Aarav sat in a narrow side room off the registrar's hall, where Reva had told him to wait while she filed the pre-approval.
The room was quiet, like everything in Codora seemed to be. The walls were matte gray, not dull but soft-looking, like they absorbed the noise on purpose. He leaned back in the chair—not that it had any sharp edges or hard corners—and tried to relax.
But his mind was doing somersaults.
Back on Earth, his shift would've just started. Headset. Chair. Script. Repeat. The call center's soulless loop. But here—this place operated on its own rhythm. A cleaner one. A little too calm. There was no clock, no ticking, but he felt time slipping in a different way. Stretching. Folding.
He pulled out his notebook and wrote one word: time.
He frowned. The idea that time felt different here nagged at him, but he couldn't prove it. Not yet.
"Maybe I'm just imagining it," he muttered. "Still feels...off."
He'd only know for sure once he went back. Only then could he check if minutes here stretched differently than they did on Earth.
He'd have to compare.
He had to spend long enough here first. A full day, maybe. Ten hours. Something measurable. Then cross back and check the clock.
That, and keep his other life hidden.
He couldn't tell anyone where he was really from. Not Reva. Not anyone.
Because if they found out, if they figured out he wasn't from some forgotten district—they might close the portal. Or worse, he might lose his shot.
He flipped a page and wrote: Codora.
Not that he knew the name officially. But he'd seen it now—carved into the waiting room wall, just above the panel with the glowing script. The letters had shimmered subtly with the room's light: Codora Accord.
That was confirmation enough.
The history wasn't something Reva told him directly—it was carved into the waiting room walls. Clean, almost artistic engravings, with moving etch-text that shifted depending on how the light hit it. And the strangest part? It was in English.
That shook him more than the architecture, more than the mirror. Because if this was just some advanced city on Earth, the language made sense. But in a completely different world?
Aarav stared at the script as it glowed gently across the panel:
"After the Flame Treaty collapsed, the last of the Three Nations—Vornia, Naltros, and Eshkai—merged under the Codora Accord. Reconstruction began not with armies, but with architects."
It was too clean. Too deliberate. Too... tailored.
He sat back in the seat.
"Maybe this isn't a new world," he muttered. "Maybe it's a different version of ours."
A parallel Earth. It would explain the similarities. The physics. The people.
It made the mystery deeper—but also a little more grounded.
Reva had said the infrastructure outpaced the population. Now it made sense. Codora wasn't just rebuilding—it was repopulating.
He wondered how many other people like him had stumbled in—or if he really was the only one. The mirror had felt specific. Like it wanted him. But maybe he was romanticizing it.
Still, the idea gripped him.
This was his shot. Maybe his only one. And if someone else found the mirror—someone with more money, more charm, more connections—he'd be nothing again. He couldn't let that happen.
He had to protect the secret. Play it smart. Stay two steps ahead.
And that meant locking down the one place no one else knew about—the mirror room. The storage space in the back of the old TV repair shop.
He'd have to buy it. Somehow. Before anyone else even noticed it existed. It wasn't just an exit anymore. It was his anchor, his advantage.
He checked his Earth phone again—no signal, of course. But the calendar app still ticked along. It showed Sunday. He'd missed a shift. Maybe two. But this? This mattered more.
Somewhere between curiosity and strategy, his hunger started to kick in. He hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. And for the first time since arriving, he felt it—Codora had food stalls, but he hadn't tried anything yet.
He made a mental note to ask Reva about currency. Or trade.
Then the door opened.
Someone else entered the room—young guy, sharp buzzcut, wearing deep red layers with metallic trim. He nodded once.
"Aarav?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Kenrix. Document validator. Just here to make sure your submission wasn't plagiarized or mind-generated."
Aarav blinked. "Mind-generated?"
"People use stim-tools to auto-compose. Against the rules. We check tone patterns."
Kenrix held up a device like a tablet merged with a painter's palette. He waved it around Aarav's notebook. The light flickered once, then turned green.
"Looks legit. You're good. Reva's finishing your file. You'll get pinged for your cultural interview tomorrow."
Then he left.
Aarav leaned back again.
He was officially in the system.
He had no idea what tomorrow looked like.
But he had an idea.
Later that day, when Reva gave him clearance to leave and return before the interview, he took it.
He headed straight for the mirror. The return trip was faster now. Like the shimmer knew him.
Back on Earth, he rushed into his flat. The lights flickered when he hit the switch. Same dusty air, same faint mildew smell. But something was different now. He wasn't just coming back—he was checking the time.
He looked at his phone. The time? Just five hours had passed. He'd been in Codora for ten.
Confirmed.
His stomach growled, but he didn't go to the kitchen. Instead, there was a loud knock on the door.
Landlord.
Aarav opened it to see Mr. Rao, arms crossed, expression sour.
"You skipped a rent cycle," he snapped. "You vanish, and I get no answer. What's going on?"
Aarav rubbed his face. "I've got it. I just need a day or two."
"You say that every time. If I don't see something by Monday, I'm locking it."
He nodded. "Monday. Got it."
Mr. Rao grumbled and left.
Before Aarav could sit again, his phone buzzed. Office line. He debated ignoring it, but picked up.
"You missed a shift," his boss said flatly. "You think this is a hostel?"
"No, sir. I had a family issue. Emergency."
Silence.
"One more miss and don't bother logging in. Understand?"
"Understood."
He hung up and leaned against the wall.
Pressure.
Back in full force.
And all he had was a half-charged laptop and one shot at rewriting his life.
He opened his old laptop and pulled up a document he hadn't touched in years—an EPUB file of Dune. It was dense, visionary, and filled with themes Codora might never have explored: power, ecology, messianism, destiny. It wasn't just sci-fi—it was philosophy wrapped in spice and sand.
He started adapting. He swapped Arrakis for a parched terraformed colony, spice for a rare bio-resource, the Bene Gesserit for a neural guild. Names changed. Places too. He twisted the scenes, rewrote dialogue, collapsed subplots. But the soul—the struggle for survival, for purpose—it stayed.
It wasn't plagiarism. It was legacy with new bones.
By the time he returned through the mirror, the modified story was ready. And if it worked, it would be the first step in giving Codora stories it had never seen.
He wasn't surviving.
He was playing to win.