I opened my eyes to silence.
Not the usual kind. Not the calm of a morning where birds sang, or fans whirred, or my mom hummed an old melody from the kitchen.
No — this silence was different.
It felt… paused. Like the world was holding its breath.
I sat up slowly.
The room was dimmer than usual, like a filter had been pulled over everything. The clock on my wall was still ticking, but the hands hadn't moved.
7:01 AM.
I stared at it for a long time.
It didn't change.
I pulled the curtains apart. Outside, the sky looked off — not wrong, exactly, but less real. Like a painting someone hadn't finished coloring in. The trees didn't sway. The cars weren't moving. Even the neighbor's cat on the wall stood perfectly still, mid-step, frozen like a photograph.
I backed away.
My breath hitched in my throat.
Something had changed.
Something had ended.
I stumbled out into the hallway. "Mom?"
No reply.
I walked into the kitchen.
It was empty. No frying pan, no spices, no steam.
Just an open window, and the smell of yesterday still clinging faintly to the air.
I ran to my dad's room. The bed was made. His shoes neatly placed. His glasses folded on the nightstand, untouched.
Harish. My brother. My teachers.
Gone. All of them.
Not in the sense of death — just not here.
Like they had never existed.
Or like they had been paused mid-life and tucked away.
I stepped out into the street, yelling names. Walking. Then running.
The silence followed me.
Then —
just as I reached the old banyan tree near the end of our lane —
I saw him.
Leaning against the trunk, arms folded, that same gentle smirk.
My reflection. The other me.
The one who had stood in the mirror weeks ago.
Watching. Waiting.
"You stayed too long," he said.
His voice wasn't angry. Not even disappointed.
Just… final.
I swallowed. "I didn't know there was a time limit."
"There wasn't," he shrugged. "But the world has to move. It can't stay paused for one boy trying to fix his past."
"I wasn't trying to fix anything," I whispered.
He raised an eyebrow. "Then why did you retrace every step?"
I had no answer.
Only memories.
The hug with my mother.
The laughter with Harish.
The school bell. The rain. The dosa. The way the sunlight warmed my old bedsheet.
"You were meant to remember," he said. "Not relive."
A long pause.
Then, softer:
"You've done that now. So it's time."
I looked around one last time — at the still air, the colorless sky, the version of home that now felt too quiet to belong to the living.
Then I turned to him.
"And when I go back… what happens to this version of me?"
He smiled.
"You'll carry him. Every day."
I closed my eyes.
And the silence… lifted.
Not suddenly, not harshly.
Just like a curtain falling after the final act of a play.
And then—
I was gone.