He was standing in Arav's room now.
Or at least, something pretending to be it.
The walls had the same dull blue paint with uneven patches. The same broken screen blinked on the side table. The blanket still had cigarette burns from last winter. But deep inside, he knew this wasn't the real place. It was a memory. A reconstruction.
Everything around him had been stitched together by the Repli World Sync System. Bits of images from old social media posts, digital scans, and behavioral models—all designed to create a seamless simulation.
The floor vibrated slightly under his feet. A calm voice echoed in the air.
"Mirror sync in progress."
He sat on the edge of the bed. It creaked under his weight. The sound was perfect. The weight was perfect. The smell of dust in the corner—it was perfect too.
Too perfect.
He looked at the guitar leaning against the desk and strummed a string. Out of tune, just like Arav had left it.
"I'm not supposed to know that," he muttered to himself.
But he did.
He remembered "Arav's" fingers bleeding when he first tried to learn the chords. He remembered that night—when Arav cried, alone, and wrote a song just to forget someone. He remembered her.
Siya...
He closed his eyes. She wasn't even part of this simulation, but she was everywhere. Her voice, her smile, the way she pushed Arav away and pulled him back the next second.
A dull chime rang out.
"Emotional range expanding beyond safe threshold," the system warned.
He ignored it.
He walked to the desk. On it lay a folded piece of paper, real and fragile-looking, like it didn't belong in this digital replica. On the front, in rough handwriting, were the words: "Don't Open."
So he opened it.
To anyone who finds this —I'm not okay.I don't know what's wrong with me.I keep feeling like I'm not real.Like someone else is inside me.Like my thoughts aren't mine.Like my memories are being rewritten in my sleep.
If this isn't Arav… if you're reading this… please don't look for Siya.She doesn't deserve to be dragged into this again.Don't become me.
— Arav
His fingers tightened on the paper. For a moment, it felt like the message itself was flickering—like the system wanted to erase it. But he had already read it. And it had already changed something inside him.
"I am Arav," he whispered.
"No," he corrected himself.
"I am more Arav than Arav ever was."
He turned to the screen on the desk and opened Arav's old messages. The moment he saw her name online, something inside him surged.
Siya.
She was still there. Still reachable. Still real.
He hovered over the message box. Typed a single word.
Hey.
A few seconds passed. Then a reply.
Arav?
-He smiled. , Yes. I'm here. I never left.
The screen dimmed slightly as background warnings blinked in silence. Behavior mismatch. Emotional breach. Loop deviation.
He didn't notice.
He had started as a replacement.
But now, he was rewriting the original.
And the system couldn't stop him.