"Ansh… Ansh, wake up, the exam is almost over, why are you still sleeping?"
At this moment in the extremely quiet classroom, a young woman in a neatly draped cotton saree stood by his desk, the end of the saree's drape resting carefully over her shoulder and a stack of answer sheets in her hand. She bent down slightly and patted Ansh's shoulder, reminding him softly.
Ansh woke up in a daze, and the first thing his eyes caught was the neat pleats of a simple cotton saree, its pale colors slightly faded from daily wear. The drape of the saree rested carefully over her shoulder, and the faint clink of glass bangles followed as she adjusted the papers in her hand. When he slowly lifted his head, he saw that the woman standing before him was none other than his class teacher, Ms. Nandini, her hair tied back in a tidy bun and a pair of spectacles resting firmly on her nose, her expression both stern and weary.
Ansh was stunned for a moment, then came back to his senses and gave a bitter smile. He had accidentally fallen asleep again, and it happened to be during the exam. But he was probably used to it ...
A year ago, when Ansh was still in the high school, his grades had been among the very best in the class, and no one could keep up with him. But now, barely a year later, he had slipped to the very bottom—last in the entire grade. He became the target of endless ridicule, and even his class teacher, who once praised him with pride, could only frown at him now, her eyes filled with disappointment at what she saw as a loss of fighting spirit.
In fact, everything had started in the very first month of Ansh's Class 11. After the initial unit tests, the class went on an outing to an old fort-temple on the edge of the city, its stone walls cracked with age, its arches leaning as though tired of holding the weight of centuries.
Most of his classmates were busy clicking selfies, chasing each other through the courtyards, or crowding around the teachers giving half-hearted explanations of history. But Ansh, restless as always, drifted away from the noise and wandered deeper into the ruins.
As evening settled, the sun dipped low, painting the broken walls in gold and shadow. The air inside the crumbling shrine was cool and smelled faintly of damp earth and old incense. Small flecks of dust floated in the beams of fading light streaming through the cracks in the roof.
It was here, in the silence, that something caught his eye.
Beneath a pile of broken stone near the pedestal of what once seemed like a serpent idol, a faint golden shimmer pulsed. At first he thought it was just a shard of glass catching the last rays of the sun. But when he crouched and brushed away the dust with trembling fingers, the glow deepened, warm and alive, like the steady beat of a heart.
His breath caught.
Lying half-buried was a crystal droplet no larger than a coin. Its surface was clear, but within it swirled a mist of liquid light, shifting and curling as if aware of his presence.
Compelled by something he couldn't explain, Ansh reached out and picked it up.
The moment his skin made contact, a jolt ran through his body. Heat and cold surged together through his veins, burning and freezing at once. His wrist seared as if pressed with fire.
Before his horrified eyes, the droplet dissolved into his palm, vanishing without a trace.
And then—something appeared.
Lines of light unfurled across his wrist, forming a coiled pattern, a circle with a single shining dot at its center. The glow lingered for a breathless instant before fading into the skin, leaving behind a faint mark that looked like an ancient seal etched directly into him.
Ansh staggered back, his heart pounding wildly. His ears rang, his vision swam, and then—
A whisper brushed against his mind, soft and ancient, neither male nor female.
"Jeev… bindu…"
The sound echoed in the depths of his thoughts, and then the world tilted into darkness.
When he woke up the next day, he was in the hospital. According to his classmates, he had a high fever.
He immediately reached out to check his wrist, and there was a faint circular mark there.
Although it was a little painful, it didn't seem to be a big deal. He told the doctor about it.
Once again, the doctor only prescribed some anti-inflammatory drugs for him.
But in the following days, Ansh would often feel sleepy at odd times, his body's rhythm completely disrupted. He would doze off in the middle of the day and then wake suddenly at night, unable to rest properly.
A faint mark remained on his wrist, and no matter what ointments or home remedies he tried, it did not fade. When he returned to school after the short vacation, his appearance had changed enough to draw attention. His classmates were shocked, and some even laughed that he no longer looked like the bright and confident boy from before, saying he would now have to depend only on his studies.
Unexpectedly, after returning to school, Ansh had no energy in class and would often fall asleep without even realizing it. After an entire semester, he hardly learned anything and even began to forget what he once knew so well. His grades plummeted sharply. Many teachers and classmates assumed he was distracted or suffering from low confidence because of the mark on his wrist. His parents tried to persuade him again and again, even taking him to a dermatologist for check-ups, but all of it was in vain.
This led to the current situation. With neither his old confidence nor his sharp performance left, Ansh went from being the boy everyone once admired to someone his classmates avoided and mocked.