Rain fell in cold, relentless sheets, painting Bhūtala in streaks of liquid silver and grime. The city's carcass, skeletal and rusted, groaned beneath the weight of its own decay. Neon flickered in fractured pulses across shattered streets, reflecting off puddles blackened with oil and ash. Smoke swirled from the remnants of buildings that had once touched the clouds, now hollowed shells riddled with holes where fire had carved its path. Somewhere distant, alarms wailed—a piercing, desperate echo that carried on the wind, swallowed soon after by the hollowness of ruin.
Amid the chaos, three figures lay scattered across the wreckage like broken dolls. Abhi, Aryan, and Ahaan—youths no older than nineteen—had fallen in their first real fight. They had faced the horrors of Bhūtala not yet armed with the divine artifacts that would later shape destinies. Here, they were human, fragile, and defeated.
Abhi lay on his side, one arm pressed against a jagged piece of metal embedded in the street, blood seeping between his fingers. His breathing came in ragged gasps. Each inhale rattled against bruised ribs; each exhale carried the taste of iron and soot. His eyes were open, staring at the fractured sky through the curtain of rain. For a moment, he could almost see it—not the ruins, not the shattered streets, not the grotesque reflection of civilization in collapse—but something beyond, a glimmer of what life had been before the world had burned. But that life was gone. And Abhi knew it.
He tried to sit up. Pain tore through his chest like fire on ice. He tasted bile. Every limb protested as if refusing to obey, yet he forced his gaze over the ruined battlefield. Bodies, broken and scattered, littered the street. He recognized no one. Every figure was anonymous; every scream had merged into the same lament. And yet… he knew they had been hunted. Cornered. Helpless. And that helplessness clung to him like a shadow, heavier than the rain, more suffocating than the smoke.
Aryan lay a few paces away, completely still. His eyes were open but vacant, reflecting nothing but despair. His arms were splayed beside him, fingers twitching slightly in the wet dirt. His chest rose and fell mechanically, each breath a reminder that he was alive, though barely. The battle had shattered more than his body. It had shattered his mind. The world around him had turned into a blur of flames, sirens, and screams, and he could not piece together what had gone wrong. He wanted to cry out, but the sound stuck in his throat. He wanted to move, to act, to retaliate, but even that desire had been stripped from him. He was empty, hollow, a vessel of lost hope.
Ahaan was unconscious, sprawled across a section of the street where debris had formed a partial barricade. Rain soaked into his hair and clothes, cooling the heat of his wounds, numbing his body. Yet, somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, fragments of thought stirred. Whispers. Faint flashes of light. Flickers of memory, or perhaps premonition—he could not tell the difference. Names, places, objects. A voice, distant and serene, calling him forward. Something about "knowledge," something about "lost battles" and "ancient blades." He murmured softly in his sleep, hands twitching as if trying to grasp a phantom in the fog.
They had survived this first confrontation by sheer luck, yet barely. They had no weapons of legend, no guidance from the past. Just instincts, grit, and the faint memory of someone who had once protected them.
Siddharth.
Even now, Abhi's blurred vision caught the faintest silhouette at the edge of the rain-hazed horizon. A figure moving like a shadow, faster than the storm allowed. Always just out of reach. Always watching. Always guiding. A presence without interference, a mentor without direct action. They had learned to survive under his gaze, to crawl through ruins that would have swallowed them otherwise. And yet, even Siddharth could not have saved them from this.
Abhi's mind raced despite the exhaustion, trying to pull together fragments of the fight, but everything was chaotic. The world had tilted on its axis. Steel screamed against steel, the crackle of fires, the whine of dying machines. The city itself seemed alive, lamenting the ruin of its inhabitants, bending under the storm, moaning in the wind. Abhi shivered. Every nerve in his body screamed to rise, but the pain kept him tethered to the ground.
He saw movement beside him. Aryan had rolled slightly, muttering something incoherent. Abhi forced his gaze to him. Aryan's face was streaked with blood and grime, eyes hollow but alive. He tried to reach out, but his limbs were unresponsive, heavy as lead. For a moment, they shared a silent acknowledgment—their first defeat, the emptiness, the despair. No words were spoken, only the recognition that the world had shifted beneath their feet, and they had been swept along like debris in a flood.
Above them, smoke spiraled from ruined towers, twisting into shapes that looked almost deliberate. Shadows of previous battles etched themselves into the clouds. Flames reflected in the puddles around them, distorted, dancing like specters. In those flames, Abhi thought he saw glimpses of something greater—shapes of gods, or perhaps mortals wielding impossible power. The vision flickered, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
It was a world of echoes. Of memory. Of things lost and things yet to be discovered.
The rain fell harder, masking the sounds of distant footfalls. A faint metallic clink caught Abhi's attention. His eyes darted across the street. Rusted pipes, shattered vehicles, overturned crates. Movement in the corner of his vision—something searching, scavenging. Perhaps prey. Perhaps remnants like themselves. His fingers twitched. He wanted to move, to react, but every muscle burned.
Meanwhile, Ahaan's unconscious mind began to weave a tapestry of images—flashes of an old city bathed in golden light, figures holding weapons beyond imagination, whispers of ancient battles and betrayals that had reshaped worlds long before humans had walked the earth. He murmured unintelligibly, fingers brushing the rain-soaked street, trying to reach something he could not name.
And through it all, Aryan remained still, a figure carved from despair. His mind circled endlessly around failure, loss, and guilt. Memories of what could have been played like shattered fragments: a companion lost, a street corner where they had first learned to survive, the faint warmth of guidance from a figure he could not yet fully remember. Pain had consumed him, leaving him a husk of thought, yet deep inside, a faint ember of resolve lingered, waiting for the storm to pass.
In the distance, the city groaned again. Somewhere, a collapsing building sent a shower of sparks into the sky, illuminating the skeletal framework of Bhūtala for a brief instant. Shadows danced across broken streets, and for the briefest moment, the three could see the shape of survival in the ruins around them.
Siddharth's presence remained only as whispers and glimpses. A figure at the edge of memory, at the periphery of perception. He did not intervene, but his influence was there—a lesson embedded in the way Abhi moved, the way Aryan breathed, the way Ahaan's mind flitted across memories not yet formed. There was guidance, but it was subtle, almost invisible. And that subtlety was all they had.
Abhi's head dropped back into the puddle of rainwater, tasting the grit and ash of a city that had once promised life and now offered only decay. He thought of the past battles, the people lost, the friend—or companion—he could not save. Rage and helplessness collided, coiling into a tight knot in his chest. He wanted answers, but there were none. Only the storm, the ruins, and the quiet whisper of something waiting beyond.
Aryan, too, felt the emptiness settle in, pressing against his chest, sinking into his bones. Survival had become instinct, stripped of hope. And yet, in the shadow of defeat, there was something else. A spark. A faint pulse of possibility. Nothing yet could touch it, nothing could define it. But it existed.
Ahaan's eyes fluttered beneath closed lids. The visions continued—flashes of names, symbols, weapons, and battles that had occurred long before their time. He murmured fragments of Sanskrit words, slivers of language almost forgotten. No one could understand him, not yet. But the echoes of history were reaching forward, brushing against the fragile veil of their present.
The storm around them intensified, wind whipping through ruined streets, water cascading down broken walls, steam rising from fires long dead. The world seemed alive in its grief, mourning itself, mourning what had been lost. And through it all, three youths lay broken, scattered, defeated—but alive. The first chapter of their story had ended in failure, but the story itself had only just begun.
Somewhere beyond the ruins, beyond the smoke and fire, beyond the despair, there were things waiting. Glimpses of power. Whispers of betrayal. Echoes of knowledge. And the faint, almost imperceptible shadow of Siddharth, watching, guiding, waiting for them to rise again.
The rain fell, relentlessly. The neon flickered, the metal groaned, the city breathed. And in that breathing, the three could sense that something was coming. Something greater. Something ancient. And when they would awaken, they would have to face it—or be consumed by it.
The ashes of the golden sky swirled above them, painting the world in a haze of despair and possibility. And beneath it all, the first spark of legend quietly flickered. The three of them lay there, defeated, scattered, bruised. Their breath came in ragged gasps. Bhūtala groaned and wept with them, a city broken, yet still alive. And though the storm raged and the sky bled ash, one thing remained.
They were still alive.
Somewhere in the ruins, hidden beneath smoke and steel, whispers of the past stirred. Forgotten texts, lost knowledge, and hints of divine power waited for the day they would rise again. The first act had ended, yes—but the story was only beginning.