Jai stared at the script.
FIXED GAMES
His room was silent except for the slow rotation of the ceiling fan. Early morning light slipped through the torn curtain, drawing pale lines across the walls.
He ran his fingers over the title again.
The moment his skin brushed the paper—
A sharp heat shot through his palm.
He gasped and dropped the script, but it didn't fall to the floor.
It froze in the air.
The pages began flipping on their own. Fast. Violent. As if an unseen wind was tearing through the story. Words lifted off the paper like black smoke and spiraled around his hand.
Lines.
Symbols.
The same unknown markings from the forest.
They burned across his skin, glowing brighter than before.
Jai tried to scream—but the room was already gone.
---
He felt like he was falling through glass.
Not air. Not darkness.
Scenes.
Fragments of places rushed past him — hotel corridors, flashing police lights, polished marble floors, a metronome ticking in endless echo.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The sound grew louder until it was inside his skull.
Then—
Silence.
---
Jai opened his eyes.
He was standing in a luxurious hotel suite.
Soft yellow lighting. Silk curtains. A king-sized bed.
And the smell.
Bleach.
Strong. Clinical.
His body felt… different. His posture straighter. His breathing slower. Controlled.
He looked down.
Black leather gloves covered his hands.
In his right hand—
A vintage silver metronome.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The sound was real.
Not in his head.
In the room.
A voice, calm and precise, echoed inside him.
"Scene One. Cleanup."
Jai turned slowly.
On the floor near the bed lay the still body of a young woman.
His stomach twisted.
But something inside him remained cold.
Detached.
Professional.
He walked to the side table and placed the metronome down.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
His movements began to sync with it.
One step.
Wipe.
One step.
Spray.
One step.
Fold.
He watched himself move like a machine. No hesitation. No emotion. The body wasn't a person to him in this moment.
It was… a stain.
And then he understood with chilling clarity.
He wasn't just watching.
He wasn't just visiting.
He was someone else.
A name surfaced in his mind like a file being opened.
Vardhan Oberoi.
The Fixer.
The Janitor of the Elite.
---
But beneath that identity…
Jai was still there.
Trapped inside.
Screaming silently.
This is the script… I'm inside the script!
Yet his body — Vardhan's body — kept working with terrifying calm.
He vacuumed fibers. Replaced bedsheets. Wiped fingerprints that didn't exist. Repacked the minibar to exact alignment.
Every action in sets of three.
Three wipes.
Three sprays.
Three breaths.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
When he finally stood still, the room looked untouched.
Like no crime had ever happened.
Like the girl had never existed.
A whisper slid through his mind.
"You wanted to be a villain."
Cold dread spread through him.
"Now feel what one is."
---
The world blinked.
Suddenly—
Concrete walls.
Glass from floor to ceiling.
Fog rolling over distant green hills.
Matheran.
The Glass House.
Jai stumbled forward, clutching his head. Memories that weren't his flooded in — clients, secrets, blackmail, hidden trophies from crime scenes.
A collection.
He felt pride.
Control.
Ownership.
And then—
Fear.
A different presence in the house.
Ishani.
Tied to a chair at a perfectly symmetrical dining table.
The metronome sat between them.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Jai tried to fight it.
Move differently. Break rhythm.
But Vardhan's mind was like iron.
Precise. Ritualistic.
He sat down across from her.
"You found the Folio, Ishani…" he heard himself say, voice smooth and almost musical. "That makes you a broken piece in my collection."
Inside, Jai was horrified.
Outside, Vardhan smiled faintly.
"And I don't like broken pieces."
He picked up the syringe.
Jai tried to throw it away.
His hand didn't obey.
The injection went in.
Ishani gasped.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Hours seemed to pass in seconds. Sense by sense, she slipped toward numbness.
And with every tick, Jai felt Vardhan's dependence on the rhythm. His breathing. His timing. His violence.
The metronome wasn't a habit.
It was his spine.
---
Then the moment came.
The third injection.
Blindness.
Vardhan leaned in.
Ishani moved.
A flash of glass—
CRACK.
The metronome shattered.
The ticking stopped mid-beat.
And for the first time—
Jai felt Vardhan's mind collapse.
Panic exploded like a bomb inside his skull. His movements became jerky, wild, uncontrolled.
"No… no no no no—" Vardhan whispered.
Jai felt it like vertigo. Without the rhythm, the world had no structure.
The fight erupted.
Fast. Brutal. Disoriented.
Glass. Breath. Struggle.
Then—
The wall shattered into a spiderweb of cracks.
Vardhan saw it.
Jai saw it.
A million broken lines.
Incomplete patterns.
Unfinished symmetry.
Vardhan's terror became physical pain. His vision blurred. Breath collapsed into hyperventilation.
"Fix it…" he muttered, dropping the scalpel. "Fix the lines…"
Jai felt himself falling with him — trapped in a mind that could not survive imperfection.
---
And suddenly—
He was ripped out.
---
Jai slammed back onto the floor of his room.
The script lay beside him.
Silent.
Normal.
His chest heaved as if he had run miles. Sweat soaked his shirt. His hand still burned.
He looked at his palm.
The glowing marks were there again.
Clearer now.
Forming shapes like… letters.
He whispered, shaking,
"I didn't just read it…"
He swallowed hard.
"I lived it."
Outside, the city morning moved on like nothing had changed.
But Jai knew.
Stories weren't fiction to him anymore.
They were worlds.
And somehow…
He had just played the villain before the audition even happened.