A A R Y A

AGE: Twenty One

They say brain is the last thing to die.
At Eidolon, they warn us it’s the first thing that lies.

Hostel to campus is a two-minute walk. Same gates, same buildings, same cold air.
But today feels different.
Because today is my first day here as a student, not just someone standing outside of a world she can’t enter.

I could've memorized the campus map. Could've planned my route, studied the building layouts, arrived prepared like I usually do.

But something about Eidolon makes me want to blend in. To be just another lost first-year student who can't find her classroom. To not draw attention.

My father spent years here standing out, asking questions, making himself memorable.

That didn’t help him end well.

So I'm choosing differently. At least for now.

Normal students get lost on their first day. Normal students need help finding their department.

Normal is safe.

And after everything that happened - after losing him - I need safe.

Even if it's a lie.

Eidolon studies memory the way other universities study bones or stars.
Here, labs feel like hospital wards, and hospital wards feel like experiments waiting to happen.

I pass the mirrored panels of the research wing.
Black top. Faded denim. Hair loose, wind-ruffled.
The reflection looks calmer than I am.

Eidolon Rule One:
Nothing is what it looks like.

My dad worked here.
Before he died in the Mind-Archive explosion.
And I got the scholarship that came with his name on the recommendation.

People think I earned it because of my grades. Mostly, it was grief in paperwork.

Mom and I never recovered from that incident.
Silence replaced conversation; distance replaced love.
Eidolon became the only bridge left.
I'm recommended for the Behavioral Sciences department.
Safe. Controlled. Exactly what my mother wants.
But there are other departments here. Ones with heavier doors and quieter halls.
Neural Engineering. Cognitive Anthropology. Information Management..
And the one no one talks about above a whisper: Defense Intelligence.
My father's department.
Where classified projects live behind locked archives and questions that get people killed before getting answered.
I have three days to choose where I want to belong.
Three days to decide if I'm brave enough - or stupid enough, to follow in his footsteps.

This university was built on ancient ground, where the first healers studied the human soul long before science tried to claim it. They say Bharat became the world’s nerve center after the Cognitive Revolution, when science stopped studying the mind and started weaponizing it.

At Eidolon, consciousness is not philosophy.
It’s tech.
Thought-mapping.
Memory reconstruction.
Trauma indexing.

Some say we’re advancing humanity.
Some say we’re breaking the rules of nature.

I haven’t decided what I believe.

Cold air slices across the courtyard. My fingers find the black stone necklace hanging at my collarbone - my father’s.
It’s the only memory that hasn’t faded.

Students move in clusters with datapads in hand. Laughing, caffeinated, exhausted already. 

Eidolon doesn’t look intimidating at first glance. It’s quite modern. But there’s something about it I can’t explain. Like every discovery here comes with a price no one writes down.

⋆✮⋆

I’m squinting at the campus signboard, three arrows, all pointing in equally useless directions, when someone steps beside me and says:
“Tell me I’m not the only one lost.”

I turn.
Short curls. Hoodie half-zipped. A face that screams done with everyone already.

“What?” I ask.

She jabs a finger at the sign.
“Who designs this? A cryptic crossword enthusiast?”

A small breath escapes me, barely a laugh, but more than I’ve managed all morning.

She’s already walking before I respond.
Turns back once.

“Coming? Or planning to decode this till graduation?”

I follow.
“I’m Rhea,” she says as we fall into step.

“Aarya.”

She gestures ahead. “Pick a corridor.”

We choose the middle. Pure instinct. 

Though calling it instinct isn't quite right. I've always been good at reading patterns, the way buildings flow, how people move through space, which paths get used and which get ignored.
My father used to say I noticed things most people missed. "You see the details, Aarya. That's a gift. But it's also a burden."

He'd come home and test me. "How would you find the library, Aarya? What do you notice?"

At first, it was a game.

Then it became survival. I realized he was teaching me to survive in a place like this. To observe. To think three steps ahead. To never walk into a situation blind.

After he died, observation was the only thing that made sense. The world lied constantly—people, news reports, official statements. But details? Details didn't lie.

You just had to learn how to read them.

When Behavioral Sciences Hall appears,
Rhea salutes lazily.

“We’ll pretend we knew the way.”
“Obviously.”

And just like that, something effortless settles between us.

⋆✮⋆

Rhea and I entered the lecture hall. Lights dim as we slip into the third row.The room curves like an amphitheatre, glass boards, steel edges, too clean to believable.

The door clicks open.

A man walks in like he brought silence with him.

White shirt, sleeves rolled once.
Calm like he’s used to rooms obeying him without effort.

He walks to the center platform, sets his notes down, writes on the board in clean strokes:

Dr. Rohit Vaidya.

I recognize the name. My father mentioned him once, brilliant, disciplined, unnervingly composed.

He surveys the room precisely.

“Good morning.”

His voice is calm, even, the kind that doesn’t rise but still cuts through noise.

“This is Behavioral Sciences. Here, we study not what the mind is, but what it becomes.”

A ripple of unease passes through the class.

Rhea leans closer. “He’s talking like we’re entering Hogwarts.”

The corner of my mouth twitches before I can stop it.

Rohit taps the board. Neural diagrams unfold, fractals, memory clusters.

“Human consciousness has shifted since the Scientific Awakening. You’ve read the papers. Near-death recall anomalies. Shared-dream spillover. Pattern echoes.”

Pattern echoes.
The term hits something in me I can’t name. I’ve always seen them too easily.

“Our research explores three fields in particular.”

He raises a finger.

“Near-death memory simulation, what a mind experiences when the body should not survive.”

Another.

“Cognitive influence, manipulation of decision pathways. The ethics of control… and the consequences of losing it.”

The room feels tighter now. No one is breathing loud enough to interrupt.

He looks up, raising his third finger.

“Healing. Ancient Bharat texts recorded the foundations of healing process long before science named them. Charaka mentioned three pillars for it. One focused on medicines, another on lifestyle.
The last?”

Silence settles.

Rows of students stare at their screens, avoiding eye contact like it’s an exam question that hunts by sight.

Then his gaze finds me.

“You.”
He scans the sheet.
“Aarya Sharma.”

My pulse jumps.
Awareness - sharp, electric.

“Manas Chikitsa,” I say. “Healing through the mind. Thoughts. Emotional balance.”

His expression shifts subtle, measured. Almost like he expected that answer.

“Close enough,” he says. “Not just emotions. Charaka believed consciousness itself could affect the body.

What you think… becomes what you feel.
What you feel… becomes what you are.”

“But modern research asks a better question:”

He taps the board with one finger.

“What happens if consciousness can be altered?”

The room leans forward.

“Eidolon now studies memory reconstruction, near-death cognition, even past-life pattern mirroring.”

Past-life.
My pulse stutters.

I raise my hand without thinking.

“Is that even possible?”

He meets my eyes.
Calm. Deadly sure.

“Everything is possible,” he says. “The question is what it takes from you.”

A shiver threads the room, curiosity or fear, can’t tell.

His gaze holds for a second too long. My fingers touch my necklace before I realize it.

A scream cuts through the hall.

Several students at the window stand up so fast their chairs crash.

“Oh my god! Someone’s on the roof!”

Rhea grips my arm.
We turn.

On the rooftop across ours -
a man stands near the edge.
Bare feet.
Hospital scrubs.
Wind cutting through hair like he doesn’t feel it.

His arms hang loose, fingers curled inward. Sleepwalking, but conscious. Awake, but not present.

My stomach twists.

Something about his stance—his muscle tone—his stillness—
I am trying to read his body language. 

People broadcast their intentions. You just have to learn the language.
This man isn't broadcasting suicide.
He's broadcasting confusion.
Like he doesn't know where he is. Like the world around him isn't the one he remembers.

Gasps spread across the hall. 

Rohit’s voice slices through the panic.

“Nobody moves. Nobody calls out.”

He steps forward, body blocking our instinct to react.

“If you panic, he will too,” he warns.
“And he will fall before help reaches him.”

Security appears on the roof, approaching him carefully.

“You’re safe,” they call. “Just step back…”

He takes a step.

Not back.

Forward.

The class screams.

And then,
he jumps.

A girl covers her mouth. Rhea grips the table.

And for the briefest, impossible instant -
he doesn’t fall.

He hangs in midair like the world forgot to apply gravity.
Like something held him there.

A fraction of a second.
Barely enough to trust my own eyes.

Then, like a snapped thread, he drops into the arms of security reaching from the lower platform and is dragged inside.
The hall exhales in one aching breath.

Dr. Rohit didn't wait for the shuddering silence to pass.
He resumed the lecture like nothing cracked open above us, like this isn't new here. 

But my heart hasn’t moved.
My mind keeps replaying that half-second the world glitched.
The impossible pause mid-fall.
The way gravity forgot him for a fraction of a second.

I know what I saw.
And I need to know the truth.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──