Chapter 1: The Letter Arrives
It began with a smudge of ink.
Mira Kaul had always hated imperfections. Paper cuts, crooked labels, misfiled forms—those were the kinds of things that gnawed at her. Working as an archivist at the Central Records Bureau was, for her, a small rebellion against chaos. The silence of paper, the order of numbers, the predictability of her routine. These were her sanctuaries.
So when she noticed a lone, unmarked envelope tucked among the day's government-issued documents, her breath hitched slightly.
It was out of place.
She picked it up carefully. There was no official seal. No barcode. No postage stamp. Just her name, written in slanted cursive she hadn't used since her college years.
Mira Kaul.
She ran her thumb over the ink, half expecting it to smudge. It didn't.
She glanced around the records room, half-expecting to catch someone watching her. The walls were lined with rows of cold metal cabinets and the hum of fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. No one was there. Still, a faint sense of unease settled in her chest.
Curiosity pried the envelope open.
Inside: a single slip of paper. One line.
"Tomorrow at 8:15 AM, the glass will break."
No signature. No context.
Mira stared at it, blinking slowly. Her logical brain tried to make sense of it. A prank? A misplaced fortune cookie message? Some cryptic note meant for someone else?
But the handwriting—it was too familiar.
It looked like hers.
She pulled out a sticky note from her desk drawer and scribbled the same sentence. Side by side, the slant was identical. So was the loop in the lowercase "g."
But she hadn't written the note. She was sure of that.
A tickle of anxiety danced at the base of her spine.
She folded the letter again, placed it in her coat pocket, and tried to ignore the pulse in her throat that had begun to quicken.
---
That night, Mira lay in bed staring at the ceiling, counting the glow-in-the-dark stars she had stuck up there years ago during a lonely night. She used to pretend they were real stars, that they could guide her somewhere better. Somewhere brighter.
Sleep eluded her.
When she finally drifted off, her dreams were a whirl of glass shattering and whispers behind walls. A voice—her voice—repeating the same sentence over and over until it burned into her brain.
"Tomorrow at 8:15 AM, the glass will break."
She woke up cold and clammy, tangled in sweat-drenched sheets. Her alarm clock blinked 6:44 AM.
She showered, dressed, and left early, the letter still folded neatly in her coat pocket.
The streets were quiet, the city still in a soft gray hush. Mira took her usual route—past the old church with broken stained glass, across the small bridge over the canal, and through the government square where pigeons gathered like gossipers.
At the Bureau, the receptionist waved at her absently. Mira nodded, headed to her office, and sat at her desk. She glanced at the clock.
7:52 AM.
She placed the letter on her desk.
A dozen rational thoughts crossed her mind. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was a metaphor. Maybe she had written it and forgotten.
Still, her eyes kept darting to the large window that looked out into the hallway. It was thick, reinforced glass—the kind that shouldn't break easily.
8:05 AM.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. A cleaning staff member pushing a cart. A pair of analysts chatting quietly. No one seemed concerned. No one else had received a strange letter.
8:12 AM.
Mira's hands gripped her coffee mug tightly. Her throat was dry. She felt the weight of her own breath.
8:14.
8:15.
And then, it happened.
A sharp, sudden sound like a whipcrack.
Mira flinched so hard she nearly spilled her coffee. She turned just in time to see the hallway window implode.
The glass didn't shatter outward, as if hit from the outside. It collapsed inward—like something had pulled it.
Shards scattered across the floor. People screamed. Someone called for security.
Mira stood frozen, eyes wide.
The note had been right.
Exactly right.
---
The day blurred after that. Security cordoned off the hallway. Mira answered a few half-hearted questions but no one pressed her. The Bureau was large. Incidents happened. Equipment failed. They would write it off as a stress fracture, maybe a temperature shift.
But she knew better.
She had been warned.
Back home, she locked the door behind her and drew the curtains tightly. She didn't turn on the lights. Her apartment—normally a calm place—felt claustrophobic, like the walls had secrets.
She sat at her desk, staring at the note again.
Same handwriting. Same eerie calmness to the words.
It wasn't until her phone buzzed that she remembered the dream.
Blocked number.
She hesitated. Let it ring. Then played the voicemail.
A soft crackle, like static on an old radio. Then her own voice. Whispering.
"Don't ignore the next one, Mira. It will be about Lena."
She dropped the phone.
Her legs trembled.
She had one friend in the Bureau. Just one.
Lena.
The name hung in the air like a verdict.
Her mind tried to rationalize. Voice modulator. Someone impersonating her. A joke taken too far.
But it wasn't. Deep in her bones, she knew. This was something more.
She opened her dresser and pulled out a dusty red spiral journal—her old college notebook. She hadn't looked at it in years.
Near the end, she flipped to a half-torn page.
The handwriting matched.
Identical.
But she didn't remember writing it.
She looked up. Her reflection in the mirror above the dresser met her gaze.
For a split second, it looked like it smiled.
---
End of the Chapter 1