POV: Shabd Heer
Location: Abandoned Military Archives, Sector 9 Vault
Time: 5:56 AM
The cold of the underground metal corridor didn't bother him.
What bothered him was the past he'd buried in this place.
Vashti was upstairs, asleep on a makeshift bed.
Her father's letter had shattered something inside her—and awakened something else.
But Shabd knew the war had started long before Vashti remembered anything.
Because he had never forgotten.
Not even once.
---
FLASHBACK – 11 Years Ago – Zenith Military Labs
Shabd stood outside Observation Room 4, only 14 years old, gripping a folder he wasn't supposed to have.
Inside the room: a little girl screaming.
Short. Messy hair. Full of rage.
Vashti Dhiman. Age 6.
His uncle, Dr. Neel Heer, stood beside another man—Vivek Dhiman.
"She's rejecting the memory block," Neel said. "Too much trauma. She's different."
Vivek's voice shook. "She's my daughter. I said—erase what threatens her, not who she is!"
But Shabd had already seen what they were hiding.
A secret experiment.
A prototype injection meant to suppress traumatic neural pathways and reprogram fear into aggression.
Shabd watched the girl cry. Then go silent.
Then… punch the glass so hard it cracked.
He couldn't stop watching her after that.
---
PRESENT – Archive Room B
He unlocked the cabinet labeled "Patient-X/Subject-V"
Her files.
Vashti had been Subject V before she was ever just Vashti.
But that wasn't what chilled him.
What chilled him was another file beneath it.
Subject-S.
Himself.
Shabd stared at the photo of his younger self.
Wires on his temples. A report that read:
> Subject-S shows high emotional regulation under duress. Suggest testing him as emotional anchor for volatile patients. Recommendation: Pairing with Subject-V in future.
They had paired them.
Long before school. Long before love.
The calm and the chaos. Engineered.
Not fate.
Design.
He slammed the cabinet shut.
---
Back Upstairs – Vashti's POV
She woke up to find Shabd sitting at the window, holding two files. His jaw was tight. Knuckles white.
She sat beside him. "You okay?"
"No."
He handed her both files.
She read. And froze.
"You were part of it too."
Shabd nodded. "They paired us because I made you calm."
She looked at him with something between grief and fury. "So you've been lying to me this whole time?"
"No," he said quietly. "I've been protecting you. From the same people who used both of us."
Her voice broke. "Do you even know what's real between us?"
He didn't hesitate.
"You."
"You're real."