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CHAPTER 18 — THE DAY CONTINUED ANYWAY
Morning still arrived.
That alone unsettled Arjun.
Sunlight slipped through the curtains like it always did, landing on the cracked wall near his bed. The world hadn't frozen. Time hadn't stopped. Birds still argued outside his window.
If gods had stopped answering, reality clearly hadn't received the memo.
Arjun got ready for work.
He brushed his teeth.
Buttoned his shirt.
Checked his wallet.
Routine was armor. Thin, but familiar.
NORMAL LIFE (ON THE SURFACE)
The office smelled like stale air and printer ink.
Arjun sat at his desk, logged into his system, and stared at rows of data he'd stopped truly seeing weeks ago. Around him, coworkers complained about deadlines, tea breaks, and management.
"Did you hear?" a colleague whispered. "The lift stopped between floors yesterday. For ten minutes."
"So?" someone replied.
"There was no power cut."
Arjun's fingers paused above the keyboard.
Ten minutes was too long.
At lunch, he stood in line at the canteen, tray in hand.
Rice. Dal. Vegetables.
Normal food. Normal hunger.
Yet when the server placed the ladle down, her hand trembled.
"You okay?" Arjun asked.
She smiled too quickly. "Yes. Just tired."
But her eyes kept flicking upward—toward the ceiling fan.
It was rotating too slowly.
THE FIRST INCIDENT
It happened at 2:17 PM.
The scream didn't come from far.
It came from the stairwell.
Chairs scraped back. People stood. Someone laughed nervously.
"Drama again," a man muttered.
Arjun was already moving.
ACTION — NOT A FIGHT, A FAILURE
On the stairwell landing, a man lay collapsed, clutching his chest.
Mid-forties. Office ID still hanging from his neck.
Alive.
But wrong.
His eyes were open, unfocused, staring at nothing.
A woman knelt beside him, crying. "He was praying," she said incoherently. "He said his chest hurt and started praying. He always prays when he panics."
Arjun felt the mark flare.
The eye opened.
And froze.
PRAYER ROUTE: INVALID
TARGET: UNRESPONSIVE
FALLBACK: NONE AVAILABLE
The man's lips moved.
Soundlessly.
Still praying.
Still believing.
But there was no endpoint anymore.
Arjun knelt, placed two fingers against the man's wrist.
The pulse was there.
Weak.
Looping.
The echo pressure built—thick, suffocating.
If this continued, the man wouldn't die.
He would stall.
A living echo.
That was worse.
THE DECISION
Arjun closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered—not to the man, but to what the man believed in.
He pressed his palm lightly against the man's chest.
The mark burned.
Not execution.
Not judgment.
Termination of unresolved permission.
The pressure snapped.
The man gasped sharply, like he'd been underwater.
Then—he cried.
Not from pain.
From confusion.
"I couldn't hear Him," the man sobbed. "I was doing it right. I swear I was—"
Paramedics arrived minutes later.
To everyone else, it looked like a panic attack.
To Arjun, it felt like he'd just torn out a support beam.
AFTERMATH
Back at his desk, Arjun stared at his screen.
His hands shook.
Across the office, someone laughed at a meme.
Life went on.
That was the real horror.
RUDRA'S WARNING
That evening, Rudra met him on the street.
"You intervened," Rudra said calmly.
"I stabilized," Arjun replied.
Rudra's expression hardened. "You replaced a god for six seconds."
Arjun stopped walking.
"That's impossible."
Rudra leaned closer. "That's what the Throne is afraid of."
That night, Arjun checked his palm.
Beneath the eye—
a new mark had appeared. A symbol.
A counter.
AUTHORITY INTERVENTIONS: 1
And somewhere, something ancient noticed the number increase.