The next morning, the house lay shrouded in a thick, lingering quiet. The kind of quiet that made the light seem almost hesitant as it filtered through the half-closed curtains, soft and pale, unwilling to disturb the stillness.
Then, it broke—Ding-dong!
A sharp, intrusive sound that pierced through the calm like a cold breath.
Ding-dong!
It came again, more demanding now, ringing through the air with an urgency that startled Mansh awake. His body jerked upright, heart pounding suddenly against his ribs, as though the world had been waiting for him to stir. His mind, still tangled in the heavy fog of sleep, tried to resist the pull of consciousness. He rubbed his eyes, his vision swimming for a moment before the blurry shapes of the room began to take form.
Mansh groaned quietly, his fingers brushing through his tangled hair, trying to smooth it down as though he could wipe away the haze from his mind as easily. But the sense of unease lingered, swirling in the pit of his stomach—a restless, nagging feeling he couldn't shake.
There it was again—Ding-dong!
The sound echoed, now impossibly loud in the silence of the house. His heart rate quickened. Each beat seemed to reverberate inside his chest, thumping against his ribs in irregular rhythms. He couldn't tell if it was just the sudden shock of being pulled from sleep or if something more profound stirred within him. But the feeling was unmistakable. A tightness in his throat. A flutter in his chest. His mind flickered back to the events of yesterday, all the pieces that had been scattered so suddenly, the strange emptiness where Ankhush should have been. The tension—the unease—still clung to him.
Taking a slow, unsteady breath, Mansh swung his legs over the side of the bed, his feet finding the coldness of the floor. The chill against his skin sent a shiver up his spine, and he stood there for a moment, staring at the ground, trying to ground himself. His body felt heavy, sluggish, as though it had yet to fully wake. But the doorbell rang again. Ding-dong!
The noise was insistent now, vibrating through the air, stirring his limbs into motion as if his body knew something his mind hadn't yet caught up to. He moved toward the door with slow, deliberate steps, his heart still thudding in his chest. Every step felt like it took longer than the last, as though the space between him and the door was stretching out, lengthening with every breath.
His fingers grazed the railing as he made his way downstairs, feeling the smooth, cool wood beneath his fingertips. It was solid. It was real. And yet, everything in him felt like it was slipping just a little out of reach, like he was walking through someone else's memory.
The quiet was suffocating now. His breathing felt shallow, strained, and each exhale seemed to leave him emptier than the last. He wanted to breathe, to calm himself, but his chest felt tight, as though the very air was refusing to fill him.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he paused. The front door loomed before him like an unknowable threshold. There was something waiting on the other side. Something that shouldn't have been there.
His breath hitched again, his chest rising and falling unevenly. He reached for the doorknob with a hand that trembled ever so slightly, his fingers brushing it like it might break if he touched it too forcefully. He turned it slowly, the metallic click of the mechanism echoing in his ears, and with each inch the door inched open, the room seemed to hold its breath, stretching the moment tighter and tighter, until the air was almost too thick to breathe.
The sunlight outside seemed to spill in with a softness that almost didn't feel real. It poured through the doorway like a ribbon of light, illuminating the space in front of him.
And then—he saw.
His pulse faltered.
Mansh's heart, already beating so fast it felt as though it might burst from his chest, stuttered. He froze, caught in the space between confusion and recognition. His breath caught, his lungs empty for a second, as his mind tried to reconcile the image in front of him.
Ankhush.
It wasn't a trick of the light. It wasn't a dream.
It was him.
Standing there.
The world seemed to contract, every second stretching out painfully as Mansh's mind reeled. He stared, eyes wide, unblinking, trying to comprehend the impossible reality before him. The image of Ankhush—so clear, so tangible—seemed both familiar and foreign at once, like an echo that didn't quite belong.
The air between them was thick, charged, as though the universe had paused to witness the moment.
Mansh's breath was ragged, shallow. He hadn't moved. Not even a twitch of his fingers. His entire body felt like it was caught in suspended animation, each second hanging heavy with the weight of a thousand unasked questions.
Ankhush stood there, his figure sharp against the light. Alive. Breathing.
And Mansh stood there, unable to tear his eyes away. His heart, still hammering, seemed to fill his chest, but there was a strange emptiness, a hollow space where the comfort of certainty used to be.
***
A/N: where was he.
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