The rest of the day passed like nothing had happened.No glitching windows.No mysterious girl.No blood on the floor.
Just Vicky and his father sharing dal-chawal, watching a movie, and pretending everything in life was normal.
By night, he almost believed it too.
Almost.
Because when he returned to his room and his eyes drifted lazily toward the flower pot… the reality hit him like a punch.
The vial inside was empty.
Completely empty.
He hadn't touched it in weeks.He hadn't used it.Not in reality.
He stared at the drained vial, his fingertips going cold.
"…So last night wasn't fake."
He sat on his bed, mind racing, trying and failing to connect the pieces.The girl.The blood.Her collapsing in front of him.The name she tried to say before she dissolved.
Rilu?Osbo?What was that?
His pulse wouldn't slow down. He tried staying awake, he tried distracting himself, but exhaustion wrapped around him like chains.
He fell asleep before he realized it.
The Second Dream
The sky was red again.
But this time the air wasn't muffled.The explosions weren't muted.The world wasn't blurry.
Everything was painfully, terrifyingly clear.
Fire rained from twisted clouds.The ground was metal.The smell was smoke and burning circuitry.
And the humanoid entity — the one that had radiated rage last time — stood at the center of it all.
Its voice wasn't a whisper now.It was a broken scream.
"They're dead now… all of them… none of them left… why… are they gone…"
It clutched its head like the grief was ripping it apart from inside.
Then it roared — a sound so powerful it shook the sky.
High above, the massive helix-sphere machines responded instantly.Panels unfolded.Energy cores glowed.Dozens of armored humanoids burst out, thrusters ignited, diving toward him.
Vicky wasn't watching.
He was the entity again.
He felt its rage.Its pain.Its power surging like a pressure bomb inside his chest.
The first enemy soldier reached him.
The entity caught it by the throat mid-air.Metal crunched under its grip.
He didn't plan the words. They just tore out of him:
"Why did you do it?"
The soldier's visor flickered, its voice glitching.
"Master… this isn't you…"
His fingers tightened instinctively — and the soldier shattered like glass, dissolving into digital dust.
The entity turned—
Then stopped.
Because through the smoke, through the collapsing sky, he suddenly saw something that didn't belong in this nightmare world at all:
A broken metal highway sign, half-buried in the debris.
Flickering.Damaged.Barely readable.
WELCOME TO CHENNAI
For a moment, everything froze.
Why Chennai?Was this earth?His earth?A destroyed version of it?
The shock lasted only a second.
The helix spheres above split open.A blinding white pulse built up.
A blast erupted —
And the entire world detonated into pure white light.