The scream wasn't human.
It tore through the alley like metal scraping bone.
Yuvraj froze mid-step, rain dripping from his hair, phone still glowing in his hand.
Mumbai's skyline loomed behind him. Bright, uncaring, alive.
This alley wasn't.
Something moved in the dark.
Not walked.
Glitched.
Frames skipped, like reality buffering.
Yuvraj's first instinct wasn't fear.
It was denial.
Hallucination, he thought.
Stress-induced psychosis.
Then the smell hit him.
Rot.
Old blood.
Burnt hair.
The thing leaned forward.
Its face wasn't wrong.
It was unfinished.
Eyes too deep.
Jaw vibrating, like it couldn't decide which shape to exist in.
"This isn't a ghost," Yuvraj whispered, backing up.
His voice shook anyway.
"This is a localized collapse of quantum stability."
The thing reacted.
It smiled.
And suddenly it was in front of him.
Pain exploded in his chest.
His body slammed into the wall.
Something cracked. Maybe ribs. Maybe time.
His vision tunneled.
The city noise faded, replaced by a low hum.
Like the universe clearing its throat.
WARNING: ENTROPY BREACH DETECTED
Blue light flooded his vision.
Not hallucination.
Too sharp. Too structured.
BHAIRAV ENTROPY SYSTEM INITIALIZING
Yuvraj coughed blood, laughing weakly.
"Great," he muttered.
"Near-death delusions now come with UI."
The thing shrieked again, recoiling.
The hum deepened.
Information poured in, not as words, but equations.
Sound. Frequency. Collapse.
A Mantra surfaced in his mind.
Not memorized.
Calculated.
Yuvraj opened his mouth.
The sound that came out wasn't prayer.
It was precision.
The air folded.
The creature screamed as its body unraveled, pixels of darkness dissolving into nothing.
Silence crashed down.
Yuvraj slid to the ground, breathing hard.
The blue screen stabilized.
USER: YUVRAJ SINGH
STATUS: ALIVE CRITICAL
SPIRIT ENERGY: 12/100
ENTROPY LEVEL: 0.03%
KARMA POINTS: -7
CLASS: UNASSIGNED
His smile faded.
Negative karma?
A new line appeared.
FIRST KILL REGISTERED
TARGET CLASSIFICATION: PRETA LOW-ORDER ENTITY
REWARD PENDING…
Then, slowly,
NOTICE:
THE ENTITY YOU DESTROYED WAS NOT ALONE
The alley lights flickered.
Footsteps echoed.
Too many.
Yuvraj looked up as shadows began peeling themselves off the walls.
And the System chimed softly, almost amused.
SUGGESTION:
RUN.