The dead man was sitting on a bench.
That was the first thing Dev noticed.
Not the white sky behind him. Not the absence of buildings, trees, roads, or anything else that should have made the place feel real.
Just the bench.
An ordinary wooden bench.
And on it sat Rohan.
Exactly as Dev remembered him.
Black T-shirt. Grey trousers. The old watch he had worn for years even after its glass cracked near the number six.
Dev stood a few metres away.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Dev smiled.
"You're dead."
Rohan looked at him.
No surprise.
No anger.
Nothing.
Dev laughed softly.
"Sorry. That sounded stupid."
Rohan continued looking at him.
Dev walked closer.
It was strange. He knew he was dreaming. Somewhere, somehow, he knew that. Yet everything felt more detailed than a dream should.
He could see the tiny scar near Rohan's eyebrow.
The loose thread on his sleeve.
He could even hear him breathing.
Which made no sense.
Dead people didn't breathe.
"You look exactly the same," Dev said.
Rohan said nothing.
Dev sat beside him.
The bench was cold.
For some time, they simply watched the empty white distance in front of them.
Dev had imagined this conversation many times.
At the funeral.
Three months later.
Then six months later.
Sometimes while driving.
Sometimes while lying awake at two in the morning, scrolling through old photographs he had no reason to keep looking at.
There had always been things he wanted to say.
Now that Rohan was finally there, Dev couldn't remember most of them.
So he said the simplest one.
"I miss you."
Rohan looked ahead.
Dev smiled faintly.
"You know, a lot has changed."
No response.
"They finally opened that metro line near my house. The one you kept saying would take another ten years."
Nothing.
"And remember that restaurant we used to go to? They renovated the whole place. Looks horrible now."
Rohan's face remained still.
Dev kept talking.
Maybe because silence made death feel too real.
He told him about people they knew.
Who had married.
Who had moved abroad.
Who had broken up.
Who had gotten promoted.
Who had become a father.
He told him about a new phone he would have loved.
A game they had once waited years for that had finally been released.
A film from a director Rohan liked.
A restaurant serving the kind of ridiculous oversized burgers he used to order.
Small things.
Ordinary things.
The kind of things that made up a life.
And as Dev spoke, something inside him began to ache.
Eventually he stopped.
"You missed so much."
Rohan turned towards him.
Dev looked down at his hands.
"I mean..."
He struggled to find the right words.
"I know people say stupid things when someone dies. That you're in a better place. That everything happens for a reason."
He shook his head.
"I don't know if I believe any of that."
Rohan watched him.
"I just think it's unfair."
Silence.
"You were thirty-two."
Nothing.
"You should've had more time."
Rohan lowered his eyes.
Dev felt his throat tighten.
"There would've been so much more."
And then—
Rohan laughed.
Dev stopped.
It wasn't loud at first.
Just a small sound escaping through his nose.
Then another.
And another.
Until Rohan bent forward slightly, covering his mouth.
Dev stared at him.
"What?"
Rohan kept laughing.
"What?"
The laughter grew louder.
There was something deeply wrong with it.
Not happiness.
Not amusement.
It sounded almost like disbelief.
"Rohan."
He finally stopped.
Then looked at Dev.
"I pity you."
Dev blinked.
"What?"
"I pity you."
Dev stared at him.
For a second he thought he had misheard.
"Why?"
Rohan looked away.
"I pity you."
"Okay."
Dev shifted uncomfortably.
"I don't know what that's supposed to mean."
Rohan said nothing.
Dev waited.
"Are you angry?"
No answer.
"Because I'm talking about all this stuff you missed?"
Rohan smiled.
"I pity you."
"Stop saying that."
"I pity you."
"Rohan."
"I pity you."
Dev stood.
Something in the dream had changed.
He couldn't explain how.
The white space around them seemed darker now, although there was no light to begin with.
"Why?"
Rohan looked up at him.
"Because you're ignorant."
The word irritated Dev more than it should have.
"Ignorant about what?"
Rohan leaned back.
"The truth."
Dev almost laughed.
"What truth?"
Rohan studied him for several seconds.
Then asked—
"You still write software?"
Dev frowned.
"What?"
"Software. You still build it?"
"Yeah."
"Applications?"
"Sometimes."
"You install applications on your phone?"
Dev stared at him.
"Where is this going?"
"Just answer."
"Obviously."
"And on your computer?"
"Yes."
"Servers?"
"Yes, Rohan. That's literally part of my job."
Rohan nodded.
"Good."
Dev sat again, though now he left some distance between them.
Rohan looked towards the empty horizon.
"When you install something on a computer, what happens?"
Dev sighed.
"What do you mean?"
"An application."
"It gets installed."
"Where?"
"On the system."
"And then?"
"You run it."
"Why?"
Dev gave him an annoyed look.
"Because I need it."
Rohan smiled.
"And if you don't need it?"
"Then I don't run it."
"And if you've forgotten it exists?"
Dev shrugged.
"It stays there."
"For how long?"
"Until I remove it, I guess."
"Months?"
"Sure."
"Years?"
"Possible."
"Ten years?"
"If the machine lasts that long."
Rohan nodded.
"And during those ten years, does the software know why it's there?"
Dev's expression changed slightly.
"It's software."
"Answer me."
"It doesn't know anything."
"Does it know who installed it?"
"No."
"Does it know what the person who installed it wanted?"
"No."
"Can it leave the machine by itself?"
Dev was quiet.
"No."
Rohan smiled.
"Interesting."
Dev stared at him.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
Rohan tapped Dev lightly on the chest.
"This isn't you."
Dev looked down.
"This is the machine."
"My body?"
"Your body. Your brain. Everything keeping it running."
Rohan pointed towards Dev's forehead.
"And you are whatever is running inside it."
Dev stared at him.
"So I'm software."
"Close enough."
Dev laughed, but Rohan didn't.
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it?"
Rohan leaned back.
"You spend your life obeying this thing. Hunger. Sleep. Fear. Desire. Pain. Chemicals rise, chemicals fall, and you call the result you."
Dev's smile faded.
"And somehow," Rohan continued, "you've convinced yourself the machine and the thing experiencing it are the same."
Dev looked away.
"Then what am I?"
Rohan smiled faintly.
"That's the first honest question you've asked."
Silence.
Dev sat again.
"Fine. Say you're right. Why are we here?"
"I don't know."
"Who put us here?"
"I don't know."
"Then what's the point?"
Rohan looked at him.
"You really think everything installed has a purpose?"
Dev frowned.
"Most software does."
"Most."
Rohan glanced towards the empty white distance.
"What about the programs you downloaded years ago and forgot?"
Dev said nothing.
"The unfinished projects on your laptop. The applications you opened once. Files sitting somewhere simply because nobody deleted them."
"That's not the same."
"Why?"
"Because we're alive."
Rohan turned towards him.
"That's what the software would say."
Dev felt something tighten in his chest.
For a few seconds, neither spoke.
Then Dev asked quietly,
"What happened when you died?"
Rohan smiled.
"I stopped running here."
"Here?"
Dev moved closer.
"What does that mean?"
No answer.
"Are you somewhere else?"
Rohan's face began to blur.
"Rohan."
The bench flickered.
"Can we exist outside this?"
Rohan was fading now.
"Can we run somewhere else?"
For the first time, Rohan looked almost amused.
"You're still asking the wrong question."
Dev stood.
"What question should I ask?"
The darkness reached him.
And Rohan disappeared.
Dev woke up.
His room was dark.
For a few seconds, he didn't move.
Just a dream.
That was all.
He sat up and looked at his hands.
Opened them.
Closed them.
Opened them again.
The thought returned immediately.
Hardware.
He hated how naturally the word fit.
His heart was beating without instruction.
His lungs kept filling.
His body kept running.
Processes he had never started and couldn't stop.
Dev looked towards the mirror.
For thirty years, he had never questioned the person staring back.
Now he did.
If the body was the machine—
then what was he?
The brain?
Memory?
Thought?
And if all of those could change, disappear, or fail...
what exactly remained?
He reached for his phone.
Opened Settings.
Storage.
Banking. Music. Maps. Games. Work.
Then, near the bottom, an application he didn't recognise.
Installed seven years ago.
Last opened six years ago.
Dev stared at it.
For six years, it had simply existed there.
Unused.
Forgotten.
No idea why it was there.
No idea who had put it there.
No idea when it would be removed.
He locked the phone.
Rohan's final words returned.
You're still asking the wrong question.
Dev had been asking what happened after death.
But perhaps that wasn't the frightening question.
Perhaps it was—
Why are we running now?
He looked down at his hands again.
They no longer felt entirely his.
For the first time in his life, Dev did not feel alive.
He felt “INSTALLED”
