CHAPTER 7: THE ARCHIVE OF SHADOWS
A strange silence hung outside the hut. Even the wind seemed to have stopped. Suddenly, Iris's voice thundered from Aryan's laptop like a bolt of lightning.
"Aryan… move now! The system has locked onto your signal!"
Aryan's heart began to beat wildly.
Kaka instantly stood up from his cot. That old "lion-heart" spark, which he had once mentioned about Dr. Raghav, returned to his eyes. He picked up an old rod-like stick hanging on the wall and grabbed Aryan's hand.
"We have to leave through the back way, boy," Kaka said in a low but firm voice. "The forest is no longer our friend."
Just as they stepped out of the back door of the hut, a bright blue light suddenly flashed in the sky. Aryan looked up. A mechanical drone was hovering in the air. Its shape was like a fly, but it was as large as a cheetah. A red laser beam was emitting from where its eyes should be, scanning the ground. The system had found them.
Aryan suddenly stopped while running. He looked at the drone closely. The air around the drone was pixelating in a strange way—like a frame of a video breaking apart.
"This… isn't real…" Aryan said softly. "Iris… can you distract it?"
Iris's face began to flicker on the laptop screen. "I'm trying… but I am a glitch myself, Aryan… I need system access…"
The drone came down lower. The laser beam began moving straight toward them. Suddenly, Kaka stopped. He picked up a heavy stone from the ground and threw it at the drone with all his strength. As soon as the stone hit the drone—
TZZZZT!
A loud static sound echoed in the air. The drone's image broke for a moment, like a screen losing its signal.
"Run!" Kaka roared. "It's just an illusion… if you don't look at it with fear!"
Aryan and Kaka ran toward the dark forest. After some time, they reached a part of the forest where the tree branches were so thick that the sky was completely hidden. This place felt cut off from the rest of the world. Amidst the bushes stood the skeleton of an old factory-like building. The walls were broken, and the iron was covered in rust, yet a strange secret felt hidden within that place.
Kaka said softly, "This is the place… Dr. Raghav used to call it the Dead Zone. The system's signal becomes weak here."
Inside the building was an old basement. Kaka opened a heavy iron door with great difficulty. The door opened with a groaning sound. A cold gust of wind came from inside. The room was filled with old files, dusty machines, and a large iron safe (tijori).
There was no lock on the safe. Instead, a digital pad was attached to it. Aryan slowly walked up to it. He placed his hand on the pad. For a moment, everything went silent. Then—
Beep.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The safe began to open slowly. Aryan looked inside. There was no gold… no money. There were only two things: an old Hard Drive and a strange pair of glasses. Blue lights and codes were running across the lenses of those glasses. Out of curiosity, Aryan put the glasses on.
And in that moment… his world changed. He saw digital grids through the walls, running code inside the trees, and the source codes of the drones circling in the distant sky. Aryan's breath hitched. He whispered—
"This… isn't a forest… This whole world… is a simulation."
Suddenly, lights began to flash on the basement walls. Large digital letters started blinking:
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED
SYSTEM PURGE INITIATED
120 SECONDS
Aryan and Kaka both froze. Kaka looked at Aryan, his voice heavy.
"Raghav told me… when you open this safe… the whole world will try to erase you."
Outside, the sound of the drones grew louder. The entire forest seemed to wake up. Aryan grabbed the hard drive and plugged it into his laptop. Iris's face glowed on the screen. Aryan said softly—
"Iris… now the game will be played by our rules."
A countdown was running on the screen.
119… 118… 117…
And the story had now reached a new turning point.