The corridor was quieter than it should've been. Classrooms on either side buzzed with end-of-day chatter, but here, near the bike stands, where shadows stretched longer than they had a right to, Ruhan stood waiting. For what, he didn't quite know.
The note hadn't left his pocket all day. He had unfolded it four times, checked the handwriting, traced the letters with his thumb like it might reveal something hidden in the grain of the paper.
"I remember too."
That line had split the day in two — before and after.
As he adjusted his bag strap and turned to leave, a voice cut through the quiet.
"You dropped this."
He turned.
A girl stood there — someone he'd passed in hallways, maybe once in a while in the library. She wasn't part of his friend circle. Not Diya. Not Arav. Not even close.
She held out a pen. But her eyes weren't on the pen.
They were on him — searching, measuring, remembering.
Ruhan took the pen slowly.
"You were in the auditorium the day the light fell," she said. "Weren't you?"
That shouldn't be possible. That had happened… in the other life.
He narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
"I'm the one who doesn't belong here anymore," she replied softly. "Just like you."
Silence.
And then, suddenly, the air between them was charged — like two ghosts recognizing each other in the crowd of the living.
They sat on the broken bench behind the staff quarters.
Her name was Ira.
In the other life — or whatever strange string of timelines she had glimpsed — she had never spoken to him. She only knew him from distance, from seeing him run across the football ground or laugh with Diya after classes. But in that life, she remembered something else too: the void that followed June 15. A void with his name on it.
"I don't remember everything," she admitted. "Only flashes. Feelings. But I know you... disappeared. You never came back after that day. And I... I kept waking up with this ache. Like the world had rearranged itself and left a piece missing."
Ruhan's breath caught.
This wasn't just deja vu. This was real.
Someone had crossed over with him.
As dusk settled over the compound, they sat in silence.
Two souls out of place, thrown together not by chance, but by the same cruel miracle.
Ruhan finally spoke.
"Maybe we're not supposed to fix anything."
"Then why remember at all?" Ira asked.
He didn't have an answer.
But in her presence, for the first time since waking up again in this borrowed life, he didn't feel alone.
And maybe — just maybe — that was enough to begin with.