Truth
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"…Alright. Let's assume what you're saying is true," the man said, fingers drumming lightly on the table. "Then where is this little brother of yours? Why isn't he with you in the forest?"
His question cut through me like a blade. My throat tightened. I had no idea how to answer. Should I tell him my brother died in a landslide? That I myself should've died? Or that maybe—just maybe—he was carried away by that impossible giant whose face I saw only in a haze?
"I… don't know," I said, the words small and pathetic even to my own ears.
"What do you mean you don't know?" His tone sharpened, one wrong breath away from snapping. "Are you playing games with me?"
"I really don't know." I swallowed hard. My voice wavered. "One moment, we were on the mountain, teasing each other, arguing over nothing. The next… everything shook. Rocks, boulders, trees—everything came crashing down. The whole world collapsed under us."
My eyes shut on their own. The memory was too close, too fresh; the weight of earth, the cold rush of terror—it clawed right back up my spine.
A low laugh slipped from him, humourless. "Boy, either you're messing with me… or you don't value your life at all."
"What do you mean, sir?" I shouldn't have asked. Every instinct begged me to keep quiet, but confusion was eating me alive.
"What I mean," he said slowly, leaning forward like a predator explaining patience to prey, "is that not a single landslide has been recorded in this region. Not this week. Not even close." His voice hardened. "Enough. Drop the act. Tell me who sent you here. And what is your goal?"
"Sir, I truly don't know what you're talking about." Strangely, my voice came out steady. "I already told you—my brother and I came to visit the area around Gangotri Dham. We didn't even know this place was restricted."
He didn't look convinced.
"Fine. Let's say I humour you a little longer." His gaze darkened with something I couldn't name. "Then explain this—why am I sensing a strong surge of 'prana' from you?"
I opened my mouth, but he cut me off immediately.
"Don't." His jaw tightened. "Don't pretend you don't understand. Your prana is radiating out of you like you've just awakened from a Pariama stage."
Pariama. Prana. Words that meant nothing to me. I stared at him, lost, watching the shift in his expression. As he spoke, something flickered across his face—surprise, disbelief, maybe even realisation. It was the first time his composure cracked.
Then he asked something that froze my breath.
"Boy… tell me the date you and your brother went to the mountains."
A strange feeling crawled up my spine. Whatever was happening to me—my memory gaps, the ruined inn, the snow, my changed appearance—this man in front of me knew something. Maybe everything.
"Sir," I managed, my voice small, "we reached Uttarakhand on August first."
"August first…" he repeated quietly, as if testing how the words tasted. His gaze drifted away from me for a moment, and the silence stretched thin between us.
"And the day of the landslide?" His voice dropped lower, more controlled.
"Third August." The words scraped out of me. "It was also the day my brother went missing."
His eyes didn't move, but something sharp entered the air, like the very space between us tightened.
"I looked for him." My hands trembled against the table, and I didn't bother to hide it. "I looked everywhere. He… he was just gone. As if he vanished into thin air."
The captain leaned back, arms folding slowly. The earlier aggression, the suspicion—it all drained away, leaving a calmness that felt wrong, like the silence before an earthquake.
"Sir, if you know something," I pleaded, "please tell me. I don't even know how I survived that landslide. I don't know how long I was unconscious. I woke up buried in snow, in a place I didn't recognize—"
"You should go back to your tent and rest." His voice was flat, final.
"Rest?" I snapped, unable to hold it in anymore. "Rest? How am I supposed to rest when nothing makes sense?" My voice rose despite myself. "I woke up in snow with no idea how I survived. The inn I stayed at turned into ruins. My surroundings changed. My face, my body—they look different in the mirror. My brother is missing. And you're telling me to rest?"
The tent fell dead silent. He didn't interrupt me, didn't shout back—he just stared, as if calculating the weight of every word I had thrown at him.
A hollow laugh escaped me—broken, humourless. "You should've left me to die in the jungle."
That finally jolted him. His eyes widened a fraction, surprise flickering across them. But he still didn't respond.
I pushed my chair, stood up. If he wasn't going to answer me, there was no point sitting here drowning in my own confusion.
But just as I reached the entrance, his voice rang out.
"This world is no longer the same world you remember."
I stopped.
Those words echoed in the tent, heavy and quiet, like they had been waiting to be spoken for a long time.
Slowly, I turned back and sat down again. The captain's face had changed; the steel in his eyes was replaced with something older, wearier.
"I must warn you," he said, voice low, steadying itself around each syllable, "what I'm going to tell you… lies far beyond the ordinary."
The air felt colder. My heartbeat seemed to slow, each thud louder than the last. Something deep inside me already knew this moment was the line—before and after. Whatever he said next would shatter whatever remained of the world I thought I understood.
And still… I leaned forward.
Ready.
Waiting.
Because the only thing worse than the truth was the darkness of not knowing.
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A.N. - SATYA, means 'Truth'.
'prana' is a word used for life essence.
'pariama' is a word for evolution.
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