The silence was a warm, familiar blanket — not empty, not hollow, but alive in its stillness. It was the kind of silence Vikas had only ever found on slow, golden mornings like this one, wrapped in sunbeams and the muffled hum of a world just beginning to stir.
He blinked into the soft light pouring through his bedroom window. His sheets were twisted at his feet, a knot of fabric as if he'd been fighting some unseen thing in his dreams. Dust drifted lazily through the sunbeam that cut across the room, and the air smelled faintly of old wood, paper, and the trace of rain that had seeped into the walls overnight.
For a moment, he floated in the calm.
And then memory slammed into him like ice water.
The warehouse.The silence.Sam — lying still, eyes wide, unmoving.
Vikas sat bolt upright, his breath catching. His heart thundered in his chest, but the world around him remained unbearably ordinary.
Too ordinary.
His room was exactly as it always was: the lopsided shelf sagging under the weight of paperbacks, some finished, many abandoned; the creaky floorboard by the closet that no one else seemed to notice; the framed photo of him and Sam at ten years old, both grinning with mud-splattered faces after a soccer game. The photo's glass had a faint crack running diagonally across it, bisecting Sam's smile, and the sight of it stabbed something deep inside Vikas.
Nothing was wrong.Everything was wrong.
He pulled on his clothes with mechanical precision — shirt, jeans, scuffed sneakers. He tied his frayed laces slowly, as if dragging out the ritual could delay what came next. Each movement whispered a lie to him: It was a dream. Just a dream.
But the lie frayed the moment he stepped outside.
Because there was Sam.
Waiting at the end of the street, tossing a rock up and down, Buddy wagging at his side. His figure was framed by golden morning light, his grin as easy as ever.
"Morning," Sam called, casual as breath. "You're late."
The words landed like thunder in Vikas's mind. Not just familiar — identical. The same voice, the same cadence, the same pause before the tease.
"By thirty seconds," Vikas whispered, his voice barely audible.
Sam cocked his head. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Vikas stared. Every detail was heartbreakingly alive — Sam's hair, forever unruly, as if he'd rolled straight out of bed and into the world; the hoodie too big for his frame, sleeves shoved up his arms; dirt under his fingernails like always, because Sam had a way of finding trouble even before breakfast.
The dread crept back in. This wasn't a dream. This was a loop. A cycle. And Sam was at the center of it.
"I'm fine," Vikas forced out, voice steadier than he felt. "Forget the town today. Let's head out to the farm, past the city line. Walk Buddy. Just… hang out."
Sam blinked, momentarily thrown off by the change. Their Saturdays always drifted toward the edges of danger, toward abandoned buildings and half-remembered ruins. He looked at Vikas strangely, then shrugged, his grin returning.
"Sure. Farm it is. Haunted houses can wait."
They set off, footsteps falling into sync like they always did. Sam filled the air with chatter — about a ridiculous movie he'd watched last night, about his brother's constant nagging, about how Buddy had stolen his toast right off his plate that morning.
Vikas barely spoke. He let Sam's voice wash over him, clinging to it, memorizing it, like someone memorizing a song they feared they'd never hear again.
The road wound past familiar places. A crooked tree, scarred with old carvings. Sam stopped, pointing.
"Remember this?" he asked. The faded 'S + V' was still visible in the bark, weathered by seasons.
"You made me climb half the tree just so you could carve it," Vikas murmured, smiling despite himself. "Then you fell five minutes later."
"And still walked away cooler than you," Sam shot back, grinning wide.
They laughed together, though Vikas's laugh was thinner, fragile at the edges. He wanted to hold onto the sound, to cage it, to never let it go.
By the time they reached the farm, the sun had risen fully, gilding the fields in light. Wheat swayed like a sea of gold, stretching endlessly. Wildflowers dotted the edges, bright and unbothered. The old oak tree stood at the heart of the field, its branches stretched like open arms.
Buddy bolted into the expanse, his joy uncontainable, bounding after scents only he understood. His bark echoed in the wide open space, pure and unfiltered.
For a while, Vikas almost believed. Believed that this detour had worked, that he had outsmarted whatever cruel pattern had tangled him. That Sam was safe, because they had chosen another path.
But then it came.
Not a sound. Not a shadow. Just… wrongness.
It pressed into the world like a breath held too long. The air thinned. Light bent strangely, as though reality itself had a flaw in its glass.
Vikas blinked. The farm flickered — just for an instant. Like a film reel skipping. In that flicker, he saw a sky torn open, black and endless, a void that pulsed like a heartbeat. And behind it, something vast and patient, watching.
Then silence.
Buddy froze mid-run. His joyful bark cut off like a rope snapped clean. He turned toward nothing, his body rigid, a guttural growl ripping from his throat. The sound was primal, desperate.
"Sam," Vikas whispered. His mouth was dry, his pulse hammering. "Don't—"
But Sam was already gone.
One heartbeat he was there, standing at Vikas's side. The next — absence. No flash. No scream. Just empty space where he had been.
Vikas's legs gave out, the soil hard beneath him. His hands dug into the earth as if he could claw his way back to Sam, drag him from whatever abyss had swallowed him.
"Sam!" His scream tore raw from his throat. "SAM!"
The fields gave no answer. No echo, no trace. Only Buddy's broken whimpering, circling the empty space where his master should have been.
And then—
Silence.
Warmth.
Sunlight.
The ceiling of his bedroom.
Saturday morning.
Vikas opened his eyes to the same room, unchanged. The creak in the floorboard. The leaning shelf. The photograph with the crack through Sam's smile.
But Vikas was not unchanged.
He lay there, the truth pressing into his chest like stone:
No matter what he did…Sam was going to die.