Chapter 1-_-
FATUITY: VAIBHAV!
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Seventeen-year-old Vaibhav had lived his entire life in Sagar—a city that looked as if it had been borrowed from a gentler, forgotten age. A vast lake slept at its center, stretching so wide that at sunrise the whole city glowed like a floating island of gold. People from other towns said Sagar was beautiful; for Vaibhav, it was simply home. Quiet, familiar, and predictable.
His house stood not far from his school—close enough that he could walk while half-asleep every morning. Coconut trees lined the narrow lanes, their shadows sliding across the walls like slow, lazy waves. From his window, Vaibhav could see the lake shimmering in the distance, always calm, always the same.
At least… that's what he believed until the night everything began to change.
That night, Sagar felt different.
The lake was unusually still, as if something deep beneath its surface was holding its breath. Vaibhav didn't notice it at first. He was in his room, lying on his bed, scrolling through his phone under the dim yellow light of the table lamp. Outside, the wind had stopped. Even the dogs in the neighbourhood, usually loud at this hour, were silent.
Then it began.
A soft vibration — not in the ground, not in the walls, but in him.
At first he thought it was his heartbeat acting strange. His chest felt warm, almost magnetised, as if something invisible was pulling at him from beyond the four walls of his room.
The lamp flickered.
The shadows on the wall stretched unnaturally long for a moment… and then collapsed back to normal.
"Hello?" Vaibhav whispered, half-laughing at his own stupidity. "Koi prank mat karna…"
No reply.
Just the vibration again — stronger this time — but peaceful, like a hum of distant music. His vision blurred for a heartbeat. And then he saw it:
A faint blue spark in the corner of his room.
It hung there in the air, trembling like a drop of liquid light.
Vaibhav jolted up, backing against the wall. The spark quivered, expanded… and solidified into a small crystal, gently rotating in midair. Its glow was soft, almost emotionless — not threatening, not welcoming, simply watching.
"W-what… is this?" he whispered.
The crystal pulsed, as if acknowledging him.
And then it shot forward.
Not toward his face. Not toward his chest.
But straight into him — merging through his skin like light passing through water.
The moment the crystal pierced into him, the world collapsed.
Not the room.
Not Sagar.
Him.
A shock tore through Vaibhav's soul—silent, merciless, infinite.
His thoughts shattered like glass thrown into fire.
He didn't feel pain in the body; he felt pain in existence itself.
He was dying.
Not once.
Not twice.
But again and again.
Each death was different—burning, drowning, dissolving, fading—
as if the stone carried memories of a thousand destroyed worlds and forced him to live each ending in a blink.
His breath vanished.
His identity flickered.
Every time he tried to hold onto "Vaibhav," the name slipped away like water through shaking fingers.
Then the presence came.
Cold.
Ancient.
Unemotionally calm.
The will of the Black Stone.
It pressed against his mind with the weight of galaxies, not asking—claiming.
His memories folded inward, shrinking into a corner of his consciousness while something older expanded to take their place.
He couldn't scream.
Couldn't think.
Couldn't even recognize where he ended and it began.
And just when he thought he would vanish completely…
…a warmth entered the chaos.
Not comforting.
Not gentle.
But aligned.
Two rhythms pulsed inside him:
His mortal heartbeat.
And the stone's cosmic pulse.
At first they clashed—wild, broken, out of sync.
Then slowly… unnervingly… they matched.
Thump.
…
Thump.
For a single impossible moment, Vaibhav felt a presence that wasn't human rise inside him—
and a presence that wasn't cosmic soften for a second.
He saw a silhouette in his mind:
neither Vaibhav nor the stone…
but something that looked almost like both.
Before he could understand it, the image snapped away.
His body collapsed to the floor.
Sweat cold.
Breath trembling.
He didn't know it yet, but something irreversible had already begun.
A thread, thin as a hair, now connected his soul and the crystal's will.
A thread that shouldn't exist.
A thread that neither side fully controlled.
And if someone capable of sensing divine energy had been there at that exact moment…
they would've noticed a terrifying detail:
Just for one breath,
Vaibhav's aura and the Kaal Crystal's aura turned identical.
Only a hint.
Gone instantly.
But real.
A future seal hidden inside a moment of death.
The world drifted back into focus slowly, as if someone were brightening a dying bulb.
Vaibhav blinked. His ceiling. His room. The fan humming above. Everything looked normal…
…until he tried to sit up.
A cold, heavy pull came from his chest.
He lifted his shirt cautiously—hands trembling.
And froze.
A black crystal, darker than darkness itself, was embedded in his chest.
Not hanging.
Not stuck.
Merged.
It didn't shine.
It absorbed the light around it—like a void pretending to have a shape.
"What… what is this…?" he whispered.
The stone pulsed once.
A heartbeat of its own.
Vaibhav flinched, breath erupting in panic.
He yanked his shirt down and stumbled out of his room, legs almost giving out.
Downstairs, his older brother Raghav was sprawled on the sofa, scrolling his phone—casual, relaxed, oblivious to the impossible thing now fused into Vaibhav's body.
"Bro…" Vaibhav's voice cracked.
Raghav looked up lazily. "Yeah?"
"Do you… see something on my chest?"
Raghav frowned. "Huh? What are you talking about?"
Vaibhav hesitated, then lifted his shirt again.
Raghav stared. Leaned closer. Squinted.
"…I don't see anything. Are you crazy?"
He flicked Vaibhav's forehead lightly.
"Did you stay up all night again? Or watch some weird anime?"
Vaibhav's breath caught.
He couldn't see it.
The stone was right there—cold, alive, throbbing with a faint pulse—Vaibhav could feel it under his skin.
But to Raghav?
Nothing.
"So… only I can see it," Vaibhav whispered.
A chill ran through him.
Somewhere far beyond the human world, past the veil of normal senses, something ancient stirred.
A faint echo.
Someone—or something—aware of what had awakened inside him.
Devas.
The ones who could see what mortals could not.
The ones who felt the birth of a new bearer.
The ones who would soon begin searching…
Vaibhav knew none of this.
But far away, hidden in the unseen layers of existence, a pair of ancient eyes opened—
and smiled.
FITUITY.
Chapter 1 - VAIBHAV
WRITER: alive _here0806