You decide to seek him.
The nights grow strange—dreams bleed into your days. Isha can no longer open her shop without the books whispering other titles. Chiku loses feathers in his sleep. You are unraveling... but you're also learning how to sew.
The keychain burns one morning. Not with heat, but longing. One of the charms—a cracked mirror shard—begins humming with a melody you don't recognize… until you do. The violin from the rooftop. The riot lullaby. The saffron desert march.
It's all the same song. Fragmented across timelines. And you're finally ready to follow it.
You brew nothing. You chant nothing. You simply listen.
And then—you're there.
A nowhere-place between timelines, stitched together from fading chai steam and burnt notes. Samar waits, not as a villain, not as a boy with answers. Just… Samar. His eyes are tired. His hand trembles as it holds a teacup cracked exactly in half.
> "We shouldn't remember this much," he says. "It wasn't meant to be lived all at once."
You sit beside him. Silence. Then you whisper:
> "But if we do… maybe we don't have to break alone."
He looks at you—truly looks. Like he finally sees you in every version.
And for the first time in any timeline, you don't drink to forget, or escape, or unlock. You drink to forgive.