The school day blurred by.
Jay sat through classes without absorbing a single sentence.
He took notes he never looked at.
He nodded at teachers he didn't hear.
He even ate lunch mechanically, barely tasting anything.
All he could think about was the symbol.
The glitch.
The ticking that followed him like a faint echo.
Reina noticed, of course.
She nudged him in the hallway after the final bell.
"Jay," she whispered. "You're not going home like this."
He blinked. "I'm fine."
"No, you're pale. And twitchy. And your eyes keep darting to every clock in this building. That's… not normal."
"I'm just thinking."
"Jay. You've been 'just thinking' since the universe hiccuped."
He sighed.
She folded her arms.
"There's one place we haven't checked. The restricted section of the Aryavart Archives."
Jay stopped walking.
"That area's off-limits."
"Not on weekends," she corrected. "And not if we use the public entrance under the bridge. The old one."
He stared at her.
"You've been there before?"
She shrugged. "I like digging into weird history. It's a hobby."
Jay raised an eyebrow.
"A weird hobby."
"Says the guy who dreams of ancient clock trees."
"…Fair."
---
They met Saturday evening.
The sun dipped behind the skyscrapers, turning the city gold. Streetlights flickered awake as the two of them descended the steps beneath the old Veda Bridge.
Jay followed Reina into a shaded walkway half-overgrown with vines.
The air felt cooler, older — like it still carried dust from the time before the Great Revolution.
At the very end of the walkway stood a steel door.
It didn't look like much.
Just an old government access door with a faded hologram:
ARYAVART NATIONAL ARCHIVES — SECTION C
Authorized Personnel Only
Reina tapped a small device on her wrist.
The hologram flickered and dimmed.
The door clicked open.
Jay whispered, "You hacked it?"
Reina smiled innocently.
"I prefer the term 'creative access.' Now hurry before someone walks by."
---
Inside the Archives
It wasn't what Jay expected.
No dusty books.
No dim lamps.
No ancient shelves.
Instead, the archive was a vast underground vault lined with crystalized data walls — transparent panels containing glowing information like frozen rivers of light.
The air hummed with faint energy.
Reina led him deeper.
"Most of this is public data," she whispered. "But the far end— the black section— that's where they keep sealed history. Things people aren't supposed to know."
Jay frowned.
"Why hide history?"
"That's what I've been trying to figure out."
As they reached the far chamber, the lights dimmed, revealing a massive obsidian wall carved with a single phrase:
THE FORGOTTEN YEARS WILL NOT GUIDE THE FUTURE.
Jay felt a shiver run up his spine.
Reina touched the surface.
"It's locked behind a three-layer security system," she murmured. "But if we stick to the visual display logs, we shouldn't trigger anything."
She tapped a side console.
The obsidian wall flickered, revealing categories:
— Lost Empires
— Forbidden Symbols
— Disappearance of the First Sovereign
— Temporal Theories
— Pre-Revolution Artifacts
Jay's breath caught.
"Open that one," he whispered.
"The disappearance."
Reina looked hesitant.
"This might not be safe."
Jay's voice was quiet but steady.
"I need to see it."
She nodded and tapped the entry.
---
The Missing King
A hologram bloomed:
An old map with golden lines marking Parikshit's last known locations.
Reina read aloud, softly:
> "The Emperor vanished fifty years ago during a private pilgrimage.
His personal inscriptions suggest he foresaw his own disappearance."
Jay whispered, "What inscriptions?"
Another tab opened automatically.
PERSONAL JOURNAL OF EMPEROR PARIKSHIT — SEALED
Access Level: Forbidden
The console beeped.
Reina blinked.
"I didn't open that."
The system responded in a calm female voice:
> Unauthorized attempt detected.
Exception granted: Temporal Signature Recognized.
Visitor ID: 01.
Both of them froze.
Jay's skin went cold.
"What did it say…? Temporal what?"
Reina's voice cracked.
"Jay… it recognized you."
The screen opened on its own.
A single holographic page appeared — golden ink on translucent parchment.
A journal page written by Parikshit.
Jay leaned closer, breath trembling.
The handwriting was elegant, steady, and sorrowful.
> "If my path ends here, let time lead me where I am needed.
I relinquish my name, my throne, my burden.
Let the next life be gentle.
Let it be quiet.
Let me forget."
Jay stepped back as if struck.
Reina covered her mouth with both hands.
"Jay… this sounds like…"
Jay shook his head violently.
"No. No— that doesn't make sense. It's coincidence. Names, symbols— nothing more."
But the hologram flickered again.
Another page opened.
This one was worse.
Much worse.
It displayed a carved portrait — etched into stone, scanned into archive memory.
A man in white robes.
Calm eyes.
A gentle half-smile.
The portrait was fractured with age—
but the face was unmistakable.
Reina whispered the words he couldn't bring himself to say:
"It's… you."
Jay stumbled back.
"No— that's impossible— I'm not—"
Reina stepped forward, gripping his shoulders.
"Jay. Look at it."
He did.
He didn't want to.
But he did.
And he saw it clearly:
The same eyes.
The same jawline.
The same soft, tired expression.
Parikshit—
The Listener King—
the vanished Emperor—
was carved with his face.
Jay's breath shattered into pieces.
"I'm not him," he whispered.
"I'm not."
Reina shook her head softly.
"Jay… what if you didn't reincarnate randomly?"
Jay's voice cracked.
"What if I don't want to be someone else's past? What if I never asked for this?"
Reina pulled him close, steadying him.
"You didn't ask. I know. But something is happening— and you're not facing it alone."
Jay swallowed hard, eyes blurring.
But the archive wasn't done.
One final message blinked onto the screen:
> RECORD SEALED UNTIL THE RETURN OF THE LISTENER.
Jay froze.
Reina whispered,
"Jay… that means—"
He pressed his hand to his chest.
Time ticked faintly beneath his ribs—
tick — tick — tick —
And in that moment, Jay didn't doubt it anymore.
He was not just Jay Arkwell.
He was someone the world had been waiting fifty years to remember.