Ever since that day on the terrace, Aaradhya and I had created a code.
A simple word — something ordinary, something easy to slip into a sentence. We picked Firefly.
If I said Firefly, that was when she would come closer. Until then, she kept her distance. It was the only way either of us could feel safe. Because the truth is, I didn't always know when he would come back.
The psychologists still don't know what's wrong with me. Some say trauma-induced dissociation, others whisper around terms like "personality disruption" or "unresolved rage manifestation," but no one has named it. No one has understood it.
Not even me.
And lately, he's been coming more often.
He surfaced once in the middle of a meeting with my father. My father. The great stoic man who only looks up from his newspaper to issue commands.
He was so curt, so aggressive with him... I barely managed to pull back before it got worse. That day, I didn't go back home. I didn't want to see anyone. Not even the ghosts that live there.
Aaradhya started coming to therapy with me. She'd sit outside the office, reading a book, sometimes waiting for me to come out so she could squeeze my hand and ask, "Better today?"
But it never really was.
That morning at college, I parked the car and was walking to meet Aaradhya at the canteen. Everything felt... off.
No one greeted me.
No bowed heads. No "Good morning, Veer Sir." No respectful silence when I passed.
Just... nothing.
I frowned.
And then I reached the canteen.
Aakarsh and Aaradhya were gone.
Their usual spot — empty.
Panic rose up in my throat. I turned to a guy sitting nearby. "Hey, did you see where Aaradhya or Aakarsh went?"
He looked at me blankly. "Who?"
"Aaradhya. Aakarsh." My voice was sharp now.
The guy gave me a once-over and scoffed. "Dude, how would I know who someone is just by their name? Get your eyes checked. Just call them if it's that urgent, duffer."
Duffer.
It hit me harder than it should have. No one spoke to me like that here.
Ever.
I turned away without a word, chest tightening, and checked my phone.
No network.
I stood still. Air felt heavier than usual.
I walked over to a kind-looking girl near the café counter. "Excuse me, could I use your phone? Mine's not working, and I need to call someone."
She gave a hesitant nod and passed it.
I dialed Aaradhya.
Disconnected.
I tried Aakarsh.
Same.
"Maybe you don't even have the right number," the girl said, half-laughing. "People just save random names for attention these days."
Frustrated, I showed her my phone. "Look. See this? I've been talking to them for weeks. Same numbers."
She stared at the screen for a long moment — and then blinked.
And something shifted.
Suddenly, the noise of the canteen folded in on itself. Like someone pressed unmute on a paused scene. I was still standing there... but the room had changed.
Aakarsh was now seated at our usual corner table.
He saw me and waved casually.
Aaradhya looked up from her phone and smiled. "You said you'd be here in ten minutes, Veer. It's been an hour. We were worried."
I stood frozen. The cafeteria looked the same, but not.
I blinked. Once. Twice.
"Tyre... tyre got punctured," I managed to say, the lie clumsy in my mouth.
They both nodded, none the wiser. Aakarsh launched into a story about some professor's weird tie, but I couldn't focus.
What the hell just happened?
Was I hallucinating?
Did I step out of time?
Was it him?
Or was it me?
I sat down across from them and tried to smile.
But inside, I was unraveling.
After college, I didn't wait around.
I didn't text Aaradhya. Didn't say anything to Aakarsh.
I just got into the car and drove.
Straight home.
Something about today had shaken me deeper than usual. The shift in the cafeteria, people forgetting me — even for a moment — felt too deliberate. Too real to be imagined, too impossible to be real.
I didn't go to my room.
I walked straight towards the library.
There's a section in there that most people in the house don't bother with — an old, tucked-away corner behind a shelf that slides open if you know where to push. It's where our family keeps the final diaries — journals that once belonged to ancestors, locked away after their deaths. Some call it tradition, some call it unnecessary.
I call it sanity.
I've read them all at least once. My great-grandfather's cryptic entries from the Partition days. My grandaunt's obsession with birds and secrets. My grandfather's disciplined, emotionless entries about the downfall of their marriage.
Somehow, those words helped me piece together the men and women whose blood flows through me. Sometimes, they made me feel less alone.
But as I was approaching the door to the library, I heard whispers.
Two, maybe three voices. Quick. Rhythmic. Like chanting.
I stopped in my tracks.
The moment I turned to look?
Nothing.
Silence.
No one.
Just the soft creak of the chandelier moving from the open window.
I ran downstairs, half-wanting to catch someone. "Did anyone visit today? Any guests who asked to see the library?"
The housekeeper looked up from dusting a vase. "No, sir. Not a soul has come."
I nodded, pretending I wasn't disturbed, and headed back upstairs.
The second-floor library smelled like parchment and decay — warm, old wood and ancient thoughts.
I slid the shelf open and pulled out the thick leather-bound books, some tied with red threads.
Fingers skimmed through spines, dates etched in gold.
Until one caught my eye.
1892.
A name I didn't recognize.
"Kritika."
No last name. Just Kritika.
The ink was faded, the paper fragile. I had always skipped this one because the story about her had been too vague — a distant cousin who apparently went mad before her 22nd birthday. Locked away, they said. Spoke in tongues, they said. No one ever told me more.
But now, that name seemed to pull me.
I took the diary with me to my room.
Closed the door.
Locked it.
I sat by the window and opened the first page.
The handwriting was neat, precise — unlike the madness they described.
"I fear I am not alone in my own body."
That was the first sentence.
I blinked.
Heart pounding.
Turned the page.
"There are moments I lose time. When I return to my senses, there are scratches on the mirror. Notes in my own handwriting that I don't recall writing. Faces recoil when I pass, yet I don't remember ever speaking to them."
I ran my hand down the page.
It was like reading myself.
The very things I hadn't dared to say out loud.
The diary went on in maddening detail.
Her fear.
Her other self — charming, manipulative, obsessed with someone named Aahaan, who didn't even know Kritika existed until she started sending him letters in her name.
The last entry made my blood run cold.
"They say I'm cursed. That it runs in the bloodline. But what if it's not a curse? What if it's the family's inheritance? What if the Royal Line isn't noble — but fractured? What if we all break, one by one?"
I closed the diary and looked at the mirror in front of me.
My face looked the same.
But my eyes?
They were glowing with something that wasn't quite mine.