(Advit's Perspective)
People say death comes suddenly, without warning. But my mind, which for the past few years had operated solely on international diplomacy and strict protocols, saw this impending death as a pre-planned 'System Failure.'
It was the midnight of August 14, 2026. I was speeding down the Yamuna Expressway, heading from Greater Noida toward the newly constructed Jewar Airport. The rain was torrential; even with the wipers running at maximum capacity, the road ahead was barely visible. However, my blurred vision was focused more on the rearview mirror than the tarmac. Death was tailing me, and I knew it all too well.
My name is Advit. I was just an ordinary guy born into a middle-class family in Ghaziabad. I was never one of those 'born geniuses' who conquer the world on their first try. During my school days, I was an average student, but I harbored a strange obsession with learning new things. While other kids were busy playing, I chose Tamil as a secondary language. Later, when the career pressure mounted after the twelfth grade, I practically begged my father to let me join Portuguese and Chinese classes. He thought I was wasting my time, but my mind craved a different kind of high. I loved decoding the cultural nuances and languages of the world.
Then came my B.Tech. I chose Chemical Engineering, spending four years immersed in chemicals, their reactions, and molecular structures. That is where I met Shruti. Shruti... my best friend, my intellectual partner, who was pursuing her degree in Biotechnology. There was never any romantic angle between us. We shared a profound understanding that is only born when minds from two completely different disciplines collide and collaborate.
After engineering, we slogged through the corporate sector for four years, working private jobs, but our ultimate destinations were different. Alongside that exhausting corporate routine, we began preparing for the UPSC exams. First attempt... failed. Second attempt... failed. But I didn't give up. Being 'moderate' has one distinct advantage—you get used to falling, and you find a new way to get back up every single time. On our third attempt, we finally cracked the UPSC. We were both selected for the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).
After our training, my first posting was in New Delhi. A year and a half later, I was transferred straight to the United Kingdom embassy in London, while Shruti was posted in France. We were both massive history buffs. On weekends, whenever I found the time, I would bury myself in the archives of the British Library, while Shruti scoured old French records. We were obsessed with unearthing the ancient history of our country, especially those pages that had been deliberately forgotten by time.
Everything was going smoothly. Then, Shruti was transferred from France to the Russian Federation. And that was where everything changed.
A few weeks ago, while returning to India from Russia, Shruti's plane crashed. To the world, it was a tragic accident, but the diplomat and the friend inside me refused to accept that theory. I launched my own independent investigation. Through the 'DeCiphers'—a covert network of independent intelligence groups operating between London and France—I uncovered a piece of information that pulled the ground from under my feet. Shruti wasn't the victim of a random mechanical failure. She had been decoding a highly valuable document, an ancient artifact belonging to a massive South Indian empire. It was a secret so explosive that its revelation could potentially alter geopolitical history. And that very secret had cost her her life.
And now, the eyes of those same covert operatives were fixed on me. I had to flee India overnight to reach my next posting in Brazil. I had a covert flight scheduled out of Jewar Airport.
Suddenly, two massive headlights flared in my rearview mirror. A colossal dumper truck, like a phantom tearing through the rain, loomed right behind my car. I slammed the accelerator to the floor, but my tires were losing their grip on the slick, wet road. The dumper rammed into me from behind with terrifying force. My car was launched into the air.
A deafening crash echoed. In a fraction of a second, the dashboard, the windshield, and the steering wheel shattered and pierced my body. In those final moments, as the car filled with smoke and blood flooded my lungs, my thoughts drifted to Shruti. Was I heading into the same darkness that had consumed her?
My brain began to shut down. 'Protocol: Survive' failed.
Everything faded to black.
(Third-person Narration)
The darkness was so absolute that it felt as though centuries had passed. But suddenly, a sharp, searing pain shattered Advit's unconsciousness. It felt as if someone had poured pure acid directly into his stomach.
His eyes snapped open. There was no expressway, no mangled car, no pouring rain. Instead, towering stone walls surrounded him, the smoke from burning torches drifted through the air, and a strange, heady scent of herbs and sandalwood filled his nostrils.
Advit's analytical mind plunged into a horrific state of existential shock. One moment he was fighting for his life on the road to Jewar Airport in 2026, and the next, he was in this archaic room. He looked at his hands. These were not his hands! They were slender, adorned with heavy royal rings, and the texture of the skin was completely alien to him.
What kind of hallucination is this? Brain hypoxia? Advit's mind scrambled for medical terminology to rationalize the situation.
Just then, a violent blast echoed within his mind. The memories of two entirely different lives collided brutally. On one side was the UPSC, London, Shruti, and Chemical Engineering. On the other... swords, royal politics, and a name—Vellore!
"Prince... the Prince breathes!" a heavy voice boomed.
A man with old sword scars etched across his face leaned over Advit. He was dressed in strange, antiquated armor. Advit's mind was in full panic mode, but then, the 'Tamil' he had learned in his childhood and the 'muscle memory' of this new body forged a bizarre connection. The dialect the man was speaking was a pure blend of Telugu and Kannada, yet Advit could understand it perfectly. It was as if a software had initiated a background translation in his brain.
The man was Yachama Nayaka. And Advit... Advit was now Sriranga III, the last great hope of the Vijayanagara Empire. The year was 1638.
"Prince Sriranga! Thank the heavens," Yachama Nayaka said, his voice trembling. "That wretched physician of Damrala Venkatadri poisoned you. We thought our final ray of hope had been extinguished. He declared that you had only moments left, and left me here alone to await your passing."
Advit's mind immediately processed the situation. The investigation from his past life, the history of the South Indian empires that he and Shruti used to study... everything was starting to align perfectly. But right now, chemistry was far more critical than history.
The churning cramps and burning sensation in his stomach told him that the poison hadn't fully synthesized into his bloodstream yet. His degree in Chemical Engineering was about to save his life.
"Yachama..." Advit wheezed softly, trying to assert control over his new body and the agonizing situation.
"Yes, my Prince?"
Advit knew that no ordinary physician's remedy would work right now. He and Shruti had once debated the cellular breakdown of toxins. If poison was still in the stomach, it had to be either neutralized or forcefully purged.
"Yachama, listen to me carefully," Advit growled. His voice was weak, but it carried the absolute, unyielding authority of an IFS officer. "I need hot water immediately. A lot of it. And it must be mixed with a massive amount of sea salt. Enough salt to make the water extremely briny. And bring a large bowl of raw, unboiled milk."
"Salt and milk? But my Prince, the physician said..." Yachama looked bewildered and panicked.
"The physician is a traitor, Yachama!" Advit glared at him piercingly. "Do exactly as I said. Now!"
Yachama darted off without another question. He returned moments later carrying a large vessel of hot, heavily salted water—a crude brine solution—and the raw milk.
Advit knew the heavy saltwater would trigger an 'osmosis' process, severely irritating the stomach lining and inducing immediate, violent vomiting. This would expel the poison before it could be fully absorbed into the blood. The raw milk would then coat his raw, scorched throat and stomach lining with a protective layer of proteins, mitigating the risk of internal bleeding.
Without a second thought, he downed the briny water in one continuous, agonizing gulp.
The very next second, a violent upheaval erupted in his gut. The chemical reaction had begun. He lurched over the edge of the bed and vomited with a brutal, wrenching force. A dark, foul-smelling, frothy liquid purged from his body. He was drenched in cold sweat, his eyes bloodshot, but as the poison left his system, the thick fog clouding his brain began to lift. The burning subsided.
As soon as his breathing stabilized slightly, he immediately drank the raw milk. The milk spread a soothing coolness down his throat and into his stomach.
Advit slumped back onto the bed. His face was deathly pale, but there was a razor-sharp intensity and gleam in his eyes that Yachama had never seen in his Prince before. In place of the naive, vulnerable eyes of a young royal, there now lay the hardened, calculating gaze of a diplomat and a survivor.
"Yachama," Advit said, taking a deep breath and hiding the lingering tremors in his hands. "After tonight, no one must get even the slightest hint that I am recovering. Damrala Venkatadri must believe that his physician's poison is doing its job. Let him wait for my death."
"But Prince, what next? How will we confront these traitors?" Yachama asked, a mix of awe and renewed hope in his voice.
Advit stared at the torch flickering on the stone wall. His UPSC training, his diplomatic strategies, the secret hidden in Shruti's documents, and an entire era of history were now laid out before him.
He thought to himself: An IFS officer died on the expressway in Greater Noida. But today, in the seventeenth-century Vellore, he would live on as history itself.
"We will not confront them with swords, Yachama. We will beat them at their own game of chess," Advit said in a low, dangerous whisper. "Tonight, everything changes."