They didn't speak on the walk back to class. There were too many ears around them, too many footsteps, too many normal sounds that suddenly felt staged, like the world was trying a bit too hard to pretend nothing strange had happened.
Dev kept his eyes down. Meera stayed half a step closer than usual — not touching him, but orbiting him, as if ready to pull him out of another distortion if one swallowed him again.
When they reached their classroom door, the teacher wasn't inside yet. Students were loud, tossing chalk, complaining about homework. Everything about it felt aggressively ordinary.
Dev slipped into his seat. Meera took hers diagonally behind him.
For a moment, he thought the world would let him breathe.
Then he noticed the clock.
The large school clock mounted above the blackboard — the one with a cracked plastic cover and a faint yellow tint from years of humidity — was ticking as always. A lazy, tired tuk… tuk… tuk.
But the second hand was wrong.
It wasn't pointing at a single number.Not anymore.
Dev froze.His breath caught.
The second hand had two shadows.Two faint red lines.Close together, almost overlapping, but not quite.
One pointed to 12.The other pointed to 11.
Almost the same.Almost.
His heartbeat thudded once, hard.
Meera noticed the way he stiffened. She leaned slightly forward, just enough to catch his line of sight. "Dev…?" she whispered.
"Look," he murmured.
She followed his gaze to the clock.
Her eyes widened. "Oh."
The second hand twitched.Both shadows twitched with it.But they didn't move the same way.
Dev stared without blinking. "It's doing it again. Frames. Two of them."
Meera whispered, "Is it because of what you did with the fan?"
"I didn't do anything," he said tightly. "I barely even—"
The shadows shifted.
Now one second hand pointed at 1.The other… at 9.
Too far apart.Too wrong.
Then the plastic cover of the clock made a faint crrrk sound.A hairline fracture traced itself across the surface — slow, delicate, like frost forming on glass.
The classroom noise faded in Dev's ears.
The crack widened.A thin sliver of plastic broke off.It fell, lightly, landing on the chalk tray beneath the board without anyone noticing.
Only Dev and Meera saw.
Then, with a tiny jolt, the second hand snapped back to a single position — pointing at 12, as if nothing had happened.
The hum of the fan resumed.Students laughed.Someone threw a paper ball.
Everything settled.
Except Dev.
Meera leaned forward, voice low and steady. "Dev… the clock cracked when the second hand split."
"I know."
"You didn't even touch it."
"I know."
She hesitated. "Do you think it's breaking because of you… or for you?"
Dev didn't answer.
Because deep down, he already feared which one it was.