Ehaan did not need to look at the clock to know it was exactly 8:42 AM. He knew because the train conductor always braked slightly too hard at this specific curve, causing the strap hanging above seat 4B to swing at a forty-five-degree angle. Ehaan adjusted his grip on the pole just as the jolt came, watching the tourists stumble while he remained perfectly still.
Patterns. The world was built on them, and most people were too busy looking at their phones to notice the scaffolding.
He sat down and opened his briefcase. Inside wasn't just paperwork; it was a autopsy of corporate incompetence. His boss, Mr. Das, had sent an email at 3:00 AM demanding a "fresh strategy" for the client meeting. Ehaan had already written the strategy two weeks ago, predicting exactly when the old one would fail based on the client's stock market trends. He didn't brag about it. He just slid the folder onto his lap, ready to save the company time it didn't deserve.
But as he reached for his pen, something shimmered in the air.
It wasn't a reflection. The morning sun was coming from the east, hitting the dirty window at a low angle. This shimmer was hovering in the aisle, right next to a sleeping student. It looked like a smudge of neon blue ink, floating in three-dimensional space.
Ehaan squinted. He didn't panic; panic was inefficient. He cleaned his glasses, put them back on, and focused. The smudge sharpened into letters.
[Background Character #44: Sleeping Student. Purpose: Atmosphere. Note: Remove if scene feels too cluttered.]
Ehaan froze. He looked around. No one else was staring at the floating text. The student snored on, oblivious that he had been labeled "Background Character #44."
"Excuse me," Ehaan said softly to the woman next to him. "Do you see that blue light?"
The woman looked up from her phone, annoyed. "What light?"
"Never mind."
Hallucination? Ehaan wondered. Unlikely. He had slept seven hours, hydrated properly, and had no history of psychosis. Optical illusion? He moved his head left and right. The text didn't shift with his perspective; it was anchored in space, attached to the boy.
The train screeched into the station. As the doors opened, the student woke up and rushed out. The floating text followed him, trailing behind like a digital tail until it dissolved into the crowd.
Ehaan stepped onto the platform, his mind racing. If that text was real, it implied a labeler. An observer.
He walked up the stairs to the street level. The city was waking up. Horns blared, vendors shouted. It was the usual chaos, but now, Ehaan saw the tags everywhere.
Above a stray dog: [Ambient Noise Generator. Loop bark_track_03.wav]
Above a cracked pavement slab: [Texture error. Fix in post.]
Ehaan stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. People bumped into him, grumbling, but he didn't move. He wasn't looking at the people; he was reading the world.
It wasn't just labels. It was criticism.
On the glass facade of a new shopping mall, a massive block of text burned in angry red letters, invisible to everyone but him:
[Setting: Generic City Street. Description: Lazy writing. Add more sensory details or the reader will get bored.]
Ehaan felt a cold spike of adrenaline. Reader?
He resumed walking, faster now. His brain, usually a calm archive of facts and figures, was churning through possibilities. Simulation theory? Divine intervention? A prank by a tech company with advanced AR contact lenses he didn't remember buying?
He reached his office building. The security guard, old Sharma, waved at him. Ehaan waved back, but his eyes were fixed on the air above Sharma's head.
[Character: The Friendly Guard. Function: Establish protagonist's routine. Fate: expendable in Act 2.]
Ehaan stopped dead. "Expendable?"
"Sir?" Sharma asked, smiling toothlessly. "You forgot your ID card?"
Ehaan looked at Sharma—really looked at him. The creases in his uniform, the weary kindness in his eyes. A real person. But the text above him treated him like a prop. Like a sentence waiting to be deleted.
"Sharma," Ehaan said, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. "Go home."
Sharma blinked. "Sir? My shift just started."
"Go home," Ehaan repeated, stepping closer. He needed to test the logic of this 'writer.' If Sharma was just a routine-setter, removing him should disrupt the scene. "I saw a leak in the basement. Gas pipe. It's dangerous. Go call the maintenance crew from the outside, far away from the building."
It was a lie, efficient and calculated.
Sharma's eyes widened. "Gas? Oh god." The guard scrambled out of his booth, abandoning his post and running toward the parking lot.
Ehaan watched him go. He waited for the 'writer' to correct him. He waited for the reality to break.
Instead, the text above the empty booth flickered. The blue letters dissolved and re-formed into a new, jagged sentence, darker than before.
[Plot Deviation Detected. Protagonist behaving out of character. Alerting Author...]
Ehaan straightened his tie. He wasn't hallucinating. He was being written. And whoever was holding the pen was about to find out that their main character had an editor's eye.
"Alert away," Ehaan whispered to the empty air. "I have some notes for you too."