The headache didn't feel physical.
That was how Arav knew it wasn't his.
It arrived without warning — a slow tightening behind his eyes, like someone adjusting a lens that didn't belong to him.
He stopped walking.
The campus looked the same.
Trees.
Students.
Noise.
But something about the edges of things felt… wrong.
Too sharp.
Too aware.
Ira noticed immediately.
"You're drifting," she said quietly.
"I'm focused," Arav replied.
"No," she said. "You're elsewhere."
That was closer to the truth.
The pressure intensified as they reached the open quad.
Voices overlapped strangely — not louder, but layered. Conversations seemed to echo against themselves, repeating fragments half a second late.
Arav pressed his fingers to his temple.
This wasn't grounding failure.
This was interpretation overload.
Ajna strain — though he didn't have the word for it yet.
Tiku squinted around.
"Is it just me, or does reality feel like it's buffering?"
Arav almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Ira stopped.
She stared at a notice board.
Not because of what was posted.
But because of what wasn't.
"There should be a flyer here," she said slowly.
"What flyer?" Tiku asked.
Ira's brow furrowed. "I don't know. But I know it was important."
The pressure spiked.
Arav staggered.
For a brief, terrifying moment, he saw two versions of the quad overlay each other.
In one, everything was calm.
In the other, shadows didn't line up.
And in that second version—
Someone was standing far too close.
Not fully there.
Not absent.
Watching.
Arav didn't turn.
If he did, he knew he wouldn't see her.
But he felt her attention settle — not heavy, not cold.
Curious.
Evaluative.
The pressure behind his eyes sharpened, then steadied.
A thought surfaced — not forced.
You're misaligned.
Arav inhaled sharply.
"I know," he whispered.
Ira looked at him. "What?"
"Nothing," he said. "Not yet."
The system stayed silent.
That silence was deliberate.
Whatever this was, it didn't register as interference.
It registered as perspective.
Ira blinked suddenly.
"Did you just hear that?" she asked.
Tiku frowned. "Hear what?"
She hesitated. "Someone… correcting me. Not out loud. Just—"
She trailed off, shaken.
Arav's pulse quickened.
This wasn't just reaching him anymore.
The pressure receded as quickly as it came.
The quad snapped back into alignment.
Voices returned to normal.
The headache eased, leaving behind a dull afterimage.
Arav exhaled slowly.
Too slowly.
That night, alone, he tested his senses carefully.
Not grounding.
Not scanning.
Just perceiving.
The pressure returned — lighter this time.
Controlled.
And with it, a single, precise understanding:
You can't fight control by stabilizing what's already decided.
Arav clenched his fists.
"So what do I do?" he asked the empty room.
The answer didn't come in words.
It came as an absence — a space where choice hadn't been framed yet.
Opportunity.
Elsewhere, Devavrata Rathod paused mid-report.
He felt the spike.
Brief.
Subtle.
Ajna-spectrum.
He closed the file without finishing it.
"That's too early," he murmured.
Rudra Dhawan felt it too — and laughed softly.
"Oh," he said. "She's getting impatient."
Arav lay awake long after midnight.
The pressure behind his eyes lingered.
Not painful.
Not helpful.
Just… present.
For the first time, he understood the real danger of perception-based power:
It didn't ask permission.
It didn't announce itself.
It simply changed what seemed true.
And once that happened—
Even grounding couldn't save you.