THE WAIT:-
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By afternoon, the Gurukula had grown too quiet.
Not silent—there were still voices here and there, sandals brushing across stone, the occasional murmur from students gathered beneath the shade—but the usual pulse of the place was gone. No drills echoed through the courtyard. No barked corrections from instructors cut through the heat. Even the practice grounds looked strangely abandoned, lying open beneath the dull weight of the sun as if the day itself had paused to wait for something.
Tanuj stood near the edge of the courtyard, his gaze fixed on the entrance path beyond the outer gate.
Empty.
Still empty.
He had looked so many times that the path no longer felt real. Every glance carried the same hope. Every glance returned the same answer.
Puru should have been back by now.
That thought had stopped sounding like concern and started sounding like warning.
Tanuj shifted his weight and forced himself to step away from the gate, but the distance only made it worse. His mind refused to leave it. Every passing minute tightened something inside him, winding his thoughts into the same circle again and again until even standing still felt difficult.
Raghu had not returned.
Puru had gone after him.
Now neither of them were here.
The thought sat heavily in his chest, too sharp to ignore and too dangerous to say aloud.
He began to walk, not with purpose, only because remaining still made the waiting unbearable. A few steps across the courtyard. A turn. Then back again. His fingers curled and uncurled at his sides, restless, unable to settle.
He told himself to wait.
Just a little longer.
Puru had said he would return.
Puru had said not to tell anyone.
That should have been enough to hold onto.
But time had a way of weakening certainty.
The afternoon had already begun to lean toward evening, and with it came the thought he had been trying to avoid since morning.
Evening check-in.
The students would be counted.
Names would be called.
Absences would no longer stay hidden beneath silence.
Tanuj swallowed, but the dryness in his throat remained. His breathing had grown shallow without him noticing, each breath stopping just short of ease.
If Puru returned before then, this would pass.
If he did not—
Tanuj stopped walking.
He did not let the thought finish.
Across the courtyard, a few students sat in loose conversation, their voices low and careless, untouched by the tension pressing against him. One laughed. Another leaned back against a pillar, unconcerned. The normalcy of it made the unease worse. The world had not changed for them.
Only for him.
He looked toward the entrance again.
Nothing.
A faint breeze stirred the dust along the path and carried it into the courtyard, dry and warm against his skin. It brought no relief.
His hands had begun to tremble. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for him to feel it.
He clenched them behind his back.
It did not help.
At the far end of the grounds, Sukarna had stepped into the practice field.
He said nothing at first, but his eyes moved across the open space with the quiet instinct of a man who had spent too many years counting what should be there. His gaze lingered for only a moment longer than usual—just enough to notice what the courtyard lacked.
Puru.
He did not ask.
Not yet.
But Tanuj saw the pause.
And that pause tightened the fear in him far more than a question would have.
The sun had begun its slow descent. Shadows stretched longer across the stone. Time, until now slow and shapeless, had suddenly begun to move with purpose.
Tanuj stood frozen in the middle of the courtyard, caught between the gate and Sukarna's silence, feeling the day close around him one quiet moment at a time.
Exhaustion:-
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Puru did not stop running until the abandoned village had long vanished behind the walls of the forest.
He ran past broken roots and twisted trunks, through narrow turns where the trees bent too close and the earth dipped without warning. Branches clawed at his shoulders as he forced his way through them, dry leaves cracking under his feet, the sound of his own breath louder than anything else around him. The forest had no path to offer, only resistance.
For the first stretch, the force that had carried him out of that ruined place still held.
Adrenaline.
It kept his legs moving. It kept his grip from loosening. It drowned out the weight on his shoulders and the pain burning across his own body.
But adrenaline was cruel in the way it left.
It did not fade gently.
It abandoned him all at once.
By the time he had crossed what felt like half a mile of tangled forest, the strength in his body began to fall apart. His pace broke first. What had been a run became something uneven and desperate. His legs trembled under him, each step less certain than the last, his knees threatening to give way every time his foot struck the ground.
Raghu's weight, which he had ignored until now, became unbearable.
It settled into his shoulders like stone. Every breath pulled against it. Every step drove it deeper into his bones.
Puru's lungs tightened so sharply that for one terrifying moment, they seemed to forget how to breathe. His chest seized. Air refused to come. He staggered forward, nearly collapsing beneath Raghu's weight before his body forced a breath back into itself—a ragged, painful gasp that burned all the way down.
He kept moving for a few steps more.
Then stopped.
The silence around him felt wrong.
Too complete.
No voices. No pursuit. No movement behind him.
Only the dry hiss of leaves shifting somewhere above.
He turned his head once, listening past the roar of blood in his ears.
Nothing followed.
At least not yet.
It was enough.
He had put enough distance between them and that place.
For the first time since entering the abandoned village, Puru allowed himself to stop.
He lowered Raghu carefully from his shoulder, his arms shaking so badly that even that simple motion became difficult. He eased him down against the trunk of a wide, old tree, supporting his weight as gently as he could until Raghu's body rested against the bark.
The moment Raghu was down, Puru's own body gave out.
He dropped to the ground beside him, not by choice, but because his legs no longer obeyed him. His knees struck first, then his hands, and then the rest of him followed. He caught himself against the dry earth, breathing hard, each inhale jagged, each exhale thin and unstable.
The forest smelled of hot bark, crushed grass, and dust baked beneath the afternoon sun.
Under it all—
blood.
The scent clung to Raghu's skin, thick and metallic, impossible to ignore.
Puru forced himself to look.
Raghu's head had fallen slightly to one side. His body was limp against the tree, his breath so faint that Puru had to lean closer just to be certain it was still there. Blood had dried in dark streaks across his arms and shoulders, while fresher lines still slipped slowly from the wounds the bindings and whip had left behind.
Too much blood.
Far too much.
Puru's chest tightened again, but not from exhaustion this time.
He stared at Raghu for a moment too long, and in that moment the image before him broke against memory.
Not this Raghu.
Not the one laughing beside him.
Not the one who mocked him during training. Not the one who argued over every plan as though losing a debate was worse than losing a fight. Not the one who could make even silence feel less empty.
For one brief, helpless moment, Puru's eyes filled.
He looked away and pressed the heel of his palm against them, but the tears came anyway.
Then he moved.
There was no time left for grief.
He tore at his own clothes first, ripping away the cleaner strips of cloth—anything not already soaked with dirt or blood—and knelt beside Raghu again. His hands were clumsy from fatigue, trembling from strain, but he forced them steady enough to bind what he could. One strip across the shoulder. Another pulled tight around the arm. Another pressed where the bleeding had not yet slowed.
The cloth darkened almost immediately.
Still, he tied it tighter.
Then tighter again.
He reached for the small water container tied at his side.
The moment his fingers wrapped around it, dread settled into him.
It felt too light.
He opened it anyway.
His own throat was dry enough to ache. His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth. His stomach burned with heat and emptiness, his body begging for even a mouthful.
He did not drink.
He lifted Raghu's head carefully, opened his mouth, and tilted the container above him, hoping for something—anything.
A drop.
Just one.
Nothing came out.
Not a single drop.
Puru held it there a second longer, as though refusing to believe what he already knew.
Then lowered it slowly.
The forest around them remained still, vast and indifferent, stretching in every direction with no promise of help and no certainty of safety.
Puru sat there in the dust beside his unconscious friend, throat burning, limbs shaking, hands stained red, and for the first time since he had found Raghu, the full shape of what lay ahead settled over him.
They were alive.
But they were still deep in the forest.
Raghu was bleeding.
He had no water.
And the sun had not yet begun to fall.
The Call:-
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By evening, the Gurukula had gathered once again. The courtyard, scattered and restless through the afternoon, now stood in order. Students lined up shoulder to shoulder, their movements disciplined, their voices absent. The fading light stretched long shadows across the stone and slowly pulled the day toward its end.
At the front, Sukarna stood still. His presence alone was enough to quiet what little sound remained.
The counting began.
Names were never called. They did not need to be. Sukarna's eyes moved across the rows instead—sharp, practiced, measuring what stood before him against what should have been there. One by one. Face by face.
Tanuj stood at the very end of the line, his head lowered. Not entirely out of respect.
His hands were clasped behind him, but they were not steady. A faint tremor ran through his fingers, small enough to hide, strong enough that he could not ignore it.
He did not look up. He did not need to. He already knew what was missing.
Each passing second felt heavier than the last. The silence of the courtyard pressed against him, thick and suffocating, broken only by the soft shift of Sukarna's steps as he moved along the rows.
This is it, Tanuj thought.
No more waiting. No more hoping Puru would appear at the last moment. No more delaying what had already happened.
Tanuj let his shoulders ease just slightly, a quiet surrender settling into him.
Let whatever happens, happen.
Sukarna reached the end of the rows and paused. Only for a fraction of a moment, but enough for Tanuj to feel it.
Then he turned and said calmly, "The count is complete. Return to your quarters."
The lines broke at once. Students began to move, their low conversations slowly returning as the tension of the assembly dissolved around them.
Tanuj did not move immediately.
For a moment, he stood still, unsure whether what he had just heard was relief or something worse.
No question. No mention. Nothing.
He lifted his head slightly, just enough to glance forward. Sukarna had already turned away.
Tanuj exhaled, slow and uncertain, then turned and began to walk.
One step. Then another.
The courtyard had already begun to thin as students left in different directions, their footsteps echoing softly against the stone.
"Tanuj."
Sukarna's voice came from behind.
Tanuj stopped. Not suddenly. Not sharply. With the stillness of someone who had expected that call all along.
For a brief moment, he closed his eyes.
Then he turned back.
Sukarna stood where he had been, watching. Waiting.
Tanuj walked toward him, each step measured, controlled, though his body felt anything but. The distance between them was not far, but it stretched long enough for every thought to return again.
No escape. No delay.
He stopped a few steps away, head lowered, eyes fixed on the ground.
He did not speak. He did not need to.
Sukarna studied him in silence for a moment. Not harshly. Not gently either. Simply observing.
Then he asked, "Did Puru go outside searching for Raghu?"
For the first time since the assembly began, Tanuj lifted his head.