The room was dying.
Not collapsing.
Decaying.
Concrete sloughed off the walls in wet sheets, revealing nothing behind it.
No pipes.
No wiring.
Just a depthless black that swallowed matter without sound.
Yuvraj lay against the wall, useless.
His body didn't respond.
Not paralysis. Override.
SPIRIT ENERGY: 0/100
STATUS: SYSTEM SHOCK ACTIVE
He could breathe.
Barely.
He could see.
Unfortunately.
The whimper came again.
Closer now.
From the corner where the light couldn't decide whether to exist.
A man crawled into view.
Middle-aged.
Balding.
Office shirt soaked with sweat and fear.
Mr. Sharma.
Yuvraj recognized him instantly.
Third floor.
Morning walks.
Always complained about the lift.
Mr. Sharma clutched a small brass idol to his chest like a life raft.
Hands shaking.
Lips bleeding.
"Bhagwan… bhagwan bachao…" he sobbed loudly.
"Please… please…"
The words echoed.
Not acoustically.
Structurally.
The air around him trembled.
Yuvraj's eyes narrowed.
"No," he whispered hoarsely.
"Idiot…"
The System flickered, sluggish but functional.
ALERT:
HIGH DECIBEL CHAOTIC VOCALIZATION DETECTED
RESULT: ENTROPY SPIKE
The walls responded instantly.
Rot accelerated.
Cracks branched toward Mr. Sharma like veins sensing blood.
His prayer wasn't faith.
It was noise.
Unstructured.
Panicked.
Statistically violent.
Each syllable collided with reality at random frequencies, tearing micro-rifts open like bad code.
Yuvraj forced his head to turn.
"Uncle," he croaked.
"Stop."
Mr. Sharma didn't hear him.
Or didn't want to.
"Hanuman ji—" he screamed.
The floor beneath his knees pixelated.
Yuvraj's jaw tightened.
This wasn't religion.
It was feedback.
The universe didn't care what you believed.
It only reacted to input.
"SHUT UP."
The command cut through the chaos.
Flat.
Cold.
Unemotional.
Mr. Sharma froze.
Wide eyes snapped toward Yuvraj.
"W-what?" he stammered.
Yuvraj met his gaze.
No comfort there.
No hope.
"Your god isn't listening, Uncle," Yuvraj said evenly.
"But they are."
Another tremor shook the room.
A section of ceiling simply fell out of existence.
Mr. Sharma screamed again, instinctively.
Yuvraj snarled.
"Do you want to live?" he demanded.
The question landed hard.
Mr. Sharma nodded frantically.
"Then stop praying," Yuvraj said.
"Pick me up. And move."
The idol slipped from Mr. Sharma's fingers, clanging uselessly on the floor.
He stared at it for half a second.
Then grabbed Yuvraj under the arms.
Yuvraj bit back a groan as broken ribs screamed in protest.
"Don't talk," Yuvraj hissed.
"Don't chant. Just breathe."
Mr. Sharma dragged him toward the door.
Behind them, the room failed completely.
The floor dropped away into a digital void.
Pixels unraveling into nothing.
They spilled into the hallway just as the threshold vanished.
The corridor was wrong.
Longer than it should have been.
Bent slightly upward, like a grin.
Doors floated inches off the floor, rotating slowly.
Some opened into brick walls.
Others into empty sky.
Gravity pulled sideways.
Mr. Sharma stumbled, clutching Yuvraj.
"Beta… what is happening?" he whispered.
Yuvraj focused despite the nausea.
Vibrational Parse flickered weakly. Barely functional, but enough.
The building groaned like a dying machine.
"This is what happens," Yuvraj said quietly,
"when reality loses its checksum."
They moved forward.
Each step echoed twice. Once forward, once behind.
At the far end of the corridor,
Light.
A figure emerged.
Khaki uniform.
Helmet.
Police insignia.
A rescue worker.
Mr. Sharma sobbed in relief.
"Police!" he shouted.
"Yahan! Yahan!"
Yuvraj's stomach dropped.
"No," he whispered.
Vibrational Parse spiked painfully.
The figure's boots made sound.
But
No secondary vibration.
No rhythmic pulse.
No heartbeat.
Yuvraj stared at the man's chest.
Flat.
Still.
Too still.
The System pulsed once, reluctantly.
ANOMALY IDENTIFIED
ENTITY CLASS: RAKSHASA MIMIC VARIANT
The policeman smiled.
Too wide.
Too practiced.
"Sir," it said warmly,
"you're safe now."
Yuvraj closed his eyes.
Because now he knew,
The universe wasn't broken.
It was lying.