The sky blinked at exactly 7:43 PM.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically.
It blinked.
One moment, Aarav was standing on the cracked rooftop of his apartment building, watching the city hum beneath him like a restless machine, and the nexteverything went black. Not night-black. Not cloud-black. Something deeper. Like the universe had shut its eyes.
Then it reopened.
The stars were wrong.
Aarav stumbled back, gripping the rusted railing. The constellations he'd memorized as a kid were… rearranged. Not shiftedreplaced. The moon was slightly too large, too close, like a badly edited photo.
His phone buzzed violently in his pocket.
He pulled it out.
NO SIGNAL.
NO TIME DATA.
EMERGENCY MODE ACTIVE.
"What the hell…" he whispered.
Below him, the city had gone silent. No horns. No chatter. No dogs barking. Even the wind had paused, like it was waiting for instructions.
Then a scream.
Not human.
Metallic. Torn. As if sound itself had been ripped.
Aarav spun around. Across the skyline, something flickeredlike a tear in reality. A vertical crack of glowing white, pulsing gently.
And then it vanished.
His phone vibrated again.
A new notification appeared, from an app he had never installed.
THE ARCHIVE
You witnessed the glitch.
That means you are now relevant.
Do not panic.
Panic corrupts timelines.
Aarav laughed weakly. "Yeah, sure. I'm dreaming."
He pinched himself.
Hard.
Nothing changed.
The message continued typing, letter by letter.
Your name is Aarav Patel.
You are 19 years, 4 months, and 11 days old.
You will die in 87 years, 2 days, and 4 hoursif nothing interferes.
His throat went dry.
Something has already interfered.
The sky blinked again.
This time, the moon split.
Not exploded. Splitlike a reflection shattering in slow motion. The air rippled. Buildings bent slightly, like they were made of rubber.
Aarav fell to his knees.
"What is happening to my world?" he whispered.
The phone vibrated.
Your world is not singular.
It never was.
The crack reappeared.
Closer.
Right above the street below.
A shape stepped out of it.
Humanoidmostly. Too tall. Limbs slightly too long. Its surface shimmered like liquid glass.
People were emerging from buildings now, confused, pointing, shouting.
The thing tilted its head.
And then reality screamed.
Everything within a fifty-meter radius of the creature began to… fold. Cars twisted into abstract shapes. Streetlights bent like melting candles. A man froze mid-run, his face stretching like wet paint.
Aarav scrambled backward.
"No. No, no, no"
Entity classification: Fracture-Walker.
Threat Level: Cataclysmic.
"Cataclysmic?!" Aarav yelled. "That's not comforting!"
You have been selected as a Witness Candidate.
"Why me?!"
Because you ask questions when reality breaks.
The creature raised its arm.
The world cracked.
Aarav screamed.
And then
He was somewhere else.
Not falling. Not standing.
Floating.
Surrounded by infinite black, streaked with glowing lines like veins of light.
A massive structure loomed before himan endless library spiraling into infinity. Books, screens, holograms, spinning cubes of data. Entire memories floating like planets.
A voice spoke. Not aloud. Inside him.
"Welcome to the Archive."
A figure formedhuman in shape, but translucent, filled with moving stars.
"Am I dead?" Aarav asked.
"No."
"Am I insane?"
"Possibly. But not about this."
Aarav laughed hysterically. "Of course."
The figure extended a hand.
"Your universe has begun to fracture."
"What does that mean?"
"Time is leaking. Realities are overlapping. Things that should never meet… will."
Aarav thought of the creature. The screaming buildings.
"So that thing was from another world?"
"From another version of yours."
"…What?"
The figure waved its hand.
Images flooded his mindcountless Earths. Some burning. Some utopian. Some alien. Some ruled by machines. Some where humans never evolved.
And in many of them
Aarav existed.
Different faces. Different lives. Different deaths.
"You're telling me… I'm not special."
"Incorrect."
The figure leaned closer.
"You are irrelevant."
"…Thanks?"
"Which makes you invisible to fate."
Aarav frowned.
"Meaning?"
"You can move between broken realities without being erased."
Silence.
Then: "So what? I'm some kind of multiverse janitor now?"
"No."
A pause.
"You are a Witness."
"What do Witnesses do?"
The figure's stars darkened.
"They remember what the universe tries to forget."
The Archive trembled.
A massive shockwave rippled through the endless space.
The figure turned.
"They have found you."
"Who?!"
"The Architects."
Suddenly, alarmsif alarms could exist in a place like thisechoed through the Archive. Red symbols flared in the air.
MULTIVERSAL BREACH DETECTED
Aarav's body began to glow.
"Waitwhat's happening to me?!"
"You are being returned."
"Returned where?!"
"To a broken world."
The figure pushed him.
Aarav screamed
And fell back into his body.
The rooftop.
The night.
The wrong stars.
But now
There were glowing symbols floating in the air.
And in his mind, a voice whispered:
"Witness Protocol: Active."
Aarav looked at his hands.
They were shaking.
And faintly
They were glowing.