The incident didn't happen on campus.
That alone made it worse.
Arav felt it halfway through the day — a faint pressure in the back of his skull, like a headache that hadn't decided whether to hurt yet.
He paused mid-step in the corridor.
Tiku noticed immediately. "Nope. I don't like that face. That's the face you make before something illegal happens."
"I'm fine," Arav said automatically.
He wasn't.
The sensation wasn't fear. Not danger.
It was… displacement.
Something was out of alignment.
By evening, the reports started circulating quietly.
A metro delay. A power fluctuation. A "medical emergency" near the old service tunnels beneath the city.
Civil explanations.
Arav recognized the pattern.
"They're hiding something," Ira said that night, scrolling through footage on her laptop. "No eyewitness accounts. No usable videos. Everything glitches at the same timestamp."
Arav leaned over her shoulder.
A single frame caught his attention.
A ripple in the air.
Barely visible.
Like heat distortion — except it bent light inward.
"That's not a malfunction," he said.
Ira glanced at him. "You know what it is."
"Yes."
"Then say it."
He hesitated.
"A fracture," he said finally. "Not a full Gate. Something trying to form."
Tiku groaned from the bed. "Fantastic. The city is developing cracks."
The pressure spiked.
Arav straightened sharply.
"This isn't staying contained."
Ira closed her laptop. "Where?"
"Under the metro line," Arav replied. "Service tunnels. Old infrastructure. Low visibility."
She didn't argue.
That scared him more than if she had.
The tunnels smelled like rust and damp concrete.
Emergency lights cast uneven shadows across the walls, turning pipes into skeletal shapes. The air felt thick — not heavy, but resistant, like walking through water.
Arav slowed.
"This is wrong," Tiku whispered. "Even ghosts need better ventilation."
They reached the access junction.
The fracture pulsed weakly ahead — a warped patch of space no wider than a doorframe, flickering in and out of focus.
Not open.
Not closed.
Unstable.
Something moved inside it.
Arav felt the pull at his core, low and grounding.
He stepped forward.
"Wait," Ira said quietly.
He stopped.
"What if this isn't something you're supposed to handle alone?" she asked.
He met her eyes.
"What if no one else is coming?"
That answer sat between them, unspoken.
A sound came from the fracture — not a roar, not a scream.
A breath.
Wrong rhythm.
The fracture spasmed.
Arav raised his hand instinctively.
Too late.
The space folded inward, collapsing with a sharp crack.
The pressure vanished.
Silence followed.
Then—
Movement behind them.
Boots on concrete.
Measured. Unhurried.
Arav turned.
Rudra Dhawan stood at the tunnel entrance, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable.
"You're early," Rudra said.
"You're late," Arav replied.
Rudra's gaze flicked to the collapsed fracture. "So it closed on its own."
"No," Arav said. "It was pulled back."
"Interesting."
Ira stepped forward. "You knew this would happen."
Rudra didn't deny it.
"I knew it might," he said. "That's why I watched who showed up."
Tiku stared at him. "Do all your plans involve almost killing civilians?"
Rudra considered that. "Only the ones that work."
Arav felt something snap — not anger, not fear.
Resolve.
"You're using these incidents," Arav said. "To see who acts."
"Yes."
"And if someone dies?"
Rudra met his gaze evenly. "Then the system adjusts its tolerance."
The words landed like a blow.
"That's not responsibility," Arav said.
Rudra smiled faintly. "That's reality."
A beat.
Then, softer: "The difference between you and me is simple, Malhotra."
"What?"
"I step toward the fault lines," Rudra said. "You try to hold them together."
He turned to leave.
"Decide which one you are," he added. "Before the fractures decide for you."
His footsteps faded.
The tunnel felt emptier without him.
Inside Arav's chest, something shifted — not opening, not closing.
Aligning.
Instability Threshold Updated
Fracture Events : No longer Isolated
No instructions followed.
No warnings.
Just the quiet certainty that the city wasn't cracking randomly anymore.
It was responding.
And Arav was standing on the fault line.