's the one thing humans can't ignore, no matter the reality?"
"Pain?" Kiyan suggests.
"Taxes," I add.
"Stupidity," Avni says.
Nivaan shakes his head. "No. Rules."
That gets our attention.
"Reality runs on rules," Nivaan says. "Even chaos. Even randomness. The Entity only exists because our realities created a loophole. If we define a rule it must follow… we can limit it."
Kiyan raises a brow. "So we just… tell God's glitchy cousin to follow the rules?"
"Not tell," Nivaan says. "Enforce."
I swallow. "And how do we enforce rules on something that isn't technically real?"
Nivaan gives a humorless smile. "By being more real than it."
Avni's eyes widen. "Oh no. You're not suggesting—"
"I am."
"What?" I ask.
They exchange a look that I absolutely do not like.
Nivaan says it plainly:
"We make ourselves the rule."
My lungs stop working.
Kiyan swears under his breath. Avni just whispers, "That'll kill you."
"It'll kill all of us," Nivaan says quietly. "If we fail."
The Entity begins expanding—faster now. Buildings vanish like wiped chalk lines.
I step forward before I can overthink.
"Well… good thing we're really bad at failing."
Kiyan smirks.Avni sighs like she's about to regret every life choice.Nivaan nods—relief flickering in his eyes.
We join hands.
Reality flickers.
And together, we do the one impossible thing left:
We redefine existence.
The Entity stops.
Not because of power.Not because of weapons.But because four humans—broken, stubborn, furious humans—decide what reality is allowed to delete.
For the first time, the Entity looks… hesitant.
And Nivaan whispers the words that change everything:
"You don't exist unless we say you do."
The world holds its breath.