Riya's breath caught in her throat as she clutched Arjun's hand, her fingers trembling with fear and desperation.
"Arjun, no! Please, hold on!" she cried, her voice quivering with emotion.
"Don't leave me, Arjun. I actually liked you from the very first sight. Please, don't give up now," she pleaded, her heart breaking with each passing moment.
She jolted her back to not lose him his consciousness. She was afraid he might die if he close his eyes for now.
Arjun's consciousness began to fade, he found himself drifting in and out of awareness, his thoughts consumed by the realization that he might not survive the night.
Despite the pain coursing through his body, he mustered all his strength to utter a few words to her.
"I'm so..sorry, Riya,"he whispered hoarsely, his voice barely audible. "I wanted... to take you out on a proper date. I never... got the chance..."
Riya's heart broke at his words, her tears falling freely as she clutched his hand tightly, refusing to let go.
"Don't talk like that, Arjun," she pleaded, her voice choked with emotion. "You're going to be okay. The ambulance will be here any minute..."
"Don't cry... Find a good husband an...kids ," he chocked.
"So this is how it ends..
At least... someone beautiful... not bad...", the sound was too low to consider it a murmer.
With those words, Arjun's voice paused as his gaze lingered on Riya's tear-streaked face with a sense of wonder and sorrow. And as darkness engulfed his awareness, he found peace in the thought that at least he was dying in the lap of such a beautiful woman.
However, unbeknownst to anyone, the pendant in Arjun's pocket began to vibrate, faint wisps of light flickering from it. Suddenly, with a brilliant flash, it vanished—just as Arjun's body grew cold in Riya's sobbing embrace.
***3rd November 1556***
Somewhere in the middle of the military tent in Panipat at the time of dusk.
As the evening passed, the mood outside the tent became more and more tense. Soldiers hurried around, getting ready for the upcoming battle. They looked determined yet restless.
Arjun opened his eyes to the dim light coming through the military tent's fabric. His head was pounding with pain. Feeling confused, he tried to understand where he was before something suddenly hit him, not too hard but enough to gain attention.
"Ow!" Arjun puzzled, recoiling from the unexpected blow.
"You idiot!"
scolded the rough voice of a chubby-faced guy standing beside him.
"Don't you know to feign death instead of standing still in the line of charge?"
Arjun felt confused as he tried to understand what was happening. It took a moment for the boy's words to make sense to him, and then he suddenly felt very nervous.
"What's happening?" Arjun inquired with anxiety.
The boy sighed heavily with worry as he shared the serious news. "The Mughals destroyed our artillery. We've been ordered to fight without it, and we might be at the front lines," he explained, his voice filled with concern.
Arjun felt his heart sink with the troubling news. Just moments ago, he had literally died while saving the first date of his life. Now, instead of a hospital bed, he found himself in a scene ripped from a history book. No cameras, no crew, just the unsettling joke of reality clinging to every detail. The soldiers' dialect, the worn fabric of the tent: it was all strangely, terrifyingly real.
"Stay strong, freind," the young man offered, his voice softening unexpectedly. "We're in this together. I won't let anything happen to you."
Fortunately for Arjun, he could understand his words, and from the look of it, he didn't seem evil. Even though the accent didn't sound common, it remained within the realm of theatrical dialogues of past timelines. Before he could get a hold of the situation, he felt a sudden sharp pain in his head.
Memories rushed into his mind, memories that didn't seem his own at first glance. He remembered battles fought, friends lost, and a strong feeling of duty filled his thoughts.
"Ah! My head! My head!"
Confused and lost, Arjun tried hard to understand the flood of images as he rolled on the floor, grasping his head in pain. It wasn't until his friend shouted for help that he snapped back to reality and was able to calm himself down a bit.
As the boy rushed off to get help from the superiors, Arjun was left alone in the tent, grappling with a mix of emotions. After overcoming the pain, he regained control of himself and quickly opened his robe, staring down at his body, which was comparatively tall, slender, and, most importantly, too young for his past memory.
He moved near the tent's entrance to see the soldiers moving across the camp in fear and panic, clad in real armor with swords clanging at their waists. This grim realization took the strength from his legs, and he collapsed to his knees right there.
His gaze fell on his hands, still young and rough, but different from the thick arms he remembered. Tentatively, he reached up and touched his chest, feeling the steady thuds of his heart indicating he was still alive.
However, there was a catch - this body wasn't his matured one. These new memories belonged to the young man Aditya, who is only 19 years old, but surprisingly, they didn't feel unfamiliar at all.
"Wait, why can I remember both sets of memories as clear as day? What is my real identity? It's so confusing..." He clasped his cheeks in an attempt to make sense of it all, finding it hard to differentiate between the reality of yesterday, where he was on a date and died while saving the girl he liked, and the possibility of being a soldier marching as an escort of cannons, only to come under ambush by Mughals where he received a hard blow to the head before losing consciousness. As he tried to recall further, there was only darkness in the transition of timelines.
He went back inside the tent to sort out his thoughts. No matter how hard he tried, the situation felt surreal, as if the memories of his two past lives were photographed and framed side by side. He struggled to understand the logic behind this absurd situation, feeling as if he had lived both lives simultaneously.
He entertained the idea that one of his memories was real and the other was being imposed as an inheritance. He wondered if he had been gifted some system of transmigration, so he tried his luck.
"Status screen. Show system!"
"Abra ka Dabra!. Shaka laka Boom! Boom!... Tch! Nonsense!"
He tried saying words that normal people would find hilarious, but with the bizarre events unfolding around him, his sense of normalcy had already been shattered.
Seeing nothing happen, he felt frustrated and pathetic for falling for such a childish notion, especially as a grown man from modern times.
'It must be gods, or life after death doesn't explain much. But what now?'
Then, another bizarre idea crossed his mind: perhaps he had encountered a deity after death who had erased his memory, explaining the gaps in the sequence of events. To cope with his anxiety, this seemed like the best explanation he could hope for, though a tinge of sadness remained in his heart. He settled into the reality that he was now Aditya, 19 years old, with only two days remaining before the war ahead.
For a moment, he felt a profound sadness for losing his love. The only similarity between his past life and this new one was that he was—and still is—an orphan. Even in his final moments, he had never imagined being given another life like this. But now, he had to accept the raw truth staring him in the face, and the thought of possibly dying again made him feel sick to his stomach.
The idea of dying a second time filled him with intense fear. It was an immediate crisis that needed to be resolved before he could even begin to think about his next steps in this new life.
'It doesn't feel like I can go back. I think… I am Aditya from now on. His life and role will be the path of my new beginning.'
Searching for a way to return didn't seem like an option now, and he didn't want to try his other bizarre theory of getting killed to go back. Right now, he needed to make a plan to survive first and think about other things later.
Right now, the only person from whom he can gather more information and rely on is this chubby guy with whom he has fought battles, covering each other's backs. He feels a strong sense of familiarity with him, a bond of mutual trust and camaraderie.
Even though he wanted to tell his new friend everything, as in his memories where this person was the most trusted, he knew it was too dangerous to admit it, risking his credibility.
Holding his fists tightly, he decided to keep his new knowledge to himself and resolved internally, 'Perhaps it's an opportunity to live for my fullest.'