It had been raining long enough that the city had stopped reacting to it.
Not complaining.
Not adapting.
Just incorporating it, the way a body accepts pain once it realizes resistance is pointless.
Aarav Sen stood at his window and counted the seconds between thunder he couldn't hear and lightning he could. The gaps didn't stay consistent. Sometimes the flash arrived before the sky brightened. Sometimes the light lingered, like it was waiting for permission to leave.
He checked his watch.
7:39 a.m.
He had already checked it.
That thought came with no emotion. That was what unsettled him most.
Behind him, the kettle clicked off. He didn't remember turning it on.
"Of course," he said, softly, to the room. He didn't specify what he meant. The room didn't ask.
The smell of boiled water carried something else with it—metal, old leaves, the river when it overflowed its banks and pretended it hadn't.
He poured tea. It tasted wrong. Too bitter. Or not bitter enough. He added sugar, then immediately felt guilty for doing so, as if someone were watching and taking notes.
His phone vibrated on the counter.
He did not look at it.
Instead, he watched the rain through the mesh of the window grill. Drops fell, struck the sill, and rebounded upward for a fraction of a second before correcting themselves.
A correction implies an error.
He picked up the phone.
Mira:
You'll miss the bus if you keep pretending time is polite.
His throat tightened—not sharply, but diffusely, like a bruise remembering how it got there.
"You don't get to say that," he said aloud.
The message timestamp read 7:38 a.m.
Earlier than now.
He typed Who is this?
Deleted it.
Typed Stop.
Deleted it.
Finally: Wrong number.
Three dots appeared. Vanished. Reappeared.
Mira:
That's not what you said last time.
Last time.
Aarav set the phone face down, as if that could rearrange the order of things.
Outside, the stairwell smelled of damp concrete and old incense. Mrs. Rao from the second floor was locking her door. She smiled too quickly when she saw him.
"You're late today," she said.
"I'm not," Aarav replied.
She nodded. "Yes. That's what I meant."
He paused. "What did you mean?"
Mrs. Rao adjusted her shawl, careful, deliberate. "You always ask that after you say it."
"Say what?"
"That you're not late."
She smiled again. This one was apologetic, like she'd already forgiven him for something he hadn't done yet.
He stepped past her. The puddle at the bottom of the stairs caught his eye.
It was the same shape.
He knew this before he looked.
"Careful," Mrs. Rao said. "You slipped there yesterday."
"I didn't."
"You did," she said gently. "You laughed about it. Said it was good luck."
"I don't laugh about slipping."
She tilted her head. "You did then."
Aarav stepped over the puddle. His foot brushed water. Cold bloomed up his ankle.
Nothing else happened.
That felt worse.
The street was a continuous sheet of motion. Rickshaws, umbrellas, feet avoiding feet. Everyone moved like they'd rehearsed this morning already.
At the tea stall, Ramesh handed him a paper cup before Aarav asked for it.
"You look tired," Ramesh said.
"I just woke up."
"Yes," Ramesh agreed. "That's what tired means now."
Aarav frowned. "What does that mean?"
Ramesh shrugged. "Depends when you ask."
"Did I come here yesterday?"
Ramesh laughed. Too loud. Too fast. "You always come here yesterday."
"That's not—"
"You paid in cash," Ramesh continued, talking over him. "You asked if the rain ever gets bored. I said no. You said that wasn't fair."
"I don't remember that."
Ramesh's smile thinned, sharpened. "You didn't remember it then either."
The rain behind them flickered green for half a second.
No one noticed.
Aarav took the tea. His hands were shaking now, but the fear hadn't arrived yet. Fear requires sequence. This was something earlier.
"You should take the long road today," Ramesh said casually.
"Why?"
"Less water."
"That doesn't make sense."
Ramesh leaned closer. "It does later."
At the office, the building hummed with recycled air and resigned ambition. Screens glowed with maps that pretended prediction was certainty.
Neha waved at him from her desk. "You look better."
"I don't feel better."
"Yes," she said, typing. "That's why it's working."
He stood there. "What's working?"
She stopped typing. Looked up. Her eyes were careful. "You don't remember saying that, do you?"
"Saying what?"
"That you wanted things to stop feeling in the wrong order."
A chill moved through him. "I never said that."
Neha smiled, the kind you use when handling something unstable. "You said it right before you said you were fine."
He pulled out his chair. It scraped loudly, too loudly. Conversations around them didn't pause. They flowed around the sound like water around a stone.
On his screen, a rainfall model was already running.
He hadn't started it.
The simulation showed flooding that corrected itself before it happened. Water rose, then decided it had always been lower.
"Neha," he said slowly, "who authorized this run?"
She glanced at the screen. "You did."
"When?"
She hesitated. Just long enough. "After."
"After what?"
She looked at him, really looked. Pity flickered, then something else—calculation.
"After you stopped asking whether it was your fault," she said.
Aarav's breath caught. "It wasn't."
"I know," Neha said. "That's why it keeps needing to be checked."
The restroom mirror showed him fractured by fluorescent light. He leaned on the sink, grounding himself in the cold porcelain.
"You're imagining this," he told his reflection.
The reflection nodded.
A second later, it shook its head.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He didn't answer it. That was his small rebellion. It felt childish and profound.
When he looked up again, the reflection's mouth moved before his did.
"You should have taken the umbrella," it said.
Aarav stepped back so hard he hit the stall door.
"No," he whispered. "You don't get to talk."
The reflection smiled sadly. "You say that every time."
Sleep came too easily that night, like something practiced.
The dream did not announce itself as a dream.
He was standing in a street that bent slightly to the left no matter which way he walked. Rain hovered in place, each drop trembling like it hadn't decided what it was yet.
Mira stood under a broken streetlight.
She looked the same. That was the first lie.
"You're late," she said.
"I'm here," he replied.
"That's not the same."
"I didn't know the water would rise that fast."
"I know."
Her forgiveness landed before his apology. It hurt more.
"You changed the order again," she added.
"I didn't change anything."
She tilted her head, watching him watch her. "That's still a change."
The street twisted. He felt himself moving without walking.
"Can you stop?" he asked. "Just—stop appearing?"
Mira smiled. It wasn't kind. It wasn't cruel. It was precise.
"I'm not appearing," she said. "You're checking."
He woke gasping.
Rain battered the window. Normal rain. Obedient rain.
His phone buzzed.
Mira:
Next time, try not fixing it first.
The timestamp read 7:37 a.m.
Aarav sat on the edge of the bed, heart hammering, mind blank and crowded at once.
Outside, the rain paused.
Then fell.
Then unfell.
Somewhere deep in the structure of things, something adjusted itself—
not because it was broken,
but because he had looked at it in the wrong order.