The city didn't feel real anymore.
Cars honked. Vendors shouted. The world moved with its usual indifference — but every sound felt thin, stretched over a deeper quiet rising from underground.
The quiet of something listening.
Something counting.
Something waking.
Manraj and Zoya reached the far end of the bridge before either of them dared stop. Sweat plastered Zoya's hair to her temple. Manraj's breathing was shallow, each inhale pulling against the glowing number beneath his ribs.
33 burned steady.
Not falling.
Not rising.
Just waiting.
Zoya bent over, hands on her knees.
"Okay," she exhaled, "that… that wasn't normal shadow physics."
Manraj leaned against the railing, gripping it so tightly his knuckles whitened.
"It said the number," he whispered. "It knew the number."
Zoya wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Right. So rule update: anything that recites your internal countdown is immediately promoted to 'end boss' and we don't poke it with sticks."
Manraj didn't smile.
Zoya straightened, serious now.
"What did it feel like? The… whatever-that-was."
Manraj closed his eyes, trying to put words to the sensation.
"It didn't try to pull me," he said slowly. "Not like the entity. Not like the shell. And not like the parasite."
"What then?"
"It was… reading me."
Zoya frowned. "Reading you how?"
"Like I'm a book someone else wrote." His voice trembled. "And it knows the ending."
Zoya reached out and grabbed his hand.
"Hey. Look at me."
He did.
And her voice softened.
"That thing didn't touch you. It didn't pull at you. It didn't even get close."
Her jaw tightened.
"That means it's locked behind something Azhar is holding shut."
Manraj blinked against the sting in his eyes.
"Zoya… what if Azhar's not just trapped? What if he's holding that thing back?"
She swallowed hard.
"Then we get him out before it tears through him."
That promise hung between them — fragile, reckless, necessary.
Manraj nodded.
"Then we need to understand what it is."
Zoya pulled her phone from her pocket and opened a new page in the notebook app.
DAY TWO — UNDER-ROOT EMERGENCE
She typed:
› Parasite #1: Mimic-class, memory thief.
› Parasite #2: Gateway-class, older. Knows countdown.
› Hypothesis: The Under-Root isn't one entity. It's a system.
› And each shadow answers to something deeper.
Manraj read over her shoulder.
"A system," he murmured. "Like the Root, but warped."
Zoya nodded grimly.
"Like a corrupted version of your origin. A place built from shadows that the Root discarded."
He looked at her sharply.
"Discarded… how?"
Zoya pocketed her phone.
"It's time you heard what I found last night."
---
Zoya's Apartment — Late Morning
She spread papers across the table — old maps, municipal blueprints, ritual scraps she'd sketched when Azhar wasn't looking.
Manraj stared.
"Where did you get these?"
"Sleep is for mortals," she said flatly.
Then she pointed at a diagram.
"The tunnels where we fought the shadow? Those weren't built by humans."
Manraj frowned. "Then who—"
"Not who," Zoya said. "What."
She tapped the diagram again.
"At least two of these passageways date back centuries. Long before the tram system. Long before this city was even a settlement."
His pulse quickened.
"Root tunnels."
Zoya nodded.
"But here's the catch —"
She flipped the page.
"These weren't made to create anything. They were made to throw something away."
Manraj's stomach twisted.
"Discard tunnels."
"Exactly."
She traced a mark on the diagram.
"These symbols show containment. Not reverence. Not worship. Containment."
Manraj swallowed.
"You think the Root dumped something down there."
"No," she said.
"I think the Root dumped many somethings."
A chill crept down his spine.
"And now—"
She nodded.
"They're waking up because you exist."
Silence filled the room.
Heavy.
Inevitable.
Manraj lowered himself into a chair, hands shaking.
"So the countdown…"
Zoya sat across from him, face grim.
"…isn't counting until they reach you."
He met her eyes.
"It's counting until they're ready."
The number 33 thrummed in his chest like a slow, steady heartbeat.
---
THE MOMENT IT SHIFTED
Manraj rubbed the symbols beneath his shirt, as if he could soothe them into stillness.
"Zoya… what did the shadow say exactly?"
Her jaw tightened.
"It didn't say your name."
"…what?"
She leaned forward.
"It didn't say Eryth. It said something else."
"What?"
Zoya inhaled.
"It said: unfinished vessel."
Manraj froze.
Zoya placed a steadying hand on the table.
"Whatever's down there—whatever's waking—doesn't want you the way the Root did. It doesn't want to remake you. It wants to complete something."
Manraj gripped the edge of the table until it shook.
"Complete what?"
Zoya stared down at her notebook.
Something she didn't want to say.
"Zoya," he whispered. "Tell me."
Finally—
She looked up.
Her voice quiet.
Afraid.
"Manraj… the Under-Root isn't trying to take your identity."
She swallowed.
"It's trying to finish whatever the Root started."
A beat.
"And whatever that is… Azhar knew."
Manraj's heartbeat slammed against his ribs.
"You think Azhar knew before he fell?"
"No."
Her eyes sharpened.
"I think Azhar knew before the river ever opened."
Manraj felt the world shift beneath him.
Like the ground was leaning.
Like the countdown was tightening around his lungs.
"Zoya," he whispered. "What does it want from me?"
Her Silence rippled around her fingers.
"I don't know yet."
Then—
A new ripple echoed beneath the floorboards.
Subtle.
But unmistakable.
Manraj's breath caught.
Zoya froze.
The number in his chest flickered—
33 → 33 → 32
It dropped.
Zoya stood so fast her chair fell backward.
"Manraj—"
He grabbed her arm, eyes wide.
"It didn't fall because of the shadow."
"No," Zoya breathed.
"It fell because the Under-Root just moved."
They locked eyes.
Terrified.
Determined.
Bound by something deeper than choice.
Zoya spoke first.
"We have thirty-two days," she whispered.
Manraj closed his eyes.
"No," he said.
Opening them again, steady.
"We have thirty-two chances."