The Main Character Arrives

The silence in Abby's room was so thick you could've printed it, hardbound it, and shelved it under Psychological Horror.

Abby, crouched behind his bed, peeked out like a raccoon caught stealing prophecy. His hoodie was half-off one shoulder. His socks didn't match. His hair looked like it lost a fight with wind.

Across from him, Agrawal sat cross-legged in his desk chair. Impossibly composed. Impossibly clean. Like she hadn't just teleported into someone's sad, chaotic college apartment but had always belonged there.

Abby cleared his throat. "Okay. I'm calm now. Just… answer this. Who are you really?"

Agrawal tilted her head slightly, adjusting a cufflink. "I told you. I am Agrawal."

"That doesn't mean anything!" he barked, peeking out just a little more. "That's like… saying your name is Plot Twist."

She blinked slowly, and finally, she spoke. "I'm from a future that doesn't exist anymore. Because of you."

Abby's soul did a backflip. "WHAT?!"

Agrawal raised an eyebrow. "Well. Not you exactly. Your work. Your story. A certain novel that became very… infectious."

Abby gawked, "Oh yeah? You're from a future that doesn't exist anymore? Because of me? That's like saying I am Batman, who didn't get to sleep for five days just cause he has to fight for crimes in New Delhi at night with a rusted sarcasm sword and two cracked mugs of instant coffee."

Agrawal didn't even blink. "I see delusion is also your defence mechanism. Fascinating."

Abby blinked at her. "You're talking to me like we've known each other for years or something."

His voice cracked a little. "Like you're… familiar with me."

Agrawal didn't look surprised. Not even slightly. In fact, she looked... disappointed. Like he'd just asked a question she'd hoped he wouldn't.

She straightened her gloves with eerie precision. "I am familiar," she said simply. "More than you know."

Abby squinted his eyes. "Okay, nope. That's a serial killer line. That's the kind of line that ends with me waking up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney."

She ignored that. "I studied your work. Your life. Your patterns. I read the versions of your story that were overwritten. I saw what you became in timelines that never made it this far."

He stood up now, slowly. Not out of confidence—but necessity. He was too confused to stay crouched and too terrified to run. "So what—you're some kinda time-traveling fangirl with a death wish and a PhD in 'Everything I Never Meant to Write'?"

Agrawal tilted her head. Just enough to let the tension cut sharper. "I'm from a timeline where your story didn't stay in the book. It rewrote the world. It destroyed what came before. And I had to live in that world."

A pause. Her voice was colder now. Sharper.

"Do you know what it feels like to live in fiction, Abby?

To breathe inside someone's unfinished dream?

To bleed in someone else's metaphor?"

Abby's throat tightened. "I… didn't ask for any of this."

Agrawal nodded. "Neither did we."

Then—

The book on the desk began to shake.

Again.

Abby's head snapped toward it. "Nope. No no no no—your creepy speech is NOT allowed to summon more weird crap."

He backed up a step, eye twitching.

"Wait—wait. The Black Sun. The glitching buildings. That wasn't… real, was it?"

"Tell me I hallucinated that. Please. Tell me I didn't just witness New Delhi auditioning for a fantasy reboot."

Agrawal stayed silent. Just long enough for the panic to set in.

"It was real. But not permanent."

"Not yet."

"This world is still in transition. The overwrite isn't complete."

Agrawal stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "But this shouldn't be happening yet…"

The pages flipped on their own. Faster. The paper glowing faintly. The air started to hum. The lightbulb above them blinked.

Abby backed up toward the door. "I swear to god if another future version of myself walks through that wall I'm jumping out the window—"

CRACK.

A sound, like a page tearing through stone.

The book flashed. A pulse of glitching static tore across the room—

And suddenly—

He was there.

A man.

Standing in the centre of the room.

Coat torn. Blood on his collar. Sword in his right hand like it was part of him.

Eyes like thunderclouds.

Breathing heavy. Lost. And real.

Agrawal whispered."...It's him."

"Who?" Abby questioned.

Agrawal barely audible. "I've only seen records… murals… simulations. I never thought I'd see him like this."

She almost looks... reverent. And that scares Abby more than anything.

And that man is....

Nirvana.

The main character of Abby's story "Nirvana: The Forgotten Dawn"

Abby whispered, "…No. No, that's not possible."

Nirvana turned slowly, scanning the room.

"Where am I?"

His voice was low. Sharp. "This is not Crowmere. This is… something else."

His gaze landed on Abby.

"You."

Abby blinked. "Who?! Me?"

Nirvana took a slow step forward. The floor creaked beneath his boots.

"I've seen you before."

Abby's knees buckled. He sat down. Hard. "Okay. That's enough plot for one night."

And elsewhere in the building…

While the creator stood face-to-face with his first fiction,something else slipped through—not through prophecy or purpose,but through the cracks between chapters.

Because when a story escapes its page,it does not come alone.

Alongside heroes come half-thought villains.Alongside purpose… comes glitch.

Some characters were never given names.Some were never meant to survive editing.Some were abandoned in the margins.

But fiction remembers everything.Even the parts the author tried to forget.

And now?

[Location: Apartment 407 – One Floor Above]

The first thing that broke was the silence.

Not a crash. Not a scream.

A laugh.

Soft. Childlike. On loop.

"Heeheeheeheehee—heehee—heehee—heehee—"

Like a toy with dying batteries.Like joy remembered incorrectly.

Mrs. Das, seventy-three, stood motionless in the center of her apartment.Hands twitching. Eyes blank.

The light above her buzzed like a dying thought.The television cycled through static—until symbols started forming across the screen,glyphs not born from any earthly alphabet.

On the walls, the wallpaper began to peel back—revealing something underneath it.Not brick.Not wood.Just… more story.

Words Abby never finished.Creatures he never polished.A scene he once deleted at 3 a.m. because it was "too disturbing."

And now, it was writing itself again.

Shadows stirred behind Mrs. Das.They weren't shaped yet.

But they were becoming.

To be continued...