Darkness. Then—
PAIN.
Sharp. White. Exploding behind his eyes.
Smithen gasped, his body jerking upward—and immediately collapsed back down as fire raced through his left leg.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa—easy there!"
Hands pressed against his shoulders. Familiar hands. Kiren's hands.
"Smithen, stay still. You fell pretty hard."
Fell?
Smithen blinked, his vision swimming. The world slowly resolved into focus: concrete beneath his palms, the smell of wet earth, the gray sky overhead spitting a lazy drizzle. College campus. The main steps.
Why am I on the ground?
"Can you sit up?" Kiren asked, his face pinched with worry. "You took a nasty tumble. Tripped on the last step and just... went down. Didn't even put your hands out to catch yourself. Like were you asleep or something."
Smithen's heart stopped.
Asleep.
No. Not asleep.
Dead, he thought to himself
The memories crashed over him like a wave—cold and merciless. The hospital. The flatline. Viran's scream. His mother's tears. The truck. The blood.
I died.
I died and I woke up—
His hand shot out, grabbing Kiren's wrist with desperate force. "What's the date?"
"Ow—dude, ease up—"
"What's the date?"
"August 17th! It's August 17th. You're scaring me."
August 17th.
Smithen's mind raced. The wedding was October 19th.
Two months.
Two months before everything.
He released Kiren's wrist and looked down at himself. His pants were torn at the knee, blood seeping through—a gash, shallow but stinging. His palms were scraped raw. His phone had fallen from his pocket, screen cracked at the corner.
Still lit.
He grabbed it.
August 17th, 8:47 AM.
A sound escaped him—something between a laugh and a sob. Kiren flinched.
"Smithen... you're really freaking me out here. Should I call an ambulance? Did you hit your head?"
"No." Smithen's voice came out hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. "No. I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"It's just a scratch."
"You literally face-planted on concrete—"
"I said I'm fine!"
The words came out sharper than intended. Kiren recoiled, and Smithen immediately felt guilt twist in his chest. But he couldn't—couldn't—explain. How could he? Hey, I just lived an entire year of marriage to a man who destroyed me, then died in a car crash, and now I'm somehow back in time?
"Sorry," Smithen muttered, pushing himself to sit up fully. His leg screamed in protest, but he ignored it. "Just... give me a second."
He looked around.
The campus was the same as he saw yesterday, in his past life. Students hurrying between buildings, umbrellas bobbing. The old banyan tree by the library. The chai wallah setting up his cart.
Everything is the same.
But I'm not, he thought to himself.
Kiren crouched beside him, still radiating concern. "You sure you don't want to go to the clinic? That leg needs cleaning."
"Later.", Smithen said.
"Smithen—"
There was something in his voice—something flat, something final—that made Kiren pause. He studied Smithen's face with new eyes.
"You look different," Kiren said slowly. "Like... something happened. In the two seconds you were falling."
Smithen almost laughed.
Not Two seconds, It was a whole another life of mine, he thought to himself.
"Help me up," he said instead.
Kiren obliged, pulling him to his feet. Smithen wobbled, putting weight on his injured leg, and a hiss of pain escaped through his teeth.
"Yeah, you're going to the clinic," Kiren declared. "I'm not debating this."
This time, Smithen didn't argue.
INT. CAMPUS CLINIC - AN HOUR LATER
A bored nurse cleaned and bandaged his leg while Smithen sat on the examination table, staring at his phone.
The date hadn't changed.
August 17th.
He scrolled through his photos, his heart pounding with each swipe. There they were—hundreds of screenshots. Viran at galas. Viran in interviews. Viran walking through airports, his security detail forming a wall around him. Candid shots from news articles. Edited fan edits.
All of it.
In his first life, these photos had been treasures. He'd looked at them every night before bed, imagining a future that had turned into a nightmare.
Not this time.
His thumb hovered over the "Select All" button.
Do it.
Delete him.
Delete every trace.
But his finger wouldn't move.
"I love him," he'd said in the café, so certain, so sure. "There's something called destiny."
Destiny had laughed in his face.
Destiny had given him a cold marriage, a year of silence, a blood moon kiss that meant nothing, a photo of Viran with another woman sent naked on their first night together on his first anniversary, and a truck- that ended everything.
Fuck destiny.
He pressed "Select All."
Then "Delete."
A pop-up: "Are you sure you want to delete 847 items?"
"Yes," he whispered.
The photos vanished.
The folder was empty.
For the first time since waking up, Smithen felt something other than confusion.
He felt light.
INT. CAFÉ - LATER THAT DAY
Same café as before. Same corner table. Same friends.
But Smithen was different.
He sat with his bandaged leg propped on a chair, his movements slower but his eyes sharper. He'd said almost nothing since they arrived—just listened. Watched. Remembered.
"So," Kiren said, leaning back with a grin, trying to restore normalcy. "Big news. My cousin works at Ardent Corp now. Got a peek at their internal event calendar."
One of the other friends—RAJ—snorted. "You're not supposed to share that."
"Whatever. Point is—Viran Ardent is hosting a charity gala next month. And guess who might get invited if someone's mother pulls some astrologer strings?" He wiggled his eyebrows at Smithen.
The table laughed.
Smithen didn't.
"Smithen?" Kiren's grin faltered. "Hello? Your future husband? The love of your life? The man you've been obsessing over for—"
"No."
One word.
Cold. Flat. Final.
The table went silent.
Kiren blinked. "What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no. I'm not interested."
"You're... not interested." Kiren repeated the words like they were in a foreign language. "In Viran."
"That's what I said."
"Did you hit your head when you fell? Because I'm seriously concerned—"
"I didn't hit my head." Smithen set down his coffee cup. His hands didn't shake. "I just realized something."
"What?"
That he is not that great. And it cost me a life.
But he didn't say that.
He said: "That I deserve better than chasing someone who doesn't know I exist."
The silence stretched.
MIRA leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "You're serious? No dramatic monologue about destiny? No 'what if we're connected from another life'?"
Smithen's jaw tightened.
If only you knew.
"No," he said again. "That was... childish."
Kiren stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "You literally cried watching his interview last month. You have a folder on your phone with 200 screenshots of his—"
"Deleted it."
"You—" Kiren stopped. "You what?"
"Deleted it. Before I came here."
Because he had. In the clinic bathroom, after the nurse finished bandaging his leg. He'd deleted the folder, emptied the trash, and watched the little "0 items" message appear.
Gone.
"Okay," Raj said slowly, exchanging a look with Mira. "So... intervention? Did someone get to him?"
"Maybe he finally regained sanity," Mira offered.
"Smithen doesn't have sanity when it comes to Viran. That's his whole brand."
Kiren wasn't laughing. He was studying Smithen with an expression that was almost... scared.
"What happened?" Kiren asked quietly. "When you fell. What did you see?"
Everything.
"Nothing," Smithen said. "I just woke up."
He picked up his coffee. Took a sip. Didn't say another word about Viran for the rest of the meal.
Three days later.
The road curved like a serpent's spine, hugging the cliff's edge.
Rain fell in sheets—sudden, violent, as if the sky itself was weeping.
Smithen shouldn't have been there. He'd taken the long way home from a study group, needing air, needing space from Kiren's worried glances and Mira's probing questions. The rain had started twenty minutes ago, and he'd been about to turn back when he saw the glow.
Headlights.
But not on the road.
Below the road.
He pulled over, heart hammering. Grabbed his phone. His jacket. The first-aid kit from the trunk—Arin's insistence, always prepared.
"Hello?" he called out, sliding down the embankment. "Is anyone—"
He stopped.
The car was wrecked. Unrecognizable as the luxury vehicle it once must have been. The driver's side was crushed against a boulder. The backseat—
Smithen's flashlight beam cut through the rain.
And landed on a face he knew better than his own.
Viran.
Unconscious. Bleeding from a gash on his forehead. His left arm bent at an unnatural angle. His chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven gasps.
No.
No, no, no, no—
Smithen's world stopped.
His hands shook. His vision blurred. Every instinct screamed at him to run—to leave this man behind, to let fate take its course, because Viran had destroyed him in another life.
But then—
Viran's lips moved.
A whisper, barely audible over the rain.
"...help..."
And Smithen remembered.
Not the betrayal. Not the divorce papers. Not the hospital flatline.
But the kiss. The way Viran had trembled. The way he'd said "I couldn't stay away" like it was a confession ripped from somewhere deeper than logic.
He didn't know about the curse.
He didn't know why I was chosen.
He was as much a pawn as I was.
"Damn it."
Smithen moved.
He checked Viran's pulse—thready, but there. He stabilized his neck as best he could, hands surprisingly steady now that action had replaced panic. He called emergency services with fingers that barely shook, gave them the location, and then—
He waited.
Held Viran's cold hand.
And talked.
"You're going to be fine," he said, his voice cracking. "You don't get to die here. Not before... not before..."
Not before I understand what you were becoming.
Viran didn't respond.
His eyes stayed closed.
But his fingers twitched—just slightly—curling around Smithen's like a reflex.
Smithen didn't let go.
Not until the ambulance arrived.
Not until the paramedics physically pried them apart.
Not until Viran disappeared into the back of the vehicle, still unconscious, still completely unaware that the stranger who'd saved him was the husband he'd never remember having.
He was soaked to the bone when he walked through the door into his house.
His leg ached—the bandage soaked through with rainwater and fresh blood from the climb back up the embankment. His hands were raw. His eyes were red.
But he was home.
ARIN looked up from the couch, a book in his hand, tea on the table. His older brother's face shifted from relaxed to alarmed in half a second.
"Smithen? What the hell happened to you?"
"Fell," Smithen said. Then, after a pause: "Helped someone. Long story."
Arin set down his book. Stood. Walked over and examined him with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd been raising a younger sibling since their father died.
"That's not a 'fell' bandage. That's a 'crawled through broken glass' bandage. Sit down. I'll get the first-aid kit."
"I have one in the car—"
"Sit. Down."
Smithen sat.
Arin returned with a proper kit—not the travel one, but the heavy-duty box from the bathroom cabinet. He knelt in front of Smithen and began unwrapping the soaked bandage with careful, steady hands.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Then:
"You want to tell me what's really going on?"
Smithen looked at his brother.
Arin was ten years older. Dark hair, sharp jaw, softer eyes. He'd given up his childhood to raise Smithen while their mother built her astrology empire. He'd never complained. Never made Smithen feel like a burden.
In the first life, Smithen had taken him for granted.
Not this time.
"I had a dream," Smithen said quietly.
Arin's hands paused. "A dream?"
"A nightmare. About... marriage. About loving someone who didn't love me back. About dying alone."
He didn't mention Viran by name. Didn't mention the curse or the blood moon or the flatline. But his voice cracked on the last word, and Arin heard it.
"Hey." Arin set down the bandage and cupped Smithen's face with both hands. "Look at me."
Smithen looked.
"You're not going to die alone. You're twenty-two. You have your whole life ahead of you. And whoever this person is—" Arin's jaw tightened. "—if they made you feel like you weren't enough, they were wrong."
He didn't make me feel that way, Smithen thought. I made myself feel that way. By loving him when he didn't ask to be loved.
But he didn't say that either.
Instead, he leaned forward and hugged his brother.
Tight.
Desperate.
"I love you," Smithen whispered. "I don't say it enough."
Arin froze for a second—then hugged back just as hard. "You're scaring me, little brother."
"Don't be scared. I just... woke up."
"From the nightmare?"
"From everything."
They stayed like that for a long moment.
When they pulled apart, Arin's eyes were suspiciously bright. He cleared his throat and picked up the bandage again.
"Our mother's in her study," he said casually. "Conference call with some client in Dubai. She'll be busy for a few hours."
Smithen nodded. Didn't feel the usual ache of her absence. "I'll say goodnight to her if she finishes early."
"You could knock—"
"She's working. It's fine."
And they talked.
Normal things.
Safe things.
For two hours, they sat on the couch, tea growing cold, and just... existed together.
And for the first time since waking up in this second life, Smithen felt something other than pain.
He felt grounded.
Late night
The house was quiet now.
Arin had gone to bed. The maids had retired. Only the distant hum of the refrigerator broke the silence.
Smithen stood outside his mother's study.
Light spilled from under the door. He could hear her voice—muffled, professional, discussing planetary alignments with someone on the phone.
She knows, he thought. She knows about the curse. She agreed to marry me to Viran because she believed it would save him.
In the first life, he'd never asked why.
He'd been too blinded by love.
Now...
Now he wanted to know.
But not tonight.
Tonight, he was too tired. Too raw. Too aware that one conversation could shatter the fragile peace he'd built in the past few hours.
He raised his hand to knock.
Paused.
Lowered it.
Tomorrow, he told himself. I'll ask her tomorrow.
He walked to his room.
Closed the door.
Slid down against it until he was sitting on the floor, knees drawn to his chest.
"I won't make the same mistakes," he whispered to the empty room.
Outside, the rain continued to fall.
And somewhere in a hospital across the city, a man with dark red eyes opened them for the first time since the accident—and whispered a name he didn't recognize.
"...Smithen..."
Private hospital —the same night
Viran's eyes snapped open.
The ceiling was white. Sterile. Wrong.
He tried to move, and pain exploded through his left arm.
Broken, he realized distantly. My arm is broken.
His head throbbed. His ribs ached. Everything hurt.
But that wasn't what made his heart race.
It was the dream.
Or... not a dream. A memory? A vision?
Someone holding his hand.
Someone talking to him in the rain.
Someone who smelled like—
"Sir! You're awake!"
His PA, Luxan, rushed to his bedside, face pale with relief. "Thank God. The doctors said—there was a chance—we lost contact—the accident—"
"What happened?" Viran's voice came out rough, scraped raw.
"Car accident on the mountain road. The driver is in critical condition, but he'll survive. You were found by a passerby who called emergency services. If they hadn't—"
"A passerby."
"Yes, sir. They left before we arrived. No contact information. Nothing."
Viran's brow furrowed.
Someone held my hand.
Someone's voice, cutting through the rain.
"...you don't get to die here..."
"Find them," Viran said.
"Sir?"
"Find the person who saved me. I want to thank them personally."
Luxan nodded, pulling out his phone. "I'll have the team look into it. The paramedics might have—"
He closed his eyes.
And in the darkness behind his lids, he saw nothing.
But he felt everything.