Grief.
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"Chote…"
"Chote… Yash… my brother."
The memory slammed into me all at once. Yash beside me. The trek. The sudden sound that split the air. Darkness swallowing everything. Waking up alone. Then the roar of a landslide. The fall. And those enormous hands catching me before everything went black again.
The images hit like icy water. My chest tightened. Panic surged. I tried to stand, but my legs were shaking, unsteady. My body felt tilted, misaligned, like it belonged to someone else. With effort, I forced myself upright.
I didn't think. I just turned toward the mountain and started moving. My legs trembled, but I pushed through it—walking, then running, the cold cutting into my skin.
I have to find him. I don't even know how much time has passed.
He must be somewhere in that shattered mountain, trapped, waiting for me. That thought burned through everything else. I fixed my eyes on the slope ahead and kept going, again and again, the same words looping in my head: He's alive. He's waiting.
The snow crunched beneath my boots. Wind slapped my face raw. My breath turned into white smoke. None of it mattered.
When I finally reached the foot of the mountain, my heart stopped.
The mountain wasn't the same mountain we climbed. The upper half had collapsed, ripped open like a wounded beast. Our trail was gone—buried under tons of white and stone.
"No… no, no. This can't be happening."
Shock numbed me, but my body moved on its own.
"Yash," I whispered.
Then I screamed.
"YASH!"
"CHOTE!"
"I'm back! I'm here! Answer me!"
"Give me something—anything—so I can find you!"
My voice tore through the cold, echoing before the wind swallowed it.
I dropped to my knees and started digging. Rock. Ice. Whatever I could lift, I threw aside. My fingers numbed, then burned, then bled. I kept going.
"YASH!"
Nothing. No reply. Only silence stretching back at me.
I found our ropes. Our bags. Some scattered gear. But not him.
I searched until my lungs burned, until the sky dimmed and shadows crawled across the snow. I searched until the truth finally sank its teeth into me.
He wasn't here.
And I might never see him again.
The weight of that thought broke something inside me. I stood there, rooted in the ruins, unable to move.
A scream ripped out of me.
"Aaaaahhh!"
"Why him?"
"Why not me?"
"I should've been the one under these rocks."
Guilt swallowed every corner of my mind. I dragged him out here. I convinced him. If he hadn't followed me, he'd still be safe. I'd trade places with him in a heartbeat—lie buried beneath this rubble if it meant he walked away alive.
"What am I going to tell Mom and Dad?"
"Why am I even alive?"
The word alive scraped something raw in my memory. I fell from a deadly height. I should have died. So why didn't I?
The answer flashed immediately.
The giant man.
He caught me. Carried me to the inn. Saved me.
If I remember right, he was almost three meters tall. That shouldn't be possible. Not for a human. And it wasn't just his height—his presence felt… different. Heavy. Ancient. Almost divine.
If he saved me… then maybe he saved Yash too.
That fragile thread of hope pushed my body into motion again.
The old couple at the inn had lived here for more than ten years.
They must have seen him. Someone like that doesn't go unnoticed.
"I should ask them," I muttered. "They'll know something."
I clenched my fists and stared at the sky. Maybe I imagined that giant. Maybe the shock twisted my memories. But if he isn't real…
I don't want to think about that.
I turned away from the ruins and headed back toward the inn.
Between the inn and the mountains lay a small patch of forest—barely a forest, really—just sparse trees and undergrowth. That's what it used to be.
But as soon as I stepped inside it, something felt wrong.
At first time, the place was ordinary. And today, before, I hadn't paid attention—the panic blinded me—but now, moving through it, I noticed the difference immediately.
The trees were taller. Thicker. Their shadows longer, stretching unnaturally across the snow. The air hummed faintly, a pulse I could feel under my skin.
It felt like eyes were on me. The same unsettling presence I sensed near the inn when I first woke up… the same strange density of plants. Back then, I thought I was disoriented. Now I wasn't so sure.
"Focus, Hira," I muttered. "Figure out the forest later. Yash comes first."
Shoving the unease aside, I broke into a run again—back toward the inn, toward whatever answers waited there.
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A.N.- AS YOU CAN SEE/READ, THE TITLES OF THIS NOVEL ARE A LITTLE UNIQUE.
I HAD READ MANY WEBNOVELS, AND THERE TITLES ARE ALWAYS IN ENGLISH, SO HERE I AM TRYING TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. MY TITLES ARE IN THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE.
THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE MEANING OF THE TITLE CAN SEARCH IT ONLINE. I WILL ALSO POST ITS MEANING AT THE LAST OF EVERY CHAPTER.
TITLE MEANING, 'THE GRIEF/SORROW FOR THE LOST PERSON.
NOW YOU CAN SHOW YOUR SUPPORT BY GIVING THE POWER STONES. I WILL BE WAITING.