The jungle did not recover.
It did not begin to grow again.
It did not whisper.
It did not mourn.
It simply remained.
Charred trunks stood like blackened ribs jutting from the earth. The ground had hardened into warped glass where the Hellfire Phoenix had circled. Ash clung to everything in a thin, stubborn layer—as if the sky itself had shed skin and decided not to take it back.
At the center of that ruin—
They stood.
Harun.
Mira.
Ishan.
Kunal.
Omair.
Stone.
Not fallen.
Not shattered.
Standing.
Frozen mid-failure.
The silence that followed Raj and Kareena's departure was not peaceful. It was not relief. It was not even emptiness.
It was compression.
Like something massive had pressed down on the world and then walked away—leaving the pressure behind.
Harun lay on the ground.
Not fully stone.
Not fully human.
Grey crept along his ribs and shoulder, webbing through his skin in uneven fractures. One arm was stiff, fingers locked halfway closed. His breathing was shallow. Every inhale felt like dragging air through cracked glass.
His eyelids fluttered.
Then stopped.
He was alive.
Barely.
Around him, the statues remained exactly as they had been sealed.
Mira knelt inches from him, one arm extended forward, fingers reaching toward a hand she never touched. Her expression was locked somewhere between exhaustion and apology.
Ishan stood behind her, torso twisted as if mid-step, jaw set, eyes forward—defiant even in stone.
Kunal was frozen mid-charge, one mechanical limb raised, the other partially transformed—half hammer, half shield.
Omair stood slightly apart, body angled forward, one hand lifted as if he had been about to move again.
They had not been defeated in chaos.
They had been stopped.
Mid-motion.
Mid-intention.
The ash drifted.
Nothing else moved.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
The sky lightened slowly—not sunrise, not warmth—just a thinning of red.
Harun's fingers twitched.
It was small.
Almost invisible.
But it happened.
The stone along his forearm cracked—not outward, but inward, as if something beneath it had exhaled.
He gasped.
The sound tore through his chest like it didn't belong there.
Air flooded his lungs too fast. He rolled slightly onto his side and coughed, dark blood spotting the hardened ground.
Pain returned first.
Then weight.
Then memory.
Mira.
His head snapped up violently.
The movement nearly blacked him out.
He saw her immediately.
Still kneeling.
Still reaching.
Stone.
Something inside him collapsed.
He tried to crawl toward her.
His left leg dragged uselessly behind him, stiff and half-frozen. Every inch forward felt like pushing against invisible resistance.
He reached her.
His shaking hand hovered inches from her stone fingers.
He didn't touch.
He couldn't.
Because touching would confirm it.
He swallowed hard.
"Mira…" His voice broke before the name finished.
The jungle did not answer.
He looked around wildly.
Ishan.
Stone.
Kunal.
Stone.
Omair.
Stone.
All of them.
Exactly where they had fallen.
Exactly how they had tried.
Harun sat back slowly.
He didn't scream.
He didn't rage.
He just stared.
The silence began to feel louder than battle ever had.
A breeze moved through the clearing.
Soft.
Almost gentle.
It did not shift the ash.
It did not cool the ground.
It only brushed against the statues.
Harun felt something else then.
Not heat.
Not darkness.
Not light.
Stillness.
It wasn't outside.
It was inside him.
The Solar Eclipse had not disappeared.
It had folded.
Dormant.
Unstable.
Waiting.
His hands trembled.
He looked at Mira again.
Her expression was frozen, but he remembered her last movement.
Sorry.
His chest tightened so sharply he thought it would crack again.
"No," he whispered hoarsely. "You don't get to apologize."
He forced himself to stand.
His balance faltered immediately. The stone in his leg resisted bending. He adjusted, shifting weight carefully, testing movement like someone learning to walk again.
The jungle remained silent.
Not even insects returned.
The battlefield did not feel abandoned.
It felt sealed.
Harun stepped back slowly, taking in the full sight.
Five statues.
One survivor.
The weight settled.
This wasn't rage.
This wasn't shock.
This was aftermath.
And it was heavier than any enemy.
He walked toward Ishan first.
Ran his hand over the hardened sand at his feet.
"I should've seen it sooner," he muttered.
Then to Kunal.
His mechanical limb had been frozen mid-transform.
"You were still fighting," Harun said quietly.
Then Omair.
Blood had hardened into stone along his collar.
"You told me to decide," Harun whispered. "I did."
He returned to Mira last.
Knelt in front of her.
Closer now.
Close enough to see the fine cracks along the surface of her skin.
The petrification wasn't smooth.
It was layered.
Like something had grown over them instead of replacing them.
He lifted his hand slowly.
Pressed his palm gently against her stone fingers.
Cold.
Not dead.
Just… sealed.
His throat tightened again.
"This isn't over," he said softly.
Not to the jungle.
Not to the sky.
To them.
The wind moved again.
This time, faintly, the ash shifted.
Far beyond the clearing, Bhouldera stood unchanged.
Doors shut.
Windows closed.
People quiet.
They had seen the phoenix.
They had felt the pressure.
And they had learned the rule long ago.
Do not interfere.
Do not witness.
Do not exist near power.
Harun stood alone in the center of the burned jungle.
The world had moved on already.
He hadn't.
Deadcalm had begun.
The jungle did not rot.
It preserved.
Ash lay across leaves that would never decay. Melted glass reflected a sky that no longer felt like it belonged to the same world. Even the air carried something sealed inside it—like the battle had not ended, only paused.
Harun did not leave.
Not immediately.
He stood in that clearing long enough for the sun to shift and the light to change angles against the statues. Long enough to feel the stiffness in his own body harden again.
The Solar Eclipse inside him was quiet now.
Not gone.
Watching.
He turned back to Mira.
Her fingers were still inches from where his had touched hers.
He crouched slowly and studied the stone more carefully this time.
It wasn't smooth marble.
It wasn't brittle rock.
It had texture. Fine veins ran through it, faint lines pulsing so lightly they were almost imagination.
Harun leaned closer.
There.
A flicker.
Not light.
Not movement.
Presence.
"They're not dead," he whispered.
His voice cracked anyway.
He moved to Ishan next, pressing his palm against the stone at his chest. It felt denser there, layered thicker. Ishan had taken more cuts. More marks.
Omair's stone was different.
More uneven.
More fractured.
Kunal's mechanical limb had fused partially into the petrification, metal half-absorbed, half-trapped.
It wasn't random.
It was deliberate.
Harun stood again.
His leg dragged slightly as he stepped back into the center of them all.
"I'm not leaving you here."
The words didn't echo.
They settled.
He turned toward Bhouldera.
From this distance, the village looked untouched.
Smoke rose lazily from chimneys.
Doors closed.
Life continued.
No one came running.
No one checked.
No one even looked.
Harun stared at it for a long moment.
Then he began walking.
Each step hurt.
Not because of wounds.
Because of weight.
Half his side was still stiff with creeping stone. His shoulder resisted rotation. His ribs tightened when he breathed too deeply.
But he walked.
When he reached the edge of the jungle, he stopped again.
The transition was visible.
Inside: glass and silence.
Outside: dust and distance.
He stepped through.
The village did not greet him.
It observed him.
A door closed quietly down the road.
A curtain shifted.
Two men standing near a broken cart went silent as he approached.
Their eyes dropped instantly.
Harun didn't slow.
He walked straight into the main street.
It felt smaller now.
Tighter.
Like something had shrunk.
A child's voice whispered from somewhere unseen.
"That's him."
Another voice hissed, "Don't look."
Harun stopped in the center of the road.
He turned slowly.
"I know you saw it."
No one answered.
He raised his voice.
"You saw the phoenix."
A window shut.
He clenched his jaw.
"You felt the ground shake."
Still nothing.
The silence wasn't fear.
It was decision.
They had chosen this.
Chosen not to step into it.
Not to be part of it.
Harun felt anger rise—sharp, hot, immediate—
—and then it stopped.
Because what had he expected?
That they would run into hellfire?
That they would fight Raj?
That they would save Team A?
Bhouldera survived by staying still.
Deadcalm.
The word formed in his head naturally.
This place didn't explode.
It absorbed.
Footsteps approached from behind him.
Soft.
Careful.
He didn't turn immediately.
He already knew.
"Big bro…"
The voice was small.
Not loud.
But steady.
Harun turned.
Aqsa stood a few meters away.
Dust clung to her dress. Her eyes were wide—but not panicked. Not broken.
Watching.
Always watching.
"You're alive," she said quietly.
He nodded once.
"Barely."
Her gaze moved past him.
Toward the jungle.
She didn't need to ask.
She had felt it too.
"They didn't come back," she said.
"No."
Silence again.
Then she asked the only thing that mattered.
"Are they…?"
Harun swallowed.
"Stone."
Aqsa's fingers tightened at her sides.
But she didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She just nodded slowly.
"Can they come back?"
The question hit harder than any strike Raj had landed.
Harun looked at her.
He could lie.
He could promise.
He could say yes.
Instead, he said the truth.
"I don't know."
Aqsa stepped closer.
Her eyes didn't leave his.
"But you're still here."
"Yes."
"You broke it once."
He flinched slightly.
"That wasn't control."
"It doesn't matter," she said softly.
He stared at her.
"You think I can fix this?"
She didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
The certainty in her voice didn't feel naive.
It felt anchored.
Harun looked away first.
He glanced down at his stiffened arm.
The stone hadn't spread further.
It hadn't retreated either.
It was waiting.
"Take me to them," Aqsa said.
He froze.
"No."
"I want to see."
"No."
Her jaw tightened.
"You think I can't handle it?"
"It's not about handling it."
"It's about what?" she snapped quietly.
He looked at her again.
"It's about me not wanting you to see that."
Her expression softened.
"I already saw," she said. "When the sky burned."
Silence stretched between them.
Bhouldera remained still.
Harun exhaled slowly.
"Stay here," he said. "I'll move them."
"You can't carry all of them alone."
"I can try."
Aqsa stepped past him.
He didn't stop her this time.
They walked back toward the jungle together.
The air shifted the moment they crossed the boundary again.
He felt it.
She did too.
The clearing opened in front of them like a wound that refused to close.
Aqsa stopped.
Her breath caught—but she didn't cry.
She walked forward slowly.
Past Kunal.
Past Ishan.
She stopped in front of Mira.
Her hand lifted.
Hovered.
Then touched the stone gently.
"It's cold," she whispered.
Harun watched her carefully.
Nothing happened.
No surge.
No reaction.
Just silence.
Aqsa closed her eyes briefly.
Then opened them again.
"They're still there."
Harun stared at her.
"What?"
"I can feel it," she said softly. "Like… when someone is asleep."
His pulse quickened.
"You're sure?"
She nodded.
"Yes."
Harun stepped closer.
"Where?"
She frowned slightly.
"Not in the stone."
"Then where?"
She turned her head slowly.
Her eyes moved to him.
"In you."
The world didn't shake.
The ground didn't crack.
But something inside Harun shifted violently.
He felt it.
The Eclipse stirred.
Not aggressively.
Aware.
"You think this is because of me?" he asked quietly.
"I think…" Aqsa hesitated. "I think they're not gone. I think they're… connected."
"To what?"
She didn't answer immediately.
She looked up at the sky.
Then back at him.
"To whatever woke up inside you."
Harun went silent.
The jungle remained dead.
The statues remained still.
But for the first time since he had woken up.
The silence didn't feel empty.
It felt like something waiting to be understood.
Deadcalm wasn't peace.
It was the breath between collapse and decision.
And Harun knew
He didn't have long before something chose for him.