Rana staggered back the moment she responded to the name Shruti. His breath hitched. His eyes scanned her face—desperate for a sign, a lie, anything that told him this was still Riya. But all he saw was silence... and a stranger waking in her skin.
His knees buckled. He collapsed beside the bed, trembling hands reaching up to her face—searching for warmth, for something familiar. But her skin felt foreign. Not Riya. One hand slipped away; the other gripped her shoulder, weakly, barely holding on.
Vikram froze in place, as if the world had just collapsed in front of him. His lips parted, but no sound came. His eyes locked on hers, unmoving. His chest heaved like he'd forgotten how to breathe. Then—suddenly—he turned, slamming his fist into the wall behind him. Once. Twice. A third time until his knuckles split and blood smeared the pale surface.
He pressed his back to the wall and slid down to the floor, resting his head against his knees, shoulders shaking. But he didn't cry. He couldn't. The grief was too sharp to be softened by tears.
Rana bent forward, forehead resting against the edge of the bed. His fingers gripped the blanket so tightly his knuckles turned white. His body was still, except for the silent quake in his chest.
In that room, no one spoke.
The only sounds were the quiet beep of machines, the rasp of fractured breathing, and the sound of a father and brother slowly breaking.
Rajveer stood still, a few steps away from the bed, his broad frame casting a long shadow over the sterile tiles. His hands hung limp at his sides, fingers clenched tight, nails digging into flesh. He didn't move. Didn't speak.
Because this—this wasn't a miracle.
This was a cruel twist of fate.
Rana had fallen to his knees, clutching the edge of the bed as if trying to hold onto something—someone—who was already gone. His daughter. His Riya. The child he raised, the heartbeat of his home, now just a shell with another soul breathing inside.
Vikram stood by his father's side, face carved in stone, but his fists trembled. His lips parted slightly, as if a sob had been caught mid-escape. His eyes were locked on his sister's face—no, the girl who looked like her. The girl who would never again laugh like Riya, tease him like Riya, complain about food or beg for his hoodies.
This wasn't her. This… was someone else.
Rajveer's gaze remained fixed on Riya's body—Shruti's soul. And something inside him ached. Not with joy. Not with relief. But with guilt.
He knew Shruti. Had known everything about her long before they ever met. He had watched her through files, photographs, reports—all because she mattered to Dhruv. She had changed his son in ways Rajveer never could. She had brought light into that boy's dark world.
And now she was here.
But this—this wasn't a miracle.
This was a cruel twist of fate.
Rajveer didn't move closer. Couldn't. Because even as he stood in the room, surrounded by the sound of silent mourning, his mind raced with a single, unbearable truth.
If Shruti's soul was here... then her body, wherever it was, had been lost. Gone. Cold.
And Dhruv didn't even know.
The weight of that truth settled on Rajveer's chest like stone. His breath caught. The room around him blurred for a moment, distorted by the pressure in his skull.
He turned his face away—not to hide his tears, but because he didn't deserve to let them fall in front of Rana.
What right did he have to mourn when the man before him had lost his daughter?
What right did he have to feel anything other than guilt?
Because in this moment, Rajveer wasn't just grieving for Shruti. He was grieving for the man beside him. For the friendship that now carried a shadow. For the girl who was lost so another could breathe.
For the storm this truth would bring when Dhruv found out.
Rajveer stood frozen, staring at the girl on the bed—Riya's face, Shruti's soul.
And for the first time in years, he felt truly powerless.
This wasn't a decision to be made. It wasn't a problem to be solved. There was no right or wrong. No choice. Only loss—inevitable, cruel, and unavoidable.
If this truly was Shruti… then Riya, his best friend's daughter, was gone.
But if it wasn't permanent—if this was some kind of possession, something temporary—then Shruti, the girl who brought light into Dhruv's broken world, would be ripped away once again.
Rajveer gritted his teeth. He couldn't bear to look at Rana, couldn't stand the way Vikram trembled in silence.
He didn't even know which hope was more painful.
Did he pray for Riya to come back… knowing that meant losing Shruti forever?
Did he pray for Shruti to stay… knowing it would destroy the man kneeling at her bedside?
But the worst part wasn't that he had to make a choice.
It was that he couldn't.
There was no prayer strong enough to fix this. No will that could undo what had already happened.
His hands curled into fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms.
He wanted to scream.
To run.
To demand answers from the heavens themselves.
But all he could do was stand there, drowning in a silence that pressed against his ribs.
And behind him, Vikram's voice broke that silence—low, raw, hesitant.
"Is this... possession? Or something worse?"
The question hung in the air like a blade, unspoken but felt by all.
Rajveer didn't answer.
Because even if he had the words, his heart had no place to speak them.
Dr. Sinha stepped forward at last, his hands folded in front of him, eyes lingering on the girl in the bed—on the face he'd known as Riya, now answering to another name.
"I'll be honest with you," he began, voice quiet but unwavering, "what we're witnessing here doesn't fall within the boundaries of anything I've learned, practiced, or even read about in medical literature."
He looked at each of them, his gaze settling last on Rana.
"Riya was declared brain-dead. There was no neural activity—no sign of recovery, not even a flicker. Medically speaking, that's the end of the road. And yet... here we are"
He paused, letting the weight of that reality sink in.
"Is this a permanent shift? Is it temporary? I don't know. I wish I could give you a concrete answer. But I've never seen anything like this. None of us have."
Another breath, slower this time. "From what we know, a person declared brain-dead doesn't come back—not like this. So yes, if I had to rely solely on science, I'd say the chances of this being temporary are... extremely low."
"But," he added, his voice dipping even lower, "what's happening here doesn't feel like science. Not fully. And I can't pretend to understand something that defies every rule I've followed my entire life."
Rana slowly raised his head, his voice raw, barely more than a whisper. "But how do we know what this is? How do we even begin to understand what's happening here?" His eyes searched Dr. Sinha's face, desperate. "There has to be some way… some hope of knowing the truth."
Dr. Sinha didn't respond immediately. He took a slow breath, the tension in the room tightening around him like a noose. Then, gently, he nodded.
"There might be," he said softly. "And I didn't want to bring it up unless there was a real chance."
Everyone turned to him.
"I've reached out to someone—my brother's mentor. He's... not a conventional scientist. But he's been studying subjects that the medical world doesn't dare touch. Rebirth, cosmology, the essence of the soul—things most would dismiss as myth, but he's dedicated his life to them. He's not just a scholar. He's... something else entirely."
He looked at Rana, his expression grave.
"If there's anyone who might help us understand what's really happening—what this truly is—it's him. I've already contacted him. He should be on his way now."
He looked around at them all—at Rana, still gripping the bed like a man drowning; at Vikram, fists clenched, bloodied and pale; at Rajveer, a fortress barely holding.
"This may not be something science alone can explain. But if there's even a fragment of truth in what my brother's master believes... we might be able to understand what's happened. Maybe even why."
Dr. Sinha's voice lowered, like the weight of his words demanded reverence. "He's not coming just as a researcher. He's coming because he believes... this may be the case he's waited for his entire life."
The room fell silent once more.
"This isn't just theory to him—it's truth. He's spent decades walking the lines between belief and reality, between death and what might come after. And when I told him about this, about her"—he gestured faintly toward the girl in the bed—"he said only one thing."
Dr. Sinha's eyes locked onto Rana's. "He said, 'She shouldn't be alive... but she is. That means the universe has something to say.'"
He took a step back, folding his hands behind him.
"So, yes, Rana... there may be hope. Not for returning things to how they were—but for understanding what they've become."
The beeping of machines resumed as the only sound in the room.
And somewhere outside, wheels began to turn.
The one man who might hold the answers was already on his way.
***
THE MASTER ARRIVES
The car came to a silent halt before the old house, headlights dimming like eyes slowly closing. The night did not greet him. It recoiled — as though aware of who approached.
The door opened, and he stepped out.
The moment his foot touched the ground, the air shifted.
A delicate tremor ran through the soil, too subtle for human senses — but he felt it. The pulse of nature folding in on itself, as if trying to shield something buried deep within its fabric. Not out of fear… but out of guilt.
His eyes narrowed.
The world was quiet — too quiet. The kind of silence where time holds its breath.
He took another step, and a breeze slipped past, not natural, not random. It carried no chill, yet it made his skin prickle. His aura, attuned to what others could not perceive, stretched outward like a shadow peeling from his soul.
And there it was.
The correction.
Something had been wrong in the order of the cosmos — a split that was never meant to happen. A soul divided, unnaturally, by forces that should never have interfered. That kind of rift was not meant to heal. History had proven that such halves, once torn apart, were doomed. None had survived. None had merged.
Until now.
He felt it.
Not in sound. Not in vision. But in the very vibration of existence.
The souls had fused. Perfectly. Quietly. Against all odds.
A miracle.
But miracles were rarely clean. And this one — this one, nature tried to bury. The universe itself had folded its corners, hiding the seam, desperate that no one would notice.
But he had.
His gaze lifted to the house. Not recognition. Just awareness.
This wasn't home.
It was a point of convergence.
And he had arrived — not to interrupt.
But to witness what should never have been possible.