I don't know how long I stood there, staring at that line written in ink darker than night.
"You're in the wrong body."
It felt like someone had whispered it into my soul, not written it on a page.
But before I could close the book, something shifted.
A soundless crack echoed in the room, like space tearing. The book's spine bent on its own. I flipped a page—where there had been nothing before, now a new message was written:
"Find your true love. She is your key."
My breath caught. My heart thudded so loud it drowned out the silence.
True love? Kabita?
Why was this book speaking in riddles about her?
What did it mean by "key"?
Key to what? My memories? My body? Or something darker?
I closed the book fast, my hands trembling. The cover no longer felt warm—it was ice-cold.
I tucked it away at the back of my shelf, behind a row of novels I knew no one would touch. As I backed away, something strange happened again.
All the lights in my room flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then held steady.
I left the room.
My brother was in the kitchen. Shirtless, sipping his third cup of black coffee, going through some business emails on his tablet.
He looked up and smirked. "Still up, little man?"
I didn't answer immediately. My throat was dry.
"Can we talk?" I finally said.
He raised an eyebrow but nodded, pulling out the chair across from him.
"What's on your mind?"
I didn't know where to begin. So I said the thing that had been itching at me since the night he first told me.
"I keep thinking about what you said. That I'm not… really your brother."
His face softened, instantly.
"I didn't mean it to sound like that. I mean—yeah, we're not blood. But that doesn't mean you're not mine."
"Why did you take me in?" I asked. "You were young. Rich. Why bother picking up a baby from the street?"
He sighed, leaning back in his chair.
"You were crying."
I blinked. "That's it?"
"Crying hard. Outside a temple. In a box. With this ratty blanket wrapped around you and a weird note that just said, 'Forgive him.'"
He paused. "I wasn't a great guy back then, Rajan. I used money to shut the world up. But when I saw you, something just… broke inside. I thought maybe I was the one being asked to forgive someone. Or maybe to give someone else a chance."
I swallowed hard.
"I was a mess," he continued. "I didn't know how to raise a baby. Hell, I barely knew how to be an adult. But something in me had to protect you. You were this tiny, screaming thing… and I knew no one else would understand you. So I brought you home."
A long pause stretched between us.
"I'm not your real brother," he said finally. "But I am your brother. You get me?"
I nodded. My chest was tight.
"And if you're dealing with something weird… whatever it is, you tell me. Don't bottle it up like you used to."
He stood, ruffled my hair, and added, "Family is the people who stay. Blood's just ink in a body."
I smiled. For the first time in days, I felt grounded.
Still, in the back of my mind, the words from the book echoed like thunder through bone:
"Find your true love. She is your key."
.
.
.
Kabita's Parallel Discovery
When I first woke, it was to the same blur of confusion that Rajan described: the satin sheets, the plush pillows, the scent of rain on jasmine. I spent those first two mornings trying to remember my life—only to find it remade into something I both recognized and didn't.
I had been Kabita, daughter of privilege, an aspiring corporate executive with everything laid out: the college campus, my fiancé, my luxurious apartment. Yet now, none of it fit quite right. A flyer on my vanity read "World Voice Forum Today – Auditorium, 4 PM." My phone displayed unread messages from friends rallying for a charity drive for the temple of interfaith harmony. I scrolled my calendar: No election debates, just "Voice Participation Workshop."
It didn't make sense… until I read the morning paper.
---
A World United in Fear
The headline was benign:
> "Temple of Concord Unites Faiths in New Dawn of Global Harmony"
But the subhead caught my eye:
> "In a world without conflict, the specter of the unknown binds us together."
I frowned, remembering nothing of that phrase from my old life. In my world, religions had once clashed. Here, according to the article, they cooperated—bound by a shared dread of a nameless enemy that threatened to undo all their peace.
Later that day, I walked through the labyrinthine corridors of our family estate—corridors I'd once paced in careless comfort. I brushed my fingertips over lacquered railings and paused before a display of ancestral portraits. People I thought were my parents and grandparents smiled back at me, but their stories no longer matched my memory.
It hit me as palpably as a slap: I was living someone else's story. Not my story, but a parallel version. And as unsettling as that was, it answered the haze in my mind.
---
The World Voice Workshop
That afternoon, I joined the Voice workshop hosted in the grand auditorium. The hall was hushed, the seats arranged in concentric circles around a central dais. A panel of clerics, scholars, and so‑called "Voice Facilitators" took their places.
A facilitator began:
> "Unlike elections, the World Voice is a living mechanism. It listens to the rhythms of our planet and selects those best aligned with communal needs. Participation is not voting; it is attuning your own voice—your values—to the greater chorus."
She handed out small glimmering tokens—disc‑shaped quartz tablets—and asked us to hold them to our ears and hearts, to feel the world's heartbeat. I felt nothing but my own pulse—quickening with the realization that I was new to this ritual.
Questions from attendees were timid: "Can the Voice make mistakes?" "Do we override it if necessary?" The panelists replied in unison—"Never. The Voice has never faltered."
I left with the quartz token heavy in my palm, the auditorium's hush echoing in my bones.
---
The Lure of Urban Legends
That evening, I ran into Mira—the volunteer who had shown Rajan the locked corridor. She looked both excited and anxious.
"Have you heard about the White Student?" she whispered, glancing left and right. "They say she's real. Not just a legend."
I admitted I had. My pulse quickened. In my old life, I devoured ghost stories. I loved the thrill of cold air down my spine, the delicious fear in my chest. Here, everyone treated these legends as warnings rather than pranks. Yet part of me felt drawn to them—an escape from the dissonance of this new existence.
"Would you… want to see for yourself?" Mira asked, eyes shining.
Something reckless woke in me. "Yes," I said before I thought. "Tonight."
---
Midnight in the Music Hall
At the stroke of midnight, Mira and I slipped into the music building. The corridors were deserted, the air perfumed with varnish and old wood. We crept to the room beneath the amphitheater stairs—the one with the mirrored panels.
Inside, the mirrors gleamed under the moonlight slanting through a high window. My reflection and Mira's stared back, surrounded by glass. We stood silently, breathing shallowly. Then, unmistakably, from behind one of us—a single, perfect note.
It was a lullaby I recognized: the same lullaby my mother used to sing.
A second note followed.
A third, and then a chord that struck me so sharply it felt like a physical blow.
I whipped around. No one. Just our reflections—and then, in one glass pane, a face materialized. Pale. Eyeless. Lips curved in a serene, mocking smile. The mouth stretched, a grotesque parody of warmth.
I stumbled back, hand flying to my throat. Mira's gasp was muffled, but her knee buckled. The figure raised a slender hand and touched the glass—from the inside.
The mirrored surface rippled like water. I felt an urge to touch it, to see if I could pierce that boundary. "Don't!" Mira hissed.
And just as suddenly as it came, the vision shattered into fragments. The glass quivered, then stilled. The room was empty again—except for two girls in trembling silence.
We fled, hearts pounding with both terror and exhilaration.
---
The Locked Corridor
Over the next day, I haunted the hallways Mira had pointed out. The third door on the left in the old wing—locked, unmarked, with rusted hinges. I pressed my ear to the wood. Nothing. But the air around it was colder than the rest of the corridor, as if the door exhaled frost.
I remembered Rajan's tale of Viraj, the boy who vanished. My skin crawled as I imagined what he must have heard. A whisper? A promise? A summons he could not resist?
In the echo of my footsteps, I wondered if I too might disappear, if I answered the call. The unknown drew me like a magnet—fear and fascination intertwined.