Chapter 10 – When the World Continues
Updated: Aug 20
Pollachi did not remember what had happened.
The street where time once froze returned to its old habits—buses coughing to life, vendors shouting prices, schoolboys running late with half-buttoned shirts. Life moved forward without hesitation, as if nothing extraordinary had ever pressed down on it.
Hari walked through it like a stranger.
He stood at the same bus stop where everything had come to an end, watching people pass by. His right arm hung at his side, whole and ordinary, yet his fingers flexed unconsciously as if testing whether it still belonged to him. He caught himself doing it and let his hand fall, annoyed by the habit. The sword was gone. The weight of it lingered anyway.
“Dai, you’re coming or what?”
Surya’s voice snapped him back.
Surya stood a few steps away, helmet under his arm, looking the same as he always had—alive, annoyed, impatient. No scar. No memory. Just mild irritation.
Hari nodded and followed him onto the bus.
They sat near the window. Surya talked about nothing important—some movie dialogue, a stupid meme, a classmate who tripped in the corridor. Hari laughed when he was supposed to, though the timing was always a little late. He noticed it himself. So did Surya.
“You okay da?” Surya asked casually, not looking at him. “You’ve been quiet since morning.”
Hari hesitated for half a second.
“Sleep problem,” he said, shrugging. “Too much thinking.”
Surya snorted. “Always drama. Eat properly first.”
The bus moved on.
At school, everything felt smaller. The corridors were louder, the classrooms tighter. Hari sat through lessons without hearing half the words, his attention slipping away whenever his eyes caught his reflection in a window or polished desk. Once, his gaze drifted to his arm again. He pressed his fingers into his palm, hard enough to hurt, to feel something solid.
During lunch
Hari sat quietly, gently mixing the rice in his lunch box. His movements were slow and absent-minded, as if his thoughts were somewhere else.
Surya, who was sitting beside him, noticed this and leaned closer with a curious look.
“If you don’t like your lunch… “You can give it to me,” he said casually, a small grin forming on his face.
Hari paused for a moment, then looked at him. A faint smile appeared — not too obvious, but enough to show he understood Surya’s intention.
Surya wasn’t really asking… he was just being himself.
Hari lightly shook his head and continued mixing his food.
“If you don’t want to faint on the road again… you should eat properly,” Hari said, his tone calm but teasing.
Surya’s expression changed instantly.
“Hey! That happened only once!” he protested, slightly embarrassed.
Hari didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he slowly pushed his lunch box a little towards Surya, still wearing that soft smile.
It wasn’t just about food.
It was his way of caring.
Surya looked at the lunch, then at Hari… and smiled.
That evening, Hari walked alone.
The road was familiar, yet it felt different now, like a place he had visited in a dream and returned to too late. He stopped near the water tank, staring at the quiet stretch of street where the mystery man had once stood. Nothing was there now. No shadow. No pressure. No sense of being watched.
For the first time since everything happened, Hari felt something close to relief.
Then fear followed it.
If the portal had opened again, he wasn’t sure what he would have done. That thought settled heavily in his chest. He understood then that the danger wasn’t the weapon.
It was the moment he reached for it.
That night, sleep came and broke apart in fragments. Hari dreamed without images—only sensations. Weight. Heat. The feeling of something vast moving without his permission. He woke before dawn, breath uneven, staring at the ceiling until the light changed colour.
The world was moving on.
He wasn’t.
And somewhere far away—far beyond streets and classrooms and familiar voices—Hari felt it waiting. Not calling him yet. Just waiting.
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