Chapter 2: The Dream of Cards and Dice

The bus station materialized around him at dusk, though he could not remember the journey there. The familiar kilometer walk home stretched ahead—a path he had chosen to walk countless times, refusing the convenience of auto-rickshaws and the newer electric ones that buzzed through the narrow streets like mechanical insects.

But something was wrong with the world. The people he encountered along the way greeted him with the customary nods and smiles, yet where their heads should have been, playing cards flickered in the lamplight. A woman with the seven of spades where her face belonged nodded respectfully. A man bearing the queen of hearts touched his hand to his forehead in greeting. Others displayed the jack, the ace, the king—an entire deck of Twenty-nine cards walking through the evening streets of his neighborhood.

Kaurav found himself staring, but no one seemed