Saturday Night — Rakshita's Room
Rakshita read the note under her nightlamp's soft glow, eyes narrowing as the meaning sank in:
"Hey, let's do an experiment... what if we don't sleep at all?"
She tapped the paper, half-annoyed, half-intrigued.
"No swap? Ugh. I was looking forward to his dumb notes and dumber spice disasters."
She tossed herself on the bed and muttered to the ceiling, "Fine. Science before drama."
But staying up was harder than she thought.
By 2 a.m., Rakshita was painting her nails.
By 3 a.m., she was binge-watching anime reruns, legs curled under her, eyes blinking hard.
By 4:30 a.m., she was singing loudly with a hairbrush mic to fight off sleep.
At 5:00, she stared blankly at her reflection.
"Is this what madness feels like?" she whispered, laughing at herself.
Meanwhile — Saharsh's Room
Saharsh had his own war with sleep.
Energy drinks. Loud music. A screwdriver twirling between fingers.
He tried assembling a hover drone from what he learned in Rakshita's techy world. It hovered for 2 seconds — then crashed dramatically into the wall.
"Okay, science hates me," he muttered.
He doodled. Did push-ups. Even re-read her older notes — and smiled.
But by dawn, both of them — on two Earths, worlds apart — were barely holding on.
Sleep clawed at them like a storm.
"Just five minutes…" Saharsh whispered, eyelids fluttering.
Rakshita rubbed her eyes, barely upright. "Just… blinking…"
And then… nothing.
And suddenly — a loud boom.
Silent. But loud. Felt, not heard.
Both of them jolted.
A weight pulled at their chests — not pain, but pressure. Like gravity... cracking.
Their surroundings wavered.
A sharp chill ran down their spines as their rooms blurred, walls melting into shadows. They weren't asleep — they knew they weren't asleep.
But something was pulling them.
Something was swapping them anyway.
A black mist — like a cloak of shadow and static — coiled around their beds. It wrapped them slowly, like the universe was making a decision... and then snatching them away.
They didn't fall asleep. But they were taken.
They didn't blink out. But they disappeared.
(Change below this only according to upside and our previous chats about story)
Rakshita's Room
When the black mist lifted, Saharsh found himself standing in Rakshita's room — again. Familiar lavender sheets. Incense-scented air. That same soft light from the corner lamp.
It should have felt comforting.
But instead, it felt wrong.
His knees buckled slightly as the memory of the black mist flashed behind his eyes.
What was that?
His heart raced as questions stormed his mind:
What kind of sick game is this?
Is the universe... broken?
Was that black energy even real?
Is this some cosmic glitch, or something older — something watching?
He stood frozen for minutes, then slowly crawled into bed and wrapped himself tightly in her blanket. No notes, no jokes, no clever lines.
Just fear.
And before he could make sense of anything, sleep caught up to him — heavier than ever.
Saharsh's Room
Rakshita blinked into existence on Saharsh's bed, breath caught in her throat.
She looked around, heart pounding. Her vision spun.
She was back in his room.
But they hadn't slept.
The swap still happened.
Her fingers trembled as she grabbed Saharsh's blanket and curled into it like a scared child. For once, the mess around her didn't matter. Not the socks, not the wires — only the overwhelming fear still crawling under her skin.
"I hate him," she whispered shakily. "Why did he suggest this stupid experiment?"
But her voice cracked.
Because truth was — she didn't hate him.
She was just scared. Terrified.
She buried herself deeper into the blanket, trying to pretend none of it happened.
It should've been Saharsh here, not just his blanket.
His notes. His dumb doodles. His bad poetry.
Maybe he looked at her gallery once — but he never said anything about it.
Maybe he was too polite. Or too shy.
She smiled weakly at that thought.
Then frowned.
Then buried her head back into the pillow and whispered:
"Please... let it be Sunday again next week. Just the normal kind."
And slowly, in that cocoon of denial and distraction, she drifted to sleep.
Later That Sunday — Rakshita's Room
Saharsh stirred in bed, eyes fluttering open under the soft red glow of Rakshita's world. It wasn't the first time he'd woken here — but today felt different.
He didn't get up.
He didn't even reach for a note or scan the room.
He just rolled over, letting the blanket tighten around him like a cocoon.
His thoughts swirled — heavy with what had happened hours ago. The black mist. The feeling of being taken. The fact that they'd swapped even without sleep.
"We broke the rule... and the universe didn't care."
But more than fear, what lingered now was something else.
Rakshita.
Her blanket. Her pillow. Her world.
The only reason he wasn't panicking right now was because he knew she existed on the other side of all this — probably wrapped in his blanket the same way.
He sighed, his hand lazily tracing invisible lines on her bedsheet.
"What are we even caught in? And why does it scare me a little less just knowing it's you too?"
He didn't get up. Didn't cook. Didn't explore.
He just lay there, thinking of her.
Saharsh's Room — That Same Time
Rakshita opened her eyes slowly, her face half buried in his pillow. The afternoon sun peeked through the blinds in scattered lines.
She didn't move.
Didn't speak.
The events of the morning were still fresh, like residue stuck on her skin. That weight. That black mist. The way it pulled her through the layers of reality like she was nothing but a puppet on strings.
And yet, here she was.
In his room.
Again.
Her fingers gripped his blanket tighter. She didn't want to get up — not because she was lazy, but because the comfort she felt here was the only thing keeping the fear from crawling back under her skin.
She rolled onto her side, facing the wall.
"Is this even safe anymore?" she thought.
"Are we part of something bigger than us now?"
Then, just like Saharsh, her mind circled back.
To him.
To his stupid handwriting and that ridiculous paratha doodle he'd left once. To the way his poetry was raw and kind of bad but also real in a way most people never were.
She didn't know what they were. Not yet.
But she knew this: if she had to go through this strange cosmic rollercoaster, she didn't want to do it alone.
And right now, he was the only one who understood.
She reached for the sticky notes on his desk, her hand pausing midair — then pulling back.
Not yet.
Today, maybe no jokes. No questions.
Just... the quiet acknowledgment that they were both still here.
Still alive.
Still in this together.
She let herself drift back into stillness, her body curled into the warmth of his blanket.
"Just let next week be normal," she whispered. "Please."
Later That Evening — In Their Respective Rooms
Eventually, the silence got too loud.
So both of them — on different Earths but the same wavelength — picked up a pen.
Saharsh wrote:
"Okay. That was... new.
Apparently, sleep isn't required anymore. Cool. Terrifying. Thanks, universe."
"I was awake. Fully. The mist didn't care.
Either we triggered something, or something else was always watching."
"I'm not sure what we're part of anymore.
But if you're still with me in this, I'll keep showing up too."
He doodled a tiny mist cloud looking annoyed, with arms crossed.
Rakshita wrote:
"Whatever happened today... it wasn't natural.
The swap didn't feel like ours anymore — like someone else pulled the strings."
"Saharsh, please.
Let next Sunday be normal.
We can chase answers after that."
"Let's just be two people, in two rooms, with one weird connection."
Then, just as her nerves began to calm, she wrote:
"P.S. I hope you didn't peek into my gallery.
I didn't open yours — though it was VERY tempting.
I expect applause for my self-control."
She added a doodle of a lock emoji and a warning sign labeled: "Emotional Stuff Inside — Do Not Trespass."