The apartment complex had seen better days.
Paint peeled off the walls near the stairwell, and the faint hum of ceiling fans echoed through every floor, pushing stale air around. Still, for the Vel family, it was home—just big enough to fit four people and their lives into neat routines.
Paari Vel sat hunched over his laptop in the living room, a pair of headphones clamped over his ears. His fingers moved across the keyboard in uneven bursts, clicking furiously one moment and then slowing as he leaned back to think. The screen glowed with lines of code, half-drawn sprite sheets, and a cluttered Unity editor.
He rubbed his tired eyes. Another bug. His indie game—a mix of roguelike dungeon crawler and pixel-art storytelling—was more a dream than a career. But it was his dream. His way of proving that he could build something out of nothing, even if the world told him there was no money in chasing pixels.
"Paari," came a firm voice from the doorway. "Still awake?"
Rajan Vel, his father, stepped in wearing the brown-and-khaki uniform of a Police Head Constable. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a face that wore discipline like a second skin. His shirt was wrinkled, his shoes dusted from patrol, but his posture remained iron-straight.
Paari quickly closed a few windows. "Just finishing a test build, Appa."
Rajan's eyes narrowed slightly, not out of anger but habit—he measured words like evidence. Then his features softened. "Don't push yourself too much. You're not a machine." He set his cap on the dining table and sighed, the kind of sigh that came from thirty years of watching petty criminals and bigger men escape justice through bribes.
"Long day?" Paari asked carefully.
"Always," Rajan muttered, lowering himself into a chair. "Another raid, another politician's nephew caught with drugs. He'll be out before I even file the report."
Before Paari could respond, a second figure entered. His sister Priya strode in, untying her long hair from a bun, the stripes of her Police Inspector uniform faintly visible beneath a jacket. Where Rajan's patience was tempered steel, Priya burned like fire. She tossed her phone on the table, scowling.
"Another call from the station?" Rajan asked.
"They want me on night duty tomorrow," Priya said bitterly. "Because apparently, I don't 'smile enough' for the public desk. Can you believe that?"
Rajan gave a dry chuckle. "That's how the system punishes you when you don't bend. You'll learn."
Priya crossed her arms, but there was pride in her glare. "Or maybe I'll change the system instead."
Paari smiled faintly at their banter. He had grown up in a household where law and duty were stitched into daily life like the curtains on their windows. His father embodied incorruptible honesty; his sister wanted to fight fire with fire. And him? He made games. Sometimes he wondered if he was the disappointment of the family.
Just then, a lighter voice cut through the tension.
"Anna, play with me!"
Sahana, the youngest, bounded out of her room clutching a mobile phone. Her hair was tied into two uneven ponytails, her smile infectious. "One match, please? My team keeps losing."
Paari gave in instantly. He sat beside her on the couch, laughing as the two of them tapped furiously at the screen. Sahana shrieked with mock outrage every time her character fell, while Paari teased her about missing easy shots. For a moment, the weight of adulthood in the apartment lifted.
The next morning was quieter, with the rustle of newspapers and clinking of steel tumblers. Across the corridor, Meera emerged from her apartment, hair neatly braided, a stack of nursing textbooks pressed against her chest. She looked exhausted but determined, her eyes carrying the same hunger she had once reserved for medical entrance exams.
"Late night again?" she asked, nodding at Paari's dark circles.
"Coding," Paari admitted sheepishly.
"Of course," she said, half amused, half scolding. "You should lend some of that stubbornness to me. Maybe I'd have become a doctor."
Paari frowned. "You'd make a great doctor."
Meera smiled softly, though there was a shadow behind it. Financial strain had crushed her dreams like paper under rain. Nursing school was cheaper, and her parents needed her income soon. She bore it with grace, but Paari often caught her staring too long at her old medical prep books.
As they walked toward the lift, a familiar figure stepped out from the opposite flat, locking his door with one hand while juggling a backpack in the other.
"Oi, Paari!" Arav called, adjusting his shirt collar. His hair was still damp from a hurried shower, and a grease stain clung stubbornly to his sleeve.
Meera sighed. "You're late again, aren't you?"
Arav grinned, unbothered. "Fashionably late. The workshop can't run without its star mechanic, after all."
"Star mechanic?" Paari raised an eyebrow as they entered the lift together. "Didn't you just flood an engine yesterday?"
"Testing its limits!" Arav protested, then flashed a mock-heroic smile. "Besides, at least my machines exist in the real world—unlike your games."
Meera rolled her eyes. "The two of you are hopeless."
That evening, the three of them—Paari, Meera, and Arav—met at the apartment's small gym. It wasn't much: a couple of treadmills, a rusting dumbbell rack, and a bamboo staff left behind by someone long ago.
Arav lifted weights dramatically, flexing for an imaginary crowd. "Look at this! If engineering doesn't work out, I'll be Mr. Tamil Nadu."
"Please," Meera said, not looking up from the treadmill. "You'd be disqualified for overconfidence."
Paari, meanwhile, twirled the bamboo staff absentmindedly. He had taken martial arts classes when younger, but these days the staff served more as a stress-reliever. Each spin, each strike, felt like clearing code bugs from his head.
"You ever regret it?" Arav asked suddenly between reps. "Not taking some stable job? I mean, game dev's cool and all, but…"
Paari paused mid-twirl. "Every day. But if I don't at least try, I'll regret that more."
Meera gave him a small approving nod. She admired his stubbornness even if she didn't fully understand it.
The three fell into silence, the hum of the ceiling fan filling the room. Outside, the sun dipped lower, staining the apartment windows orange.
Then it happened.
The floor trembled beneath their feet, faint at first and then harder. The dumbbells rattled, rolling off the rack. A low hum filled the air, not mechanical but… alien.
"What the—earthquake?" Arav shouted, gripping the bench.
"No," Meera whispered, eyes wide.
The sky outside the gym's glass panes flickered. Blue lattices, like glowing grids, spread across the horizon, as though reality itself had cracked to reveal circuitry beneath. Transparent panels blinked into existence, hanging mid-air, their letters sharp and cold.
One appeared right before Paari's eyes.
System Message:
[Initiating Integration. Please remain calm.]
The words pulsed with light. Paari's breath caught. Meera clutched his arm. Arav cursed under his breath.
And with that, the world they knew began to dissolve.