The ceiling fan spun lazily above Klaus Seven's head, slicing the humid air into quarters. It barely helped. The dull heat of May clung to the walls of the second-floor room like sweat, seeping into his clothes, his books, his very bones. Klaus sat hunched over a battered desk in a chair, pencil in hand, book open, yet his mind entirely elsewhere.
Page seventy-two of the chemistry question bank asked about covalent bonds and electronegativity. Klaus stared at it like it was written in an alien script.
'what... the hell is this shit?' this though often came in his mind.
He wasn't stupid. Far from it. But this—this wasn't what he wanted.
His fingertips absently traced the edge of the page. His thoughts, however, were deep inside a TED Talk he'd watched years ago about the human brain. It was a casual lecture on the prefrontal cortex, executive function, reward systems, and how decisions shaped perception.
Back then, he hadn't known the names of those terms, but the sheer idea that a biological structure could determine who a person was had gripped him completely.
Control. It was something that fascinated him to no end. Because of this very fascination,he was curious about the brain. Which is often called the command center of the body.
The fascination never left him even till now.
What had left him—brutally and without ceremony—was his right to choose. Klaus's father, a stern man of few words and iron expectations, had given him a choice when he passed out of high school: study for NEET or pay for college yourself.
Initially, he wanted to follow his passion and wanted to study neuroscience. But being an Indian, he didn't really had a choice of his own regarding his life and that one line from his father proved it again.
"You will thank me for this when you will start earning the money in future." His father used to tell him.
And so Klaus sacrificed his passion had made the only "choice" he could.
Medical entrance prep, crammed classes, mock tests, rote memorization.
He picked up the pencil and scribbled the answer with mechanical precision.
"Electrons are shared in covalent bonds—" he muttered. It was like a habit for him now to always do questions in his free time.
Just when he was moving to the next question, a knock came at the door.
He didn't answer. The knock came again, harder this time.
"Klaus!" His mother's voice came from the other side. "Your lunch is getting cold!"
"I'm coming," he called back, voice low.
He waited ten seconds. Then slowly stood, stretching out the stiffness in his back. His legs ached from sitting too long. He slowly pushed the chair back, tossed the pencil on the table, and glanced briefly at the mirror by the door.
There, a boy around seventeen could be seen. Short black hair. Tired brown eyes. Slightly thin body, but not enough to call him unhealthy.
He didn't look weak. But he felt like glass— breakable.
Downstairs, the rice was cold, and the dal had started to develop a film.
But he didn't mind and ate anyway.
After eating he left his home for his coaching center. The coaching center was two kilometers away. Klaus didn't have a bicycle. His father said walking built character, and the bus fare wasn't worth wasting.
But he knew in his mind that he was just trying to save money.
'Typical Indian parents.' he thought
But he couldn't do anything about it, So he walked.
The sun pounded down on the narrow, cracked sidewalks. Rickshaws honked loudly. A stray dog barked at nothing in particular, and a group of school kids ran past, playing with a cosco ball.
Klaus walked in silence, one hand in his pocket, the other clutching a worn water bottle.
Halfway there, just past the main junction, it hit.
A tightness in his chest.
Like someone had reached inside and squeezed his heart with a fist made of ice and iron.
He staggered mid-step, leaned against a pole, gasping in pain.
His vision blurred at the edges. His left hand trembled. Cold sweat trickled down his back. He sank to a crouch, heart hammering, breath shallow.
"Hey, you alright?" someone shouted, the voice distant and distorted.
Klaus didn't answer, or rather he couldn't answer.
He focused on his breathing, Slowly breathing in and breathing out. In. Out. In. Out.
The pain receded, slowly, like a tide pulling back.
He stayed there for a full minute, gripping the base of the pole until the trembling stopped. His clothes now clung to his skin.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he stood.
Still alive, Still... Klaus.
"Let's move. I'm already late!" He mumbled and moved his feet forward.
He took one step forward and that's when a car seemingly came out of nowhere and hit him.
There was no screech of tires, No dramatic shout and definitely no warning.
Just a sharp turn, a blur of black metal, and a brutal impact that tossed his body sideways like a discarded doll.
For Klaus, time didn't slow. It froze.
The air punched from his lungs. He felt ribs break. His skull cracked against the pavement. His vision went white, then red, then dark.
Pain bloomed in too many places at once. Something sharp pierced his thigh while his ears rang like a broken speaker.
Blood pooled under him—he could feel it, hot and fast.
The people around started screaming. But he didn't get to hear them for long as he felt the world spin around him.
He didn't know how long he lay there, dying. A minute? Five? Ten?
The last thing he heard before silence claimed him was a child crying nearby.
And then—Nothing.
---
He awoke to absence.
There was no sky, no earth, no breath, no pain and no sound.
Just an endless, colorless space that wasn't white or black or gray. It simply wasn't. He couldn't find the proper words to describe it.
Klaus blinked but he realised that there were no eyes to blink.
He opened his mouth but there was no mouth.
It wasn't like darkness—it was a sensation of non-being. No body. No anchor. Just self. Thought, pure thoughts —stripped raw and pure.
"Am I dead?" the thought echoed, not in sound, but in waves.
No answer came.
He floated, or rather, didn't float, because there was no direction here. No up, down, forward, or backward.
Just... thought.
Then, like a match struck in a void, presence arrived.
It didn't take form. It didn't speak. It didn't shine.
But Klaus felt it. A massive, ancient awareness, amused and vaguely curious.
"Interesting."
The voice was not a voice, It imposed itself upon him. Calm and neutral.
"Who are you?" Klaus asked—or rather, thought, in a way that somehow resonated.
"A collector. A keeper. A passerby. It doesn't matter."
Klaus processed this, Or tried to attend least. But like a frog in a well, he couldn't figure anything.
"Am I... dead?" He eventually thought.
"Your biological form expired. Yes."
Silence.
"...Then why am I still here?" Klaus followed up on his question.
The voice paused for a moment and replied.
"You amused me."