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Chapter 2: Echoes of the Past
The narrow lanes of Varanasi pulsed with unseen energy.
Aarav stood at the threshold of a crumbling stepwell hidden behind a broken iron gate, his fingers still tingling from the mantra he had whispered the night before. His dreams had driven him here — a half-sleep vision of an old yogi whispering "Return to the root." It made no rational sense, but neither did waking up knowing the name of a street he had never heard before.
The stepwell was ancient, carved in deep sandstone, choked by weeds, forgotten by time. And yet, as he stepped in, it felt familiar.
The deeper he descended, the louder the echo of water dripping from unknown places. His phone's flashlight flickered — once, twice — and then died. But strangely, he wasn't afraid. Something inside him was wide awake.
And then he heard it. Whispers. Not with his ears — but inside his skull.
> "Aarav… not your first name… not your last life…"
"Ashvatta breathes beneath. You must remember."
A sudden burst of dizziness overtook him. The walls around him blurred. Reality twisted. His knees buckled, and he fell — forward, downward, into darkness that wasn't empty, but full of memory.
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He opened his eyes… but not as Aarav.
He was standing on white marble steps, wearing robes of deep blue and gold. A ring of fire surrounded him, chanting voices rising all around. In the sky above — two suns blazed.
And before him knelt a familiar face — the same girl from the café, from the dream. But here, her eyes were storm-gray and her skin shimmered with celestial marks.
> "By flame and ash, I sever the bond," she whispered.
> "No!" he heard himself shout. "You must not forget. The Fifth is not the end—"
The world exploded into golden ash.
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He awoke on the stone floor of the stepwell, gasping. A scar now burned on his palm — three lines, intersecting like a trishul. It hadn't been there before.
And as he stumbled out into the morning sun, the words returned to him. A verse, burned into his bones:
> "He who remembers when the world forgets,
Shall walk through fire and time's regrets.
When Yugas end and dharma dies,
The Fifth shall rise beneath twin skies."
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Back at his hostel, Aarav avoided everyone. His fingers kept tracing the lines on his palm. The city moved outside as usual — cows, rickshaws, sadhus, students. But he felt out of sync, like a record playing seconds off.
He opened his notebook and began sketching. Without knowing why, he drew the symbol from his vision: a circle surrounded by flames, with seven stars forming a spiral. Under it, a name came to him in a whisper.
> "Vyasa Protocol."
That night, he researched everything he could. Vyasa. Puranas. The Fifth Yuga. But nothing matched the symbol.
Until, deep on an archived forum of ancient Sanskrit scholars, he found one thread.
A scanned manuscript, supposedly from a lost Upanishad, banned by colonial records.
A footnote caught his eye:
> "...It is said in the hidden texts that between the Kali and the Kalki, one shadow yuga shall rise, unknown to time, where memories become weapons, and karma awakens in blood."
Aarav stared at the line for a long time.
Then his screen glitched.
Not like a bug — like something was pushing through. A shadow passed across the glass. Then it spoke. Not a sound. Just text. In red letters.
> "You have been seen."
The screen turned black.
And his reflection blinked — but he hadn't.
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End of Chapter 2