When Aarav and Rishi Vardaan walked back toward the village, the sun was already higher in the sky.
The light looked normal.
The trees looked normal.
The houses looked normal.
But to Aarav, nothing felt normal anymore.
He kept touching his chest, as if the warmth might suddenly disappear and he could pretend this was all a dream.
It didn't.
The strange two-colored flame inside him pulsed quietly, like a living heartbeat made of light and shadow.
š” A Guest at Home
Meera was waiting at the doorway when they reached Aarav's house.
Her hands were on her hips.
Her expression said: You have some explaining to do.
"You took long for someone who went to 'just check the river,'" she said.
Aarav opened his mouth, then closed it.
How was he supposed to say:
"Sorry, Ma, there was a shadow in the river that knew my name and an ancient sage taught me to look at the fire of Dharma and Adharma inside my soul"?
Vardaan stepped forward with a small bow.
"The delay is my fault, Meera-ji," he said gently. "I asked your son to guide me. I am a traveler, and the river is a good place to rest and pray."
Meera's eyes softened a little. She was not used to being called "Meera-ji."
"You are a sadhu?" she asked, glancing at his simple clothes and staff.
"Just an old man who listens more than he speaks," Vardaan replied with a faint smile. "Your son is kind. He did not leave me alone."
Aarav blinked.
That wasā¦ not a lie. Just not the whole story.
Meera sighed, the lines on her face easing.
"In that case, forgive my rudeness. Please come in. At least drink something before you go."
"I will accept water," Vardaan said. "And if you allow, I may stay in this village for a few days. The roads are long, and my bones complain more than they used to."
Meera nodded briskly.
"Then you will stay. No one leaves my doorstep thirsty and tired. Aaravāput another mat in the front room."
"Yes, Ma," Aarav said automatically.
As he walked past Vardaan to spread the mat, their eyes met for a moment.
The sage's look seemed to say:
"This is good. Let me stay close. The world is not waiting for you to be ready."
š§ Trouble at the River
By afternoon, the village was louder again.
Not with laughter.
With shouting.
Aarav and Vardaan stepped outside to see what was happening.
A crowd had gathered near the riverbank.
Two farmers were in each other's faces, veins bulging in their necks, eyes red with anger.
"This side is mine!" one shouted, jabbing a finger toward a patch of wet mud. "My father watered his crops from here, and his father before him!"
"Your father took more than his share!" the other snapped. "My field is dying while you flood yours for greed!"
People cheered from both sides, as if it were a sport.
Aarav had seen arguments before.
But never like this.
The anger feltā¦ thicker.
Like smoke you could almost touch.
He moved closer.
Vardaan stayed just behind him, saying nothing.
The two men were almost trembling now.
Spit flew as they shouted.
A child nearby started crying from the noise.
Aarav watched their faces, remembering what Vardaan had told him about seeing "inside" things.
The mind is a mirror, he thought. The flame is in the chest.
Without fully thinking about it, he tried something.
He took a slow breath, the way Vardaan had taught him in the clearing.
In.
Out.
Inā¦
Then, he focused on the warm place in his chest.
In his mind's eye, he saw the inner room again.
The two-colored flame burned there, small but clear.
"Can I seeā¦ their flames too?" he wondered.
He looked at the angry farmers again, squinting a littleānot with his eyes, but with his attention.
For a moment, nothing changed.
Then something strange happened.
Around each man's chest, he saw a faint glow, as if someone had hidden a lantern under their ribs.
The glow was weak.
Clouded.
And around those lights, dark smoke twisted like snakes made of dust.
The smoke was especially heavy around their heads and mouths.
Every time they shouted, the smoke thickened, and the light inside them shook.
Aarav's heart sped up.
He whispered, "Rishi-jiā¦ I see something."
"I know," Vardaan said softly behind him. "Welcome to the true view of Kali Yuga."
š«ļø Words Turned Poison
One of the farmers picked up a stone.
"If you block my water again, I'll smash your skull, do you hear?" he yelled.
He didn't throw it yet.
But the thought alone made the smoke around him pulse darker.
The other man reached for a stick.
"Hit me once, and I'll burn your field! Let's see what you feed your children then!"
The crowd tensed, ready to jump ināor to watch.
The smoke around them wasn't normal.
It didn't just hover.
It moved like something alive.
It crawled from one angry head to another, slipping into ears, mouths, eyes, making other faces twist with rage.
Aarav remembered the shadow in the river.
"This is also Adharma?" he whispered.
"Yes," Vardaan said. "Not as a monster. As a mist. A mood. A force that jumps from heart to heart and grows each time someone obeys it."
Aarav clenched his fists.
"What do we do?"
"You," Vardaan said, "try something. Listen to your gold flame. Not the black."
"How?" Aarav asked.
"Step forward," Vardaan replied. "Say what the gold side of your heart wants to say. Even if your voice shakes."
Aarav's mouth went dry.
He was just a boy.
These were grown men.
What could he possibly say that would matter?
But the warmth in his chest pulsed again.
Thump.
Thump.
Almost like it was agreeing with Vardaan.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Aarav walked forward until he stood between the two men.
"Stop!" he shouted, louder than he expected.
Both farmers stared at him.
"So the boy wants to be a judge now?" someone in the crowd snorted.
Aarav felt his face go hot.
He wanted to run.
Instead, he placed his hand over his chest, feeling the warmth there, and forced himself to speak.
"You're both shouting about water," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "But while you argue, it's still running away."
They blinked.
Aarav pointed at the thin, weak river.
"You think this fight is going to bring more rain? You think the sky will bless the one who throws the first stone?"
One of the men opened his mouth to snap back, but Aarav raised his voice.
"I was at the bank this morning," he said. "The river is lower than last week. Lower than last month. If you both keep grabbing like this, there won't be any water left to fight over."
Some of the villagers murmured.
The smoke around the men's chests stirred.
Aarav felt the two-colored flame inside him flare.
In his mind, he imagined the golden side of the flame getting a little more oil.
He let the words come, not from his fear, but from that part.
"You both love your families," he said. "You both work under the same sun. If one of you loses his field, the village weakens. If the village weakens, nobody wins. Not you, not your children, not their children."
He looked from one man to the other.
"You're not enemies," he finished quietly. "You're neighbours. And the real enemy is the dryness in the sky and the darkness that makes you forget who you are to each other."
His voice broke a little on the last words.
Silence.
The stone in one man's hand suddenly seemed heavier.
He let it fall.
The stick in the other man's grip loosened.
He dropped it too.
The dark smoke around them thinned slightly, like steam fading when the fire under a pot is turned down.
One of the older women in the crowd nodded slowly.
"He's right," she said. "If you tear each other apart, who will help when the next storm or sickness comes?"
Another villager stepped forward.
"We can make a new schedule," he suggested. "Share what's left. If the rishis blessed this river once, maybe they will help us bless it again."
Little by little, the mood changed.
The shouting turned into grumbling.
The grumbling turned into talking.
The talking turned into planning.
The thickest smoke dissolved, though some shadows lingered at the edges, clearly unhappy.
Aarav let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
His knees trembled.
Vardaan put a hand on his shoulder.
"Well done," the sage murmured. "You just fed your golden flame."
Aarav glanced down at his chest.
No one else could see it.
But inside, the inner room of his heart feltā¦ a little brighter.
šŖØ A Pot About to Crack
Later, as the crowd slowly drifted away and the men began to argue in smaller, calmer voices about fairness and turn-taking, Aarav and Vardaan moved away from the river.
"Did I really do something?" Aarav asked. "Or did they justā¦ calm down on their own?"
Vardaan smiled.
"Do you ask the sun whether it really spreads light, or if the darkness was going to leave anyway?"
"That sounds like one of those tricky questions," Aarav muttered.
"It is," Vardaan admitted. "But listen: every act of Dharma, even a small one, creates a tiny healing in the world. Every act of Adharma creates a tiny crack."
He picked up a clay pot that someone had left near a wall.
"This pot," he said, turning it in his hands, "is like the world. Strong when whole. Useful. Holding many lives inside."
He tapped it lightly with his finger.
"But if it gets little cracks from every side, and no one bothers to mend themā¦"
He tapped a little harder.
"Eventually, it breaks."
He dropped the pot a short distance.
It didn't shatter, but a fine crack ran down one side.
"You just stopped one crack from growing," Vardaan said. "But there are many more. Not just in people's hearts."
He looked toward the hills beyond the village.
"There are cracks forming in the world itself."
Aarav's mouth went dry.
"Likeā¦ like the one in the river?"
"That was a small opening," Vardaan said. "I fear there are bigger ones."
š The First World-Crack
As the sun leaned toward late afternoon, Vardaan led Aarav beyond the fields, toward a rocky slope where few people went unless they needed firewood.
"Adharma does not only live in choices," Vardaan said as they walked. "When it grows too strong, it twists the very fabric of reality."
"Fabric?" Aarav asked. "Likeā¦ clothes?"
"Like cloth," Vardaan said. "Imagine the world is a great woven cloth. Dharma keeps the threads tight and strong. Adharma pulls at them, snaps them, leaves holes."
They stepped between two large boulders, entering a narrow gap.
It was cooler here.
Quieter.
Even the birds seemed to avoid this stretch of rock.
Aarav felt his chest flame flicker nervously.
Vardaan lifted his staff.
"Stay close," he said.
After a few more steps, Aarav saw it.
At first, he thought it was just a trick of light.
Then he realized he wasn't looking at anything on the rocks.
He was looking at something in the air.
Right in front of them, stretching from near the ground up to chest height, there was a thin, glowing line.
Like someone had taken a sharp knife and drawn a long cut through empty space.
The line shimmered faintly, as if filled with thousands of tiny, moving lights.
"Whatā¦ is that?" Aarav breathed.
"This," Vardaan said quietly, "is a world-crack. A place where the cloth is torn."
Aarav stepped a little closer.
As he watched, the crack pulsed gently, like a wound that hadn't healed.
On their side of the crack, he saw rocks, dust, a few dry plants.
But when he looked closely at the thin glow, he thought he could seeā¦
something else.
Like shadows moving behind fog.
Like a different color of darkness.
He shivered.
"Can anyone else see this?" he asked.
"Most people would walk past and only feel uneasy," Vardaan said. "A headache. A bad mood. They would not know why."
"And I can see it because ofā¦ the flame?" Aarav asked.
"Yes," Vardaan said. "Your inner fire tunes your sight. You will see what others do not. Both beautiful and terrible."
Aarav stared at the crack.
"Is something going to come out of it?" he whispered.
"If it grows bigger," Vardaan said, "yes."
"Like the shadow in the river?"
"Worse," Vardaan replied.
The crack gave off a faint sound, like stone very slowly breaking.
Aarav's chest flame suddenly burned hotter.
Inside his mind, the inner room flickered.
The gold side of the flame leaned toward the crack, as if wanting to seal it.
The black side leaned toward it too, as if curious about what might come through.
The pull made Aarav feel dizzy.
He stumbled.
Vardaan caught his arm.
"Careful," the sage said. "World-cracks can speak to the parts of you that match them. Adharma calls to Adharma, even when it sleeps."
Aarav clenched his teeth.
"What do we do?" he asked.
"For now," Vardaan said, "we note it. We watch. We strengthen you. If you try to heal the world before you can stand firm inside, the crack might pull you in instead of closing."
Aarav swallowed.
"Pulled inā¦ to where?"
"To where the shadows come from," Vardaan said.
He tapped his staff gently on the ground.
The crack dimmed slightly, as if annoyed, then returned to its soft, steady glow.
"This one is not fully open yet," Vardaan said. "But others are coming. More cracks. Bigger ones. Adharma is pressing hard from the other side."
Aarav looked at the thin tear in the air.
It made the earlier shadow in the river seem small.
He understood then that the argument at the river, as loud as it was, was just a symptom.
The real sickness was deeper.
The world itself was starting to come apart at the threads.
And somehow, for reasons he still did not fully understand,
a flame inside his own chest had something to do with it.
š A Quiet Promise
That night, after Vardaan had been given a corner of the main room to sleep in and the house had grown quiet, Aarav lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
He could hear crickets outside.
The soft breathing of his mother in the next room.
The distant, weak whisper of the river.
He closed his eyes.
The inner room appeared again.
The two-colored flame burned there, steady and patient.
Gold.
Black.
Twisting together like two dancers who hadn't yet decided if they were partners or rivals.
Behind the closed door at the back of the room, he could feel the presence of the shadow-self waiting.
"Not today," he whispered. "I'm not opening you today."
The door stayed shut.
He looked at the flame.
"I don't know what you want me to be," he thought. "Butā¦"
He remembered the two farmers' faces when they dropped their weapons.
The crack in the air.
The sage's eyes.
"ā¦I don't want to be the reason the world breaks," he finished.
He didn't know if anyoneāor anythingāheard him.
But the golden side of the flame brightened just a little.
Somewhere far away, deep in a place of almost-solid shadow, a different light moved.
Not golden.
Red.
A presence, stretching across realms like a long, cold hand, felt the same thoughts echo.
It turned its attentionāslowly, deliberatelyātoward a tiny village called Dharmapura.
Toward a boy with a strange fire in his chest.
Toward the battlefield that would one day span not just earth and sky,
but the hidden spaces inside every soul.
The cracks in the world were just beginning.
And Adharma
was watching.
ā¦ END OF CHAPTER ā¦