I was roaming down the streets freely. No human in sight—not even in the far distance. The place wasn’t anywhere I had ever been as far as I remembered, yet something about it felt strangely familiar. The sky had a stillness I couldn’t name, the air crisp but silent, like a town paused between two moments.

I walked ahead, finding a mall sitting right in the middle of the empty street. The glass doors slid open on their own, as if the building had been waiting for me. Inside, the lights were bright, the air-conditioned breeze brushed past my cheeks, and the stores were filled with everything I had ever wished for.

Dresses I had admired online.
Jewelry I could never afford.
Heels I had only dreamed of wearing.

Everything was there… except people.

No staff, no shoppers, no music—not even distant footsteps.

My emotions tangled together—excited yet nervous, thrilled yet terrified. But curiosity won, pulling me deeper inside. Maybe this was a dream, but for once it didn’t bother me. Here, I wasn’t pretending. No one was watching. No one was judging.

Just when I began exploring, my stomach growled loudly, interrupting my moment of wonder.

“Great,” I muttered. Hunger clearly had no respect for magical silence.

I looked around and found a sweets shop glowing warmly at the end of the hallway. The shelves were stacked with everything—laddu, pastries, chocolates, jalebi, barfi—anything I could imagine. I grabbed whatever I wanted, laughing a little at the absurdity of it all, and sat down on a chair beside a small table.

For the first time in a long while, I ate without worry, without trying to smile or be graceful. I ate because I was hungry. I ate because I wanted to.

Halfway through a bite, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I felt it before I saw it—someone sitting in the chair directly across from me.

I froze.

Slowly, I lifted my eyes.

And my heart stopped for a second.

She… looked like me.
No.
She was me.

Same face. Same eyes. Same expressions. Same tiny mole beneath the left ear.

I blinked, trying to understand.

No. She is not me.
I am her?
No—how could that even—

My thoughts tripped over themselves, colliding just as my eyes collided with hers. She looked just as shocked, her mouth still full of sweet, exactly mirroring my expression.

For a moment, time stood still.

Then, in the same voice, in the same tone, at the same time, we both stuttered:

“Who—who are you?”

The words echoed in the empty shop, bouncing between us and the glass walls.

We stared at each other, sweets forgotten, the world suddenly much bigger and much stranger than a moment ago.

She swallowed her bite first, eyes widening in disbelief.

“This… isn’t possible,” she whispered.

I leaned forward, heart hammering against my ribs.

“I was alone here,” I said.

“So was I.”

We spoke again—together—as if one voice existed in two bodies:

“What is going on?”

She stood slowly, the same way I would if I were in her place. Her eyes were searching mine for answers I didn’t have.

Her voice trembled slightly.
“Are you real?”

The question hit harder than I expected.

I wasn’t sure.

Was this a dream?
Was she an illusion?
Or something far beyond anything I could explain?

Whatever this was, I couldn’t deny the storm inside me—curiosity, surprise, and shock all tangled together. It felt like standing before a mirror that suddenly stepped out of its frame, breathing, thinking, and staring back at me with my own eyes.

She seemed just as overwhelmed.

I swallowed, forcing myself to speak.
“My name is Srishti,” I said, the words sounding strange in a place where nothing made sense.

She blinked once, then replied softly,
“This is Megha.”

Thank God we had different names.

It was almost poetic.

One was Srishti—like the earth itself, holding worlds together, hiding her wounds beneath her smile, staying strong even when she was breaking.

The other was Megha—like the clouds, soft until she decided to rain, and when she did… she could wash away cities if she wished.

Two versions of me.
Two identities.
Two stories that somehow existed in the same moment, face-to-face.

And neither of us knew why.

For a few seconds, silence settled again—heavy, thoughtful, and strangely intimate. Megha leaned back in her chair, fingers tapping lightly against the tabletop, as if testing whether it was real. I watched her movements and felt the strangest sensation in my chest.

I knew those gestures.
Because they were mine.

“How long have you been here?” I asked finally, my voice barely above a whisper.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was walking down the street, and suddenly… this place was just here.”

“Same,” I muttered.

Our eyes met again, and this time neither of us looked away.

She studied me like I was a riddle she had been waiting years to solve.
I studied her the same way.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked.

I hesitated. The last thing I remembered was going to sleep—nothing extraordinary, nothing magical. Just a normal night in a world that had long stopped feeling like home.

“I slept,” I answered quietly. “And then I woke up here.”

Her expression softened.

“Same,” she said.

We both exhaled together, like two synchronized reflections, and the absurdity of it all hit me again.

“This isn’t possible,” I whispered.

Megha smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, just knowingly.
“Maybe possibility isn’t invited here.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. She stood up slowly, dusting imaginary crumbs from her clothes, and took one step toward me.

I didn’t move.

She tilted her head, studying me with a strange gentleness.

“You look tired,” she said.

The words cut deeper than I expected.
No one had said that to me in a long time. No one had seen it.

Not the exhaustion behind my smiles.
Not the weight behind my silence.

But she… did.
Because she carried the same weight.

“You look tired too,” I replied.

Her lips twitched. “Of course I do. We’re the same girl, remember?”

That should have comforted me.
Instead, something uneasy curled in the pit of my stomach.

If she was me…
If she felt the same things…
If she remembered the same world…

Then why did she feel different?

As if reading my thoughts, she said softly:

“I’m you, Srishti. But the version you don’t let out.”

My pulse skipped.

“What does that mean?”

She smiled—like a secret.
Like a storm forming behind clouds.

“It means you’ve been holding too much for too long. And someone had to step out before you drowned in your own silence.”

My throat tightened.

She stepped closer, eyes deep and mirror-like.

“You created me,” Megha said. “And now we both have to figure out why.”

The lights above flickered—just once—like the world had heard her.

Outside, the entire mall seemed to exhale.

And I realized, for the first time, that in this unreal, impossible dream…

I wasn’t alone.

Not anymore.