The bell's echo drifted away, swallowed by the shuffle of students changing classes. Meera gently tugged Dev toward the classroom block, but he resisted for a second, his feet rooted to the spot.
"Dev," she whispered, "if we stay here, we'll look suspicious."
He nodded, but his gaze had snagged on the floor again — as if expecting the shadows to split a second time.
They walked, slow and quiet, the corridor narrowing around them. The old tube lights above buzzed faintly, a sound so constant Dev had never noticed it before. Now it grated on him, uneven, like each flicker was a different second trying to get in.
He rubbed the back of his neck. It was warm. Too warm.
Meera noticed. "You're overheating."
"It's just—" He stopped, swallowing hard. "It's like something… pulled at me."
"Pulled how?"
He opened his mouth, then shut it.How did he explain a feeling that wasn't physical — not like falling, not like dizziness — but something stranger, deeper? A sensation like a hand brushing against the inside of a clock.
He tried anyway. "When the frames doubled… it didn't feel like a mistake. It felt like… something was trying to see if I'd notice."
Meera stared at him. "The world?"
He didn't answer, because something in the air shifted again.
A small shift.Barely there.But unmistakable.
The corridor grew quieter than it should've been. Not silent — silence is empty. This was a muffled quiet, thick, like sound had stepped into another room.
Dev turned his head slowly.
At the far end of the corridor, a ceiling fan blade slowed.Just one blade.The rest spun normally.
Meera followed his gaze. "What… is that supposed to mean?"
He took a step forward.
The fan's movement wavered — slow, normal, slow again — flickering between speeds that didn't belong in the same moment. The metal hinge gave a faint creak… stretched… then snapped back into place.
Dev whispered, "It's reacting."
"Dev, don't go closer."
But he did.
Another step.Another.
The air thickened around him, pressing against his skin. A faint vibration rose in his ears, like distant machinery humming beneath the floorboards.
He didn't touch the fan. He didn't have to.
The world listened.
The lights above them dimmed for a fraction of a second. The sound of footsteps from nearby classrooms faded out. Even Meera's breathing seemed to slow.
For one impossible moment, Dev felt something vast behind the silence — not a presence, not a creature, but attention. Something noticing him. Something waiting.
The pressure grew. Not painful, not dangerous — just heavy, like his name was being spoken somewhere he couldn't hear.
Then he whispered under his breath, barely audible:
"Stop."
The fan blade froze.Mid-spin.Perfectly still.
A heartbeat later —it spun normally again, as if it had never paused.
The pressure broke.Sound returned.People's voices flooded back from every direction.
Meera grabbed his hand — not out of fear, but to steady him. "Dev," she whispered hoarsely, "you just—"
"I didn't mean to," he breathed. "I didn't… ask properly. I just… said a word."
Meera looked at him like she was seeing him through new glass. "It heard you."
Dev shook his head slowly."No," he said, voice tight. "It wasn't the world."
He looked up at the still-spinning fan."It was time."