The world fractured in a heartbeat. Pune, once a city of traffic and sunlight, was now a jagged landscape of high-alert sirens. The wails moved like silver blades through the alleys, cutting through the smoke to secure what remained of the living. On the asphalt, the heavy rhythmic thud of soldiers' boots "glazed" the air—a sound unwanted by the locals, yet the only thing keeping the Abyss from swallowing the street. Above, the mechanical "glazing" of choppers churned the clouds into a vortex, filling the night with a terror humanity had engineered against its own soul.
Sanvi watched Arush vanish. He didn't just jump; he seemed to despair into the air, a silhouette of impossible, terrifying strength. "How did he get that strong?" she whispered, her breath leaving her lips as a wisp of frost.
She turned to Ujjwal. He was a ruin on the ground. His wounds were deep, jagged trenches in his flesh where life was rapidly escaping. Desperation surged. Sanvi pressed her trembling palms against the heat of his blood. Her power didn't flow; it bit. A jagged crystal of ice bloomed beneath her fingers, sealing the veins and forcing the bleeding to a frozen halt. Ujjwal groaned, his eyes rolling back as his world dissolved into a dark, numb haze.
The streetlights flickered, dying and reviving like a failing pulse. Then, the walkie-talkie on Ujjwal's belt hissed.
"We are coming for you. Is the threat eliminated?"
Ujjwal couldn't speak. Sanvi grabbed the device, her fingers slick with gore. She gripped it until her knuckles turned white.
"Copy. Threat... threat has been eliminated," she rasped, her voice hardening. "I am an Awakened. Mr. Ujjwal is critically injured. We need extraction. Urgent."
A silence flowed through the radio, thick and stinking like ozone. Then, a sharp female voice cut through: "Stay with him. Our men are closing in. What is your name, young lady?"
Sanvi looked at the ice covering Ujjwal's chest. "Sanvi."
Miles away, in the hollow silence of the cursed groves, Arush sat among the dry, skeletal leaves. It was 9:34 PM. He looked at his shirt—a canvas of dried brown and wet crimson. His brain felt like a circuit board on the verge of melting; neurons sparked with the phantom memory of the pain. The flesh had grown back, smooth and new under the power of the Black Flame, but the memory of the agony was etched into his soul.
"Human evolution," he whispered, the being's words echoing in his mind. Was it praise? Or a taunt? He looked at his watch. The glass was shattered, a spiderweb of cracks obscuring the face, but the gears still ground forward: 9:45 PM.
Arush stood up. He turned toward the small temple box where this nightmare had ignited. He began to walk, his stride heavy. He didn't just move through the groves; he owned them. His hand brushed his leg, remembering the moment the steam had risen from his wounds. He remembered the bone—the white, jagged reality of it sticking out of his skin. He remembered putting his own hand in his mouth, biting down until his gums bled so he could grab that bone and force it back into place. Even the thought brought a wave of goosebumps that felt like needles.
The night above was filled with stars, indifferent to the blood on his clothes.
He reached his house. From the stairs, he could hear the jagged screams of his mother—the sound of a woman who thought she had lost her world. Arush let out a short, hollow laugh. He climbed the stairs, each step a heavy debt, and rang the bell.
The door swung open. The light from the hallway hit him—a warm comfort that momentarily healed the wound in his heart. His mother collapsed into him, sobbing, her eyes soaked in tears. Arush felt nothing. No pain, no relief. He looked past her to his father, whose face was a mask of shock.
"Arush! What happened? Why is your shirt soaked in blood?"
Arush's eyes flickered, the pupils glowing with a faint, crimson residue. He looked down. "Soldiers came to help us," he lied, his voice flat. "None of them returned. I tried to help one... he didn't survive. It's all his blood."
He moved past them, a ghost in his own home, and locked himself in the bathroom. The house went silent. Under the spray of the shower, Arush watched the red water swirl down the drain. His leg was perfect. No marks, no scars. But the numbness remained. He realized then that he hadn't just healed his body; he had cauterized his feelings for other people.
Dinner was a funeral. No one spoke. Arush chewed his food mechanically. His sister leaned forward, her eyes wide with a terrifying curiosity.Arush grabbing his food unable to even lift cause his mind was signaling him that nothing has changed his life will struggle more with choices cause know he has power to bend but his soul is still not ready to be bend then his sister said
"Look at me, Arush," she whispered. He turned. "Why are your eyes so dark? It's like they're emitting rays of a sun... but a red one."
Arush didn't reply. He put his plate in the sink and walked to his room. In the mirror, he saw it—the soul glowing with a deep, predatory red fire. "This curse," he told his reflection, "is a new birth for me."He turned to his bed laying down touching his chest and cloth falling asleep. As pain can't be felt in sleep or can be forgotten
Outside the window, perched on the gnarled limb of a mango tree, the White Hawk watched.
"You are like water," the Hawk's voice resonated in the air, a frequency only the soul could hear. "The world forces you to take shape, yet it cannot change your essence. You are the Sun—vulnerable, yet the strongest. You carry emotions no one sees. You are ice-cold, but those who stay long enough will know your worth. You will die, but your glory will rise from the ash. Sun... you have me this time."
The Hawk spread its wings, catching a wind that didn't exist in the modern world. It spiraled upward as a shimmering portal tore through the night sky. The Hawk passed through the veil, leaving the sirens of Pune for the blazing, unfiltered sunlight of the 13th Century.
Below it lay the city of Varnaspur. Horses thundered through fields of golden grain toward the River Maya—the vein of life for a hundred kingdoms ruled by the iron will of Indrasur. The Hawk descended, its claws gripping the branch of an ancient tree.
The air shimmered. Black flames licked the grass as a figure stepped out of the void. It was the same shadow—the tail, the flames, the terrifying calm.
"The Sun has evolved, hasn't he?" the Hawk asked.
Kurozaru looked out at the River Maya. "Human evolution... hah. We have both witnessed it."
The Hawk laughed, a sharp, ancient sound. "Not like this, Kurozaru."
"I thought I chose a vessel," Kurozaru replied, a dark pride entering his voice. "But I never knew I had made the perfect one."
He turned his face toward the river, hiding a predatory smile as the transparent water revealed golden fish swimming in an Indraprastha that knew no borders—yet. The all almighty Indraprasth.the noise of children playing while hawk seeing the Kurozaru putting his hand in river as it will turn into void that kingdom is not ready.
Back in the modern world, the cleanup had begun. Black bags were lined up in the park to collect the "sacrificed" squads of Delta and Alpha. Ujjwal was rushed to the emergency ward, his hand a mangled ruin, his body a map of chewed flesh.
The park was flooded with artificial white light. Men in tactical vests and masks—NSEA agents—occupied every inch of the soil. Sanvi sat in the back of an armored vehicle, her shoes caked in mud and blood.
At the NSEA Headquarters, the light in the interrogation room was blindingly white. Sanvi sat alone, her hands like ice. An agent entered, placing a humming device on the table.
"Place your hand on the scanner," the agent ordered.
Sanvi's hand trembled as she touched the cold metal. The screen flashed: DEALER LEVEL.
The agent's eyes sharpened. "Thank you for your cooperation. One: Would you like to join the NSEA?"
Sanvi looked at the agent, then at the frost beginning to creep across the metal table from her fingertips. She put a thin, cold smile on her face. "Yes. I would."
The agent leaned in, her tone becoming a low, serious growl. "Question two: Who killed the sinner, young lady? Who did this?"
Sanvi closed her eyes. She felt the blood on her shoes. She remembered Arush's scream. She remembered the Red Sun.
Her lips moved to say something to release a new revolution or betray that will be never accepted?
-ARUSH SALUNKE