Aryan tried to keep his head down. The day passed in chores: hauling water, scrubbing the stone floors of the prayer hall, listening to the sharp laughter of disciples behind him.
Gossip drifted."Too weak for even the basics.""Mahajan should've sent him back to his village.""But… didn't you see? His eyes that night—something strange."
Whispers cut sharp as blades. Aryan clenched his jaw but said nothing.
While rinsing the floor, a thought slipped out of him—low, muttered:
"Strength is not in form, but in breaking form."
The voice was wrong. Not his own. It was Mahajan's voice. Exact.Aryan froze, the water pooling around his knees. He touched his throat, trembling. Did I just… speak as him? Or did something else speak through me?
The Night
Restless, Aryan crept out when the gurukul slept. Cool grass brushed his bare feet. He looked up.
The moon hung too low. Red. Breathing. No one else stirred, but to Aryan, it shifted—closer, swollen like an eye watching.
Then—a sound. Not from the forest, not from the night creatures.A deep hum, like stone grinding against the sky.
Figures flickered at the edge of his vision—cloaked, faceless, standing in the treeline. When he turned, nothing. But the sound followed.
His chest tightened.Heart pounding, faster, faster, until it hurt.
Shock tore through his body.The world split—visions flashed:
A black void, stars cracking open like eggs.
Rigveda verses, half-formed, breaking apart in his mind.
A whisper: "Not perfection… freedom."
Aryan's body went rigid. Breath gone. Like his life was being pulled out through his skin. His vision tunneled. He dropped hard to the earth.
The Discovery
Another disciple, sent out for water, stumbled upon him. Aryan lay under the blood-red moon, eyes open but vacant, lips moving.
Words spilled—no disciple could understand them, yet they weren't gibberish. They sounded… ancient.
The boy backed away, terrified. Aryan's body twitched as if caught between breath and death.
The night swallowed the sound.
Banishment
By morning, rumors had spread like wildfire. Disciples whispered of forbidden tongues, of Aryan speaking in Mahajan's voice, of the blood-moon collapse.
Mahajan listened, expression stone. At last, he spoke:"Two days in the forest. Alone. Let discipline temper you."
Aryan bowed low, though inside he burned.
The Forest
The forest was colder than he expected. Every step sank into damp soil. Hunger gnawed by evening. Memories of his father's calloused hands, his mother's soft words, flickered like smoke.
But the whispers came again. Not the disciples' this time—something deeper. Unseen. Watching.
Shapes slid through the trees. Not beast. Not man. Shadows that bent too far, stretched too thin. Aryan's body shook, but strangely—he felt the night itself hesitate around him, as if the darkness feared him.
The Grove
He stumbled deeper until the trees bent inward, forming a hidden ring. At its center—an unnatural flame.
No wood. No smoke. Just fire, suspended above the ground.
It whispered as it swayed:
"Without darkness, light is blind."
Aryan's hand rose before he could stop it.
The flame leapt, searing. Pain shot up his arm—yet it didn't burn flesh. It sank instead, leaving a faint, half-formed mark etched into his palm.
Aryan gasped. The grove spun. His knees hit earth. Where am I? How did I survive this? Then—blackness.
The Hut
Light cracked through his eyes. Smoke. Herbs. He was inside a hut.
An old figure sat hunched by the hearth, beard tangled, skin paper-thin. His eyes were pale, sharp despite the ruin of his body.
"You shouldn't have touched it," the old man rasped. "Yet it chose you."
Aryan raised his palm. The mark glimmered faintly.
The man leaned closer, breath heavy with ash:"You think you were banished, boy? No. You were sent here. There are no accidents in the dark."