Chapter 10: Cracks in the Foundation

Aarav Verma had always trusted structure.

It was how he designed buildings, how he lived.
Lines. Angles. Quiet precision.

But lately… something was off.

Not visibly. Not yet.
But the feeling was there.

Like a load-bearing wall was missing and the ceiling hadn’t realized it was about to collapse.
---

It started with Ira’s questions.

At first, they were gentle. Literary. The kind you expect from a writer trying to understand a character.

But something had shifted.

Now her questions had edges.

She asked about dates. Names. Specifics he never gave her. Her voice was still calm, but her eyes?

They were searching for weak spots.

She was getting close to something.

And Aarav wasn’t sure which version of himself she was about to find.
---

That morning, he sat in his car outside the office, engine running, fingers frozen on the steering wheel.

There was a message on his phone.

> From: Unknown
“She won’t stop asking. She messaged Aditi.”

Aditi.

Sanya’s old roommate.

His stomach turned.

He hadn’t heard that name in five years. Didn’t want to.
---

He walked into the office like nothing was wrong �" tailored shirt, straight spine, emotion locked in its usual vault.

But the walls felt too thin today.

Even Rehan noticed.

“You okay?” he asked, squinting over his laptop.

“Fine,” Aarav said. Reflex.

“You look like someone’s digging up ghosts.”

That made Aarav pause.

He gave a tight smile. “Funny.”

Rehan’s face shifted. “I wasn’t trying to be.”
---

He opened his laptop.

Inbox. Calendar. Proposals.

Then he saw it.

An email from Ira.

Subject line: Follow-up on Sanya. Clarification needed.

He didn’t open it.

Not immediately.

He just stared at it like it was ticking.

Eventually, he clicked. Scanned.

Her tone was polite �" too polite. Which meant she knew something. Or suspected.

> “…I just need to understand the sequence better. It doesn’t quite line up with the public report. Was she reported missing before or after the avalanche?”

The screen seemed to blur.

He read it twice. Three times.

Then slowly deleted it.
---

That night, he didn’t go home.

He drove.

Nowhere in particular. Just… away from everything concrete.

He ended up at a half-finished project site �" the skeleton of a future apartment complex. Cold metal beams. Open sky. A place still becoming something.

Like him, maybe.

He climbed up to the top floor. Wind in his hair. Darkness pressing around him.

And for the first time in months, he pulled out his phone and opened a locked folder.

Inside: a voice memo. Timestamped five years ago.

> “If anything happens… just know, I didn’t mean to disappear.”
“I just didn’t know what to do after I saw....”

His voice.

Cracked. Younger.

Terrified.

He played it twice.

Then deleted it.
---

Back in his apartment, he stared at the wall.

He’d built his life like architecture �" functional, beautiful, discreet.

But Ira had wandered into the blueprint.
And worse �" she’d started rearranging the rooms.

She wasn’t writing his story anymore.

She was unraveling it.