The next morning arrived quietly.
No sirens. No visions. No echoes from another world. Just pale sunlight slipping through the curtains and the distant hum of traffic beginning its daily routine, as if nothing beneath the surface had shifted.
Avi stood in front of the bathroom mirror, water dripping from his face, staring at his own reflection. His eyes looked the same, but something behind them felt altered, stretched thin. He turned away, drying his hands, when the knock came.
Firm. Measured. Certain.
He froze.
For a brief moment, he wondered if this was another hallucination. Another crack in reality. Then the knock came again, identical to the first.
Avi walked to the door and opened it.
Mira stood outside.
She looked exactly as she had in the hospital. Calm. Balanced. Untouched by exhaustion or doubt. It was as if night and morning meant nothing to her, as if she existed slightly out of step with time itself.
Avi blinked. "Ah… Mira?"
She smiled, not warmly, not coldly. Just enough to acknowledge him.
"Soon," she said. "Like I told you."
Before he could respond, she stepped past him and entered the apartment without hesitation, as though she had already decided this was where she needed to be. She glanced around once, noting the sparsely furnished room, the unopened boxes, the faint smell of whisky lingering in the air.
"Get ready," she said. "We have to go."
Avi frowned. "Go where?"
Mira stopped near the window. Outside, the city stretched endlessly, buildings stacked like unfinished thoughts. She looked beyond them, her gaze fixed on something Avi could not see.
"South," she said.
The word struck him harder than he expected.
A familiar tightening wrapped around his chest. Yakshini's voice rose uninvited from memory, sharp and absolute.
Book.
South India.
Avi swallowed.
"You know," he began quietly.
Mira turned from the window. There was no recognition in her eyes. No hidden knowledge. Only calm curiosity.
"I know what?" she asked.
Avi stopped himself. He shook his head once. "Nothing. Go on."
Mira studied him for a moment longer, as if weighing the silence, then accepted it.
"Pathfinders get visions," she said. "Not like dreams. Not like instructions. They are disturbances."
She touched her temple lightly. "Last night, I could not sleep. The feeling was strong. Souls unsettled. Confused. As if something was pulling at them but refusing to let them move on."
Avi felt his throat tighten.
"I did not see faces or places," she continued. "Only direction. South."
She turned back toward the window. "When unrest reaches that level, it usually means interference. Something human-made. Something reckless."
Avi remained silent. His thoughts moved carefully, afraid that one wrong word might reveal too much.
"So I went to Suryavanshi," Mira said. "He listens when I say the balance feels wrong."
"And what did he say?" Avi asked.
She looked at him then, more closely this time. "He said you were ready to see more of the world you stepped into."
Avi frowned. "Ready for what exactly?"
"For reality," Mira replied. "Not the hospital version. Not the protected edges."
She walked closer, her voice steady. "He told me to go with you. To guide you. To help you understand how this world overlaps with the other one."
Avi exhaled slowly. Relief and unease tangled inside him.
"So you are not here because of me," he said.
Mira shook her head. "I am here because something is wrong. And you are connected to it."
Her gaze dropped briefly to his shoulder. The chakra mark was hidden beneath fabric, but her attention lingered there just a second too long.
"You attract fractures," she said. "That is not an accusation. It is an observation."
Avi closed his eyes for a moment. "You do not know why I was chosen, do you?"
"No," she answered without hesitation. "Pathfinders are not told reasons. We follow imbalance, not intent."
Silence settled between them.
"Where exactly in the south?" Avi asked.
Mira closed her eyes briefly. "I do not know yet. Visions sharpen with proximity. Think of it like pressure. The closer you get, the harder it becomes to ignore."
Avi nodded. "So this is not an order."
"No," she said. "It is guidance."
"And if I say no?"
Mira met his gaze without judgment. "Then I go alone. And you stay blind longer."
That unsettled him more than any threat.
Avi turned toward his bedroom. "Give me a few minutes."
Mira nodded. "Pack lightly. You will not need much."
As he walked away, she spoke again, almost casually.
"And Avi."
He paused.
"This world does not announce itself," she said. "It leaks. Slowly. Quietly. The ones who notice first are the ones it tests hardest."
Avi did not reply.
Outside, traffic moved as usual. Horns. Voices. Ordinary life, unaware that something subtle had begun to tilt beneath it.
And this time, Avi would not be standing still.
He would be walking toward it.