1 — The Certificate
Raj Verma didn't expect to cry on the day he finally completed his degree.
He stood outside the college administrative block, the cheap laminated certificate still warm between his fingers. It wasn't fancy. No gold embossing. No grand signature. No proud parent waiting beside him to take pictures. Just his name, centered in plain type:
Raj Verma — Bachelor of Commerce.
He exhaled once, long and shaky. Dad… I did it.
The Mumbai heat pressed against him, humid and sticky, but the rush inside his chest felt cold—like relief cracking through something heavy. His father's last words had been simple:
"Beta… just finish your studies. Whatever you do after… I'll be proud."
Six months ago, Raj stood in the hospital corridor, listening to the flatline that took his father away. His mother had died long earlier, when he was too young to hold more than blurry memories of her face. For most of his life, it had been just him and Dad—one working late shifts, the other growing up too early.
He blinked fast and wiped his eyes with the heel of his palm. No point crying. He had classes to settle, part-time shifts to manage, and rent due on Monday. Today wasn't supposed to be dramatic.
He started walking, weaving through the crowd, certificate tucked into his backpack with the care of something fragile. The college gate faded behind him as he stepped onto the busy street—horns blaring, vendors shouting, auto-rickshaws swerving like they were allergic to lanes.
He adjusted the bag strap. "Let's go home…" he muttered.
He didn't know home was only forty seconds left.
2 — The Water Tank
The road smelled of rain from the morning shower. The sky was clear now, just heat shimmering over the asphalt. Raj stepped around a puddle as two municipal workers shouted near a building across the lane. They were yelling something about a crane malfunction—but the noise of traffic drowned the words.
Raj didn't look. He didn't need more chaos today.
He exhaled, rolled his shoulders, and turned toward the lane that led to his rented room. Two more turns, a broken streetlight, a chai stall on the corner, and—
A shadow passed over him.
A massive one.
Raj frowned and glanced upward.
A 400-liter plastic water tank was falling from the fifth floor, spinning wildly, sunlight flashing off its metal rings. Someone screamed. Raj's brain froze—his legs too slow, too shocked, too human.
…Seriously?
Today?
He didn't even have the right to swear before—
CRASH.
Pain didn't even register. Just a blunt flash of white and the sound of everything ending.
3 — The Seven Minutes
Time didn't slow. It shattered.
Raj's consciousness snapped loose, sucked backward like a tape rewinding. Scenes flickered in a stuttering cascade—sharp, bright, too fast:
Dad packing his lunch.
Raj studying under a flickering bulb.
His first day of college.
His first rejected assignment.
The part-time job delivering parcels.
His exam hall.
His father coughing blood.
The hospital corridor.
The certificate.
The water tank.
His life spun around him, stripped of weight and meaning, and all he felt was an absurd, bitter laugh rising—
Is this it? This is the climax? Getting flattened by a tank on degree day?
Seven minutes stretched into something eternal and suffocating.
Then:
A thump.
A breath.
A heartbeat restarting somewhere it didn't belong.
4 — The Room That Wasn't His
Raj jolted upright.
His lungs burned as if he'd been drowning. His vision blurred and then cleared, revealing—
Not the street.
Not the tank.
Not even a hospital.
An old room.
A very old room.
He blinked rapidly. The ceiling was wooden, darkened with age. A whirring fan hung from a long rod, rotating lazily, making a soft tak-tak-tak sound whenever the blade grazed the metal cover. The walls were faded yellow, the plaster cracked at the corners.
A single window let in thin daylight—weak and pale, nothing like the sharp sun he'd seen seconds ago.
"What… where…" Raj croaked, his voice hoarse.
He sat up abruptly—and froze.
His hands didn't look like his.
They were slightly rougher, thicker, with a faint tan. Not the thin, pale fingers from years of night shifts and textbooks.
He looked down. The clothes were different too: an old cotton vest and loose shorts, both noticeably out of fashion. Extremely out of fashion.
Raj swallowed hard.
He stood slowly, the wooden floor creaking under his weight. The air smelled of agarbatti and old newspapers. The room looked like something from the late 1980s.
He opened the drawer of the dusty dressing table. A newspaper lay inside.
Mumbai Bulletin - February 14, 1987.
Raj's stomach dropped.
His breath caught.
Nineteen eighty-seven.
Thirty-eight years before his diploma ceremony.
"What kind of horrible post-death prank is this…" he whispered.
His chest tightened, panic creeping in. He moved to the small mirror hanging on the wall.
A face stared back.
Not Raj Verma.
Someone older—around early 20s. Sharp jaw. Wide brows. Curly hair. A faint scar near the chin.
"Who…" Raj touched the reflection, his fingers trembling. "Who is this?"
That's when it appeared.
A soft, electronic ping echoed in the air—though no device existed in the room.
Raj spun around.
Floating inches above the ground was a translucent blue virtual screen, rectangular, glowing faintly. Like a UI from a futuristic game awkwardly inserted into the 80s.
The text typed itself out in cheery animation:
[ Good Morning, Host! ☀️ ]
Raj stared.
Another line popped in—bouncing slightly like it was excited.
[ Welcome to your new life! ]
Raj blinked.
Twice.
A third line appeared, confetti emojis exploding across the interface:
[ Name Loaded: Rajendra Shakuniya ]
His breath stalled.
Rajendra… Shakuniya…?
A fourth line:
[ Timeline Loaded: Mumbai, Maharashtra — 1987 ]
A fifth, with an absurdly cheerful font:
[ Let's rule the world together! ✨ ]
Raj's brain threw in the towel.
He fainted cleanly, collapsing onto the wooden floor with a hollow thud.
The screen hovered a moment, blinking innocently.
Then it added one last, almost apologetic line:
[ Host? …Oh. ]
Fade to black.