A A R Y A

My father used to say curiosity was a gift.

He lied.

It's a curse. One that drags you by the throat to explore more, even when your hands shake, even when every instinct screams to stop.

And right now, it's dragging me toward the medical wing with blood dripping from my palm.

⋆✮⋆

Medical Wing | 14:00 hours

Blood lines my palm in a thin red seam.

One clean slice. Not deep enough to need stitches, or so I thought before the adrenaline wore off. Deep enough that walking into the medical wing looks justified.

Orientation ended twenty minutes ago.

 Rhea asked if I was coming to lunch, I told her I needed to check something.
She looked worried. I walked anyway.

Because all I can think about is the man who jumped and didn't fall.

“Never enter a room you can’t escape from, Aarya.” That was Dad’s rule.
And if this plan doesn’t work… I’m royally fucked.

Students faint at the sight of blood. I'm betting on that universal fact to get me past security. 

The scanner lights at my wristband, reads the injury report I filed twenty minutes ago, back when my hands weren’t shaking and my courage felt thicker.
A single green flash.

Access granted.

The doors slide open. I walk through the white corridor, antiseptic smells sharp in the air. 

The corridor stretches ahead in perfect white lines. Empty. Too empty for a medical facility that should be crawling with students who've discovered new and creative ways to hurt themselves. But then again, nothing about Eidolon follows normal world rules.

I learned that the day my father's body came home in a sealed casket.

"Lab accident," they said. "Explosion. Nothing left to identify."

Except his wedding ring. Melted. Unrecognizable.

And a single classified file I wasn't supposed to see.

The nurse at reception only glances up from her tablet, eyes widening at my dripping hand. "Name?"
"Aarya Sharma. Palm laceration."

She scans my wristband. Frowns. "It says here you're undeclared for department selection."
"Still deciding."
"Three days to submit preferences. Trials start next week." She taps her screen impatiently. "Treatment room seven.”

I nod and walk down the corridor. 

The treatment room door slide open with a hiss -

Cold air. Metal beds. Sterile silence that feels too practiced.

This place isn't made to heal. It looks like it was built to observe.

Cameras in three corners, but blind spots near the door. Reinforced locks on interior corridors. Soundproofing that's too good for a standard medical wing.

This isn't just a hospital.
It's containment.

A doctor enters without looking at me, already reading from his tablet. "Self-inflicted laceration. Depth approximately three millimeters. No foreign objects detected."

My stomach drops. Self-inflicted.

"It was an accident," I say carefully.

"Was it?" He finally meets my eyes. There's something calculating behind the professional concern.

I keep my expression neutral. Open. Slightly embarrassed. "I was opening a package. The blade slipped."
The lie comes easily. 

Details sell the story. Too many and you sound rehearsed. Too few and you sound guilty. Find the balance.

The doctor seems to accept it. He cleans the wound with practiced efficiency, presses cotton to my palm. The antiseptic burns.

I don't flinch. It's hard to fear the pain you caused yourself.

Instead, I observe.

The way sound carries in these halls, too muffled. The locked doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The cameras that track movement but angle away from certain corridors, like there are things even surveillance isn't allowed to see.

I watch his hands. The way he moves. The way his eyes dart to my wristband every few seconds, like he's reading more than medical information.

Everyone broadcasts their intentions. You just have to learn the language.

This doctor? He's not concerned about my injury.

He's concerned about me.

"You'll need two stitches," he says, reaching for a suture kit. "This might sting."

The needle slides through the skin, pain shoots up my arm, clean, honest, real. Unlike everything else in this place.

And damn, that makes me regret my brilliant plan.

That's when I hear it.

A scream.
It cuts through the medical wing's artificial silence like a blade through silk.
The doctor’s hands still for a heartbeat. "Ignore that. Psychiatric evaluation. Happens sometimes."

But I'm already reading him. The tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw tightened. The practiced dismissal that came too quickly.

But I'm already standing. "Bathroom?"

"Miss Sharma, I need to finish—"

"I'll be right back."

I slip out before he can protest.

The most important information is always in the places they don't want you to look.

Time to look.
The scream echoes again, fainter now but no less desperate.

I follow the sound down a corridor marked RESTRICTED ACCESS..

No cameras here. Interesting.

My footsteps are silent on the polished floor. People don't notice movement first. They notice sound.

That's when I see them.

Two men in black uniforms dragging someone between them. The patient fights against their grip, bare feet sliding on the floor. The hospital gown twisted. Dark hair falling across his face.

It's him. The jumper.

But it's his voice that stops my breath cold.

"You don't understand! I don't belong to this timeline. Let me go back. Let me—"

One of the guards slams him against the wall. "Shut up, freak."

I freeze, pressing against the wall, making myself small, invisible..

His arm. The tattoo spirals from wrist to shoulder. Black ink seems to pulse in the fluorescent light. Symbols I don't recognize but somehow feel known. Ancient. Dangerous. Wrong.

Our eyes meet across the corridor.

The world tilts.

His gaze locks onto mine and I feel it - recognition. The kind that lives in your bones. In your blood. In the spaces between heartbeats where memory hides.

He knows me.

The tattoo pulses, or maybe that's my heartbeat.

I can't tell anymore because suddenly I'm not standing in a sterile hallway. 

I'm somewhere else. 

Somewhere that smells like smoke and copper and burning stone -

The tattoo burns bright against his skin. Flames everywhere. He's reaching for me across a chasm of fire and I can't—I can't reach back—

His voice, desperate, breaking: "Find me."

My own voice, raw with grief: "I'm trying—"

And then nothing but ash and darkness.

"Aarya."

The vision shatters.

I'm back in the hallway, back in my own skin, pulse hammering so hard I can hear it in my ears.

Dr. Rohit stands beside me. Concern etched across his features. The guards are gone. The patient is gone.

How long was I standing here?

"What are you doing in this corridor?" His voice is gentle, but there's an edge underneath. Like he's asking more than he's saying.

I blink. Force my breathing to steady. 

When caught off guard, redirect with truth.

"Medical appointment. Cut my hand." I hold up my palm, gauze half-wrapped, blood seeping through. "Got dizzy. Needed air."

He examines the wound, then my face. Studies me too long. Too carefully.

"You look pale."

"Blood loss," I lie. The excuse comes easily now. "I'm fine."

But I'm not fine. I'm shaking. The image of that tattoo burns behind my eyelids. The way it glowed. The way it called to something deep in my chest that I didn't know existed.

The vision that felt more real than anything I've ever experienced.

"Come. " Rohit's hand touches my elbow, steadying. "Let's get you properly treated."

⋆✮⋆

We enter the treatment bay. Rohit rolls up his sleeves, resumes the half-done work. Fresh cotton. New antiseptic. A firmer wrap of gauze. His movements are precise. Professional. 

"Dr. Rohit," I say carefully. "You knew my father, didn't you?"

His hands still. Only for a second. But enough.

"I did," he says, resuming his work. Voice steady. Too steady. "He was a brilliant man. He worked in the Defense Intelligence department."

My chest tightens. "What do they work on there? Exactly?"

Rohit's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "High-risk projects. Higher consequences."

He ties off the gauze. Meets my eyes.

"What really happened to him?" I press. "I know it was an accident, but—"

"Lab accident. Explosion. That's all anyone knows."

"How exactly do we choose departments?" I ask, shifting tactics.

He glances at me. "Still thinking about that? You have until Friday."

"Friday to decide?" I ask.

"Friday to submit your top three preferences." He applies pressure to the gauze. "The real test comes next week. Each department runs trials to determine who actually gets in. Defense Intelligence starts Monday."

I keep my voice casual. "What kind of trials?"

"Depends on the department. Behavioral Sciences? Written assessments, psych evaluations. Information Management? Research simulations." 

His jaw tightens. "Defense Intelligence? I've heard stories. They don't just test your abilities. They test how far you'll go when everything you believe is on the line."

"Sounds dramatic."

"It's not drama. It's elimination." He meets my eyes. "Last year's trials had forty-three applicants. Fifteen spots. Only two students made it through without... significant consequences."

"What kind of consequences?"

"The kind where you question whether the cost was worth it."

“And if you want my opinion, you should consider Behavioral Sciences. Safe work, lab experiments, mostly research."

Safe. The word tastes wrong in my mouth.

“What if I want to explore before choosing?” I ask.

Rohit studies me, amusement flickering just enough to soften his gaze. “Explore what, exactly?”

I think of the patient's desperate voice. His impossible words about timelines. The tattoo that made my vision fracture into something that felt like memory.

"Information Management.. Archives."

Rohit stops walking entirely. "Why that department?" 

Because I need to know what they're hiding. Because that patient isn't the first person to scream about not belonging. Because something is fundamentally wrong with this place and everyone pretends not to see it.

"Research runs in the family, right? In fact I was thinking of visiting the Archive once." I keep my tone light and casual.

He studies my face for a long moment. "Archive is... complicated. Restricted access. Security clearance required."

"So I'll get clearance."

"Aarya." His voice drops. "Some information is restricted for good reason."

"What kind of information?"

For a heartbeat, I think he might tell me. His expression shifts, softens, like he's remembering something painful. But then the moment passes.

"Patient files," he says. "Medical records. Case studies." He straightens. "You'll only get study-level clearance—surface files, nothing classified. Access is eight to ten at night. Sharp."

Eight to ten. Two-hour window.

"Why do you want to know?" Rohit asks.

Because I need answers. Because that tattoo is burned into my brain and I need to know what it means. Because I made a promise, in a vision that felt more real than this sterile hallway.

"Curiosity," I say.

Rohit's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Curiosity can be dangerous here."

"Good thing I'm not easily scared." 

But even as I say it, I remember the vision. The fire. The desperate reaching across impossible distances. The taste of ash and promises I couldn't keep.

Maybe I should be scared. Maybe fear is the only honest response to this place.

But curiosity has me by the throat, and I've never been good at backing down from a fight — even when I don't understand the rules.

Especially then.

⋆✮⋆

I leave the medical wing with clean gauze and more questions than answers.

The patient's words echo in my head: I don't belong to this timeline.

The vision of fire and a promise I can't remember making.

My father’s words echo in my mind:
"Sometimes, Aarya, the only way to find the truth is to walk straight into the trap."

I'm starting to think he wasn't speaking hypothetically.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──