Reality of WORLD'S

Rai didn't go to class the next day.

He didn't go to the gym. Didn't eat. Barely moved.

After the Healing Shrine, something inside him refused to settle.

The dream hadn't left him—it echoed like a bell, still vibrating under his skin. The images were burned in. The deities, one by one, stepping forward and offering everything.

Not to a cause.

Not to a people.

To him.

He sat at the edge of his bed, spirals drawn in the margins of his notebook.

He didn't remember making them.

Didn't remember drawing his father's symbol either.

The craving had changed. It wasn't curiosity anymore.

It was need.

When Emma showed up that evening, Rai almost didn't answer the door.

But he did.

She stood there with a grocery bag and a quiet smile. No questions. No confrontation.

"You didn't answer anyone's messages," she said.

"I didn't have anything to say."

"Well," she lifted the bag, "I brought food. And no expectations."

Inside, she looked around. The apartment was spotless—but not in a good way. It looked like it had been cleaned to keep hands busy, not to make anything feel like home.

She sniffed the air. "It still smells like ginger and garlic. That was you?"

"I was going to cook something for you. For your birthday."

Emma blinked. "You cooked?"

He scratched his neck. "Tried."

She noticed the shallow cut on his hand. "You hurt yourself?"

Rai looked away. "Just a knife slip."

"Why would you—"

"When I was a kid," he said, "my mom told me that if I ever liked someone, I should learn to cook for them. She said food speaks when you can't."

Emma stared at him.

Then smiled—slow, real.

"Good thing I showed up hungry."

They ate together, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by silence that felt surprisingly comfortable.

Afterward, Emma helped clean up without being asked. She moved around like someone who wasn't just visiting—but someone who might stay.

She picked up books, refolded a blanket, dusted a shelf.

Then, as she passed the hallway, she stopped.

Her hand hovered over a door.

"This one's locked," she said.

Rai looked up.

"Used to be my father's office," he said quietly. "I never went in."

Emma turned. "Not even after…?"

He shook his head.

"Why?"

"I didn't want to know what was in there," he admitted. "But now… I think I have to."

The key was in a small drawer beneath the old table.

He unlocked the door.

Inside was stillness.

Not forgotten—just paused.

A quiet study. No dust. Just... memory.

A desk covered in documents. Spiral sketches pinned to corkboards. Notes in his father's handwriting. Shipping receipts. A map with an address circled in red.

Emma picked up one of the letters.

"It's just bills… but look."

She handed it to Rai.

The return address was nowhere near the city.

Remote. Faintly familiar. Industrial.

And beneath the stamp, in the lower corner of one printed page—barely noticeable—was a signature.

I.S.H.

Emma's eyes narrowed. "That's... Ishvar. Your professor."

Rai turned the page over. In faded ink, a scribbled line:

"Spiral resonance remains unstable. Do not proceed until memory sync is confirmed. – I.S.H."

They moved slowly through the rest of the room, finding nothing spectacular—no glowing orbs, no ancient carvings.

Just research.

Layered, methodical, and buried.

There was a photograph on the wall. Faded.

Two men.

Rai's father stood on the left.

The man beside him—slightly younger, sharp-eyed—was unmistakably Professor Ishvar.

Emma whispered, "They were working together. From the beginning."

"And he never told me," Rai said quietly.

"Maybe he couldn't."

That night, Emma stayed for a while. No pressure. No pushing.

Just sat with him in the quiet.

Before she left, she touched the spiral notebook he had been drawing in.

"When you remember something you were never told," she said, "maybe it means it was always yours to begin with."

Rai looked at the circled address again.

He didn't know what was waiting out there.

But whatever it was...

It had waited long enough.