The auditorium lights were too bright.
Rows of students filed in, filling seats with the usual storm of whispers, shuffling bags, and people pretending they didn't care where they sat while secretly caring a lot. The smell of dust, old curtains, and floor polish mixed with the air of forced calm.
Eshan sat beside Riya in the middle row. She slouched immediately, resting her chin on her hand.
"Place your bets," she murmured. "They're going to say: 'Everything is normal, don't panic.'"
"That'd be a bold lie," he muttered.
"Everything they say is a bold lie."
Fair.
Teachers lined the aisles, wearing expressions that ranged from bored to tense to "I have a migraine but I'm being paid too little for this." The principal stood on the stage, looking like he hadn't slept.
Eshan watched him with tightened focus.
Not because he cared about the man—but because the fracture in his chest pulsed harder the moment the principal stepped forward.
Almost like the air around him bent slightly.
"Good morning, students," the principal began, voice amplified by the speakers.
It didn't sound like a good morning.
"We are aware of… unusual reports from yesterday evening. Some of you may have experienced what felt like a moment of… visual distortion. Or time irregularity."
Riya whispered, "Translation: they also saw TikTok."
Eshan didn't answer. His gaze was glued to the principal.
That pulse inside him—it wasn't random. It reacted to something. Yesterday it warned him when something in the city had shifted. He felt that same vibration now.
The principal cleared his throat, flipping through his notes. "Let me assure you that there is no cause for alarm. The state meteorology department has confirmed that the strange weather patterns were due to rapid temperature drops."
Lies.
The fracture inside Eshan hummed sharply—his internal warning system disagreeing violently.
"And the momentary freezing sensation," the principal continued, "appears to have been an illusion created by—"
A voice interrupted him from the left side of the auditorium.
"That's not true."
The room went silent.
A teacher glared toward the disturbance. "Sit down, please."
But the student didn't sit down.
He stood in the aisle—someone from Class 10-D, a quiet boy with neatly combed hair and a posture that didn't match his usual meekness. His eyes trembled with fear, but he didn't back down.
"I felt it," the boy said. "The world stopped. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. And something—something was there."
Murmurs spread quickly. The atmosphere tightened.
The principal stiffened. "Young man, please—"
"I'm telling the truth!" the boy shouted, voice cracking. "No one believes me at home. They said I imagined it. But I didn't imagine someone standing in front of me."
The auditorium went still.
Someone? Eshan leaned forward unconsciously.
The boy's hands shook. "He was… me."
Riya exhaled sharply. "Oh sh*t."
The teachers looked horrified. The principal dropped the papers he was holding. They scattered like frightened birds.
A crackle tore through the microphone—a glitching, electronic distortion.
Eshan's entire body went rigid.
The fracture inside him surged, like someone had gripped his heart and squeezed.
No.
No, no, no—
Not here.
Not this soon.
A familiar—but horribly wrong—sound filled the air: static bending into a voice.
"AUDIT: CHOICE FLAGGED"
The lights flickered brutally—once, twice—then burned too bright as if panicking.
The boy on the aisle gasped, stumbling backward. "No—no, no—please—not again—!"
Students screamed. Teachers ran forward, panic breaking the order instantly.
"EVERYONE STAY CALM—" someone shouted, which was the last useful thing anyone said.
The boy's shadow on the floor stretched.
Stretched too far.
Became too dark.
Too still.
Too solid.
His shadow rose from the ground.
Not detached.
Not separate.
Not a ghost.
Another him—perfectly identical at first—unfolded from the stretched shape like a person standing up after falling.
But this one's eyes were blazing white, glowing with jagged cracks in the darkness.
Students backed away in terror, seats clattering. The teachers froze, then yelled for everyone to move, but the aisles clogged instantly.
Eshan's breath caught in his throat.
Another Possibility.
Right here.
In school.
The principal paled, taking a step back. "Security!" he shouted uselessly at no one who could possibly help.
The Possibility—this alternate version of the boy—blinked once.
A surge of unnatural wind burst from him, blasting every loose paper in the room into a cyclone.
"OBJECTIVE: RECLAIM LIFE"
The words flashed in Eshan's mind without appearing physically this time.
The Possibility lunged at its original.
Students screamed louder; Riya grabbed Eshan's wrist, pulling him instinctively behind her even though he was taller than her.
"Don't!" she yelled to him. "Stay back—are you crazy?!"
His heart was pounding hard enough to bruise bone. He felt sweat cold on his palms, his back, his neck.
He wasn't running.
He should run.
He was a normal student.
He wasn't a fighter.
But he couldn't move away.
Because his fracture mark was vibrating—no—calling to something.
The auditorium blurred around the edges. His hearing narrowed.
He saw only the boy—the original—cowering as his alternate self raised a hand to kill him.
He saw yesterday.
He saw the hand almost piercing his chest.
He remembered the frozen rain, the crack, the words, the calm that wasn't his, the move that wasn't his.
His legs moved without permission.
"Eshan—!" Riya hissed, but too late.
He broke from her grip and ran.
Not with confidence.
Not with training.
Just with the desperate, irrational belief that he couldn't watch it happen again.
The Possibility heard him coming.
It turned its head, eyes gleaming, and raised its arm.
Eshan's world slowed.
He could see every dust particle floating in the air.
Every rip in the curtains from years of neglect.
Every terrified face around him.
He felt the instinct again—like a thread pulling him into a specific position. His feet shifted. His weight angled. His spine aligned.
He slid between the Possibility and the boy without thinking.
The Possibility's strike came down.
Eshan's arm moved.
He deflected.
His body reacted with the same elegance as yesterday, redirecting the force with minimal motion. The Possibility stumbled back half a step.
The room erupted with gasps.
Eshan breathed hard through his nose, steadying himself despite the tremor in his chest.
His head was already throbbing.
Not again.
Not another memory.
Not another piece of his life torn away—
But he couldn't stop.
The Possibility hissed softly—not in pain, but in interest.
Eshan stood his ground, shaking but unbroken.
The boy behind him whispered, voice trembling, "W-why are you helping me…?"
Because no one had helped him.
Because yesterday, he had no one.
Because if he didn't stop this thing, someone else would wake up missing a memory—or dead.
"I'm not letting you take his life," Eshan said, louder than he meant to.
The Possibility tilted its head.
Not confused.
Amused.
It blurred forward.
Eshan braced.
Another wave of borrowed instinct surged through him—positioning his arms, guiding his feet, narrowing his stance—
But something was different.
The instinct flickered.
Skipped.
Like a video lagging.
For a split second, Eshan felt the move slip wrong. The collision ran up his arm with twice the force. He staggered, nearly falling.
Something cracked behind his eyes.
No—no no no—
This wasn't right.
His Fracture Core was helping him—
But it was also already unstable.
The Possibility raised its hand again, faster this time—
And a voice cut through the chaos behind him:
"Eshan Vale!"
He turned slightly—
Enough to see a teacher, pale and wide-eyed, holding a metal rod used to open the auditorium windows.
Not a weapon.
But heavy.
The Possibility lunged at Eshan—
And the teacher swung the rod with a desperate cry—
Striking the Possibility's arm.
It didn't injure it.
But it made it pause.
Just long enough for Eshan to breathe again.
He wasn't alone this time.
The Possibility froze suddenly—eyes widening—not in fear, but as if listening to something far away.
Eshan's fracture burned in warning.
The Possibility stepped back.
Once.
Twice.
Then dissolved into thin streaks of shimmering darkness, sucked into a tiny pinprick in the air.
A micro-fracture.
It vanished.
The boy who'd been attacked collapsed, sobbing. Teachers rushed to him. Students fled the auditorium in chaotic waves.
Riya ran straight to Eshan, eyes blazing.
"Are you insane?" she snapped, grabbing his shoulders, shaking him once. "You don't even fight! Why would you—?!"
Eshan tried to smile.
It didn't reach his eyes.
"I just didn't want him to die."
Riya froze.
There was something in his voice.
Something that sounded too close to truth.
She swallowed, anger melting into fear. "Eshan… what happened yesterday? Really?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
There were too many answers. None of them safe.
"I… don't know yet," he whispered.
She stared at him for a long moment, searching his face.
Then—
"Then find out," she said quietly. "And don't do it alone."
His chest ached—not from pain.
Something like gratitude, sharp and unexpected.
But that feeling shattered when he noticed something on the auditorium floor.
Shimmering fragments.
Not glass.
Not dust.
Pieces of unreality—still fading from where the Possibility had stood.
Only he seemed able to see them.
They floated upward, dissolving like smoke.
The fracture inside him pulsed deeply.
He wasn't imagining it.
The world was breaking.
And whatever he'd awakened yesterday…
…was waking again.
Slowly.
Inevitably.
Dangerously.
---