Arav woke up knowing something was wrong.
Not pain.
Pain he understood.
This was absence.
He shifted slightly on the bed—and felt nothing respond the way it should.
No resistance.
No grounding pull.
No quiet sense of down.
The world felt… unanchored.
He sat up too quickly.
The room tilted.
Not spun—tilted, as if gravity had forgotten where to settle.
Arav grabbed the edge of the bed, breath sharp.
"That's not dizziness," he muttered. "That's—"
The floor dipped.
Just a fraction.
Enough.
Ira was there instantly.
"Arav," she said, steady but tight. "Don't move."
He looked at her, trying to focus.
Her outline wavered—not visually, but perceptually, like his mind was struggling to place her in space.
"I can't feel it," he said quietly.
"Feel what?"
"The ground," Arav replied. "It's not answering."
He tried to ground.
Reflex.
Habit.
Desperation.
Nothing came back.
No resistance.
No stabilizing echo.
Just a hollow lag, like calling into a tunnel that no longer reflected sound.
Panic flared—then died.
This wasn't panic territory.
This was systemic failure.
Inside his head, the system responded at last.
Not calmly.
Not gently.
Mooladhara Response: Non-Functional
Grounding Capacity: Compromised
Stability Threshold: Breached
No recommendations followed.
That absence was louder than any alarm.
Tiku hovered near the doorway, pale.
"Bade Baba," he said softly, "you look like the floor offended you personally."
Arav almost smiled.
Almost.
"When I ground," Arav said, voice steady despite the tilt in his vision, "I rely on resistance. Something to push back against."
"And now?" Ira asked.
"And now," Arav said, swallowing, "there's nothing there."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed.
The moment his feet touched the floor, the room lurched violently.
Not falling.
Disconnecting.
Arav hit the ground hard, breath knocked out of him.
Pain exploded through his spine—but underneath it was something worse.
Disorientation without anchor.
Up felt optional.
Down felt negotiable.
Ira dropped to her knees beside him.
"Arav, stop. Please."
"I have to know," he said through clenched teeth. "If this is permanent."
The system logged the impact.
Cold.
Final.
Root Failure Confirmed
Recovery Probability: Low
Arav lay there, chest heaving.
So that was it.
The thing he'd relied on since the beginning—the quiet certainty that something would hold—was gone.
Devavrata Rathod arrived an hour later.
He didn't speak at first.
He watched Arav try to sit, fail, and finally remain still.
Then he nodded once.
"You grounded against a collapsing decision," Devavrata said. "The root isn't meant to absorb uncertainty at that scale."
"So what now?" Arav asked.
Devavrata's answer was immediate.
"You stop anchoring reality," he said. "Or reality finishes breaking you."
Ira rounded on him. "That's it? That's your solution?"
"No," Devavrata replied calmly. "That's his constraint."
Arav stared at the ceiling.
No grounding.
No anchor.
No safety net.
He felt lighter than he should have.
Unmoored.
Terrified.
And underneath it all—
Something else stirred.
Not at the base of his spine.
Higher.
Sharper.
Watching.
Far away, Rudra Dhawan exhaled slowly when he read the report.
"Well," he said. "The floor's gone."
He smiled.
"Now he has to learn how to fall."
Arav closed his eyes.
For the first time since the fractures began, he had no stable ground to stand on.
Only air.
And the horrifying realization that whatever came next would require him to move without support.