Chapter 2: "Ashes and Echoes"
Morning came like it always did—hesitant, grey, and cold.
The sun didn't rise anymore. It bled through the clouds like a wound that never healed, casting long, shallow light across Sector 3-A's slums. The air reeked of sulphur and rust. Somewhere in the distance, a demon caravan rumbled through the streets, the guttural growl of their engines reminding everyone that survival here was borrowed time.
But even in the aftermath of decay, life insisted.
Gaurav was already gone when I woke.
His blanket—if you could call it that—was thrown over a pile of bricks where he'd slept. I rubbed my eyes and stretched, feeling the tension in my shoulders from the raid last night. Rachit's sleeping area was untouched, closed off by thick cloth and stacked books—he rarely left that space.
Outside, Gaurav's laughter echoed.
I stepped into the open and saw him in the courtyard playing with a group of kids. Orphans, mostly. Scavengers. Ghosts of a future never granted.
"Hey! Stop dodging and take the hit!" Gaurav yelled, mock-fighting a ten-year-old with a stick.
The kids loved him. Maybe because he never talked to them like they were broken. Maybe because, in that moment, he wasn't either.
I didn't stay long.
There were people who needed help, and I couldn't let them down—not him.
The elders lived in a fractured hall near the old metro line. They were mostly ignored—too frail to work, too slow to steal. I carried buckets of water from the hand pump two streets down, repaired patchwork walls with salvaged scrap, sometimes even scavenged discarded food packets demons left behind.
But today, I went for only one reason.
Room 3, second bed by the wall.
The stench hit first. Rot and blood. Then I saw him—what was left of him. Flesh, gone in places. Ribs exposed like the skeleton was trying to crawl out. Veins blackened. An eye milky. But the other... still sharp, still alive.
"Old man," I said softly, kneeling beside him.
He didn't speak. Just reached out with that half-hand, resting it on my head like he used to when I was small.
He had no name. Just a scar and a story.
Five years ago, he saved me.
A child about to be slaughtered by a demon raider. The old man—just a scavenger then—threw himself at the beast, stabbing its eye with a rusted pipe. It didn't kill the monster, but it slowed him enough for a miracle to happen: I lived. He didn't walk right ever since. His wounds festered. They said he should've died weeks after.
But he didn't.
No one knew why.
I didn't ask. I just made sure he ate.
Back at our shelter, Rachit hadn't moved all day.
The scripture lay open on the floor, surrounded by candles made from cloth dipped in oil we stole in last raid. Pages layered with symbols and verses no one understood. But Rachit... he stared at them like they were whispering to him.
He hadn't eaten since the raid.
I brought him a bowl of rice from what we'd stolen.
"You'll get sick," I said, setting it down.
He didn't reply. Didn't look up.
Instead, he murmured under his breath—phrases in a language I didn't know. Something in his voice sent chills across my spine. Not fear. Something older. Like I wasn't supposed to hear it yet.
I left him alone.
He'd talk when he was ready.
Night fell.
Fires lit up across the slum in small circles—warmth in the shape of stories. Songs long forgotten hummed under people's breath, not out of belief, but memory.
Rachit finally stepped outside.
His eyes were darker now. Not tired—changed.
We found Gaurav perched on a broken tank, watching the stars that barely dared to shine.
"You good?" he asked.
"No," Rachit said. "But it's time we talked."
We sat in the shadows behind the warehouse ruins, away from ears.
He held up the scripture.
"This... isn't just writing. It's a map."
"To where?" I asked.
"I don't know. But it talks about something... powerful. Hidden. Old." His voice lowered. "It called itself Ashvathha."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Gaurav said, brow furrowed.
"I don't know yet," Rachit admitted. "But I've seen this symbol before. Years ago."
I stared at him. "Where?"
He looked away.
And for the first time, I realized something terrifying:
Rachit had always known more than us.
But he'd chosen silence.
We didn't press. Not yet.
But something had begun.
A question that had waited years to be asked was now burning between us.
The night grew colder. The stars seemed just a little closer.
And far away, something old stirred.
Watching.
Waiting.
The wind that night was dry, hollow, like it carried too many whispers and not enough warmth.
We sat there—three silhouettes beneath a broken sky. The fire had died down to glowing embers, casting faint orange across Rachit's face. He sat cross-legged, the scripture open between us. Even Gaurav had gone quiet, fidgeting only slightly as Rachit carefully turned a page.
"You said it's a map," I finally broke the silence. "But to where?"
Rachit didn't look up. His fingers traced
a looping symbol inked in rust-colored lines.
"This thing..." he began, his voice low but steady, "...is written in two languages. One of them is Sanskrit—old, older than most can even guess. From a time before books had spines."
I blinked. "You can read that?"
"Mostly. Enough."
"And the second language?" Gaurav asked, leaning forward.
Rachit paused.
"That... I don't know. It's not written like anything modern. No letters. Just symbols. But their flow... the arrangement... it feels like Indus or Harappan script—from the cities buried under time. You've heard of those from the demon when we were enslaved, right? Mohenjo-daro, Harappa."
"I thought that stuff was still unsolved," I muttered.
Rachit nodded. "Exactly. That's the thing. No one ever cracked it. No one knows what it really says, because the ones who wrote it... vanished before they could teach it to anyone else. And now all that's left is stone and silence."
He flipped another page. It showed a tree with massive roots and a sun above it, both circled by what looked like mountains.
"But the part I do understand—the Sanskrit—it's not just myth or story. It's a message. Or maybe a plea."
Gaurav raised an eyebrow. "From who?"
"I don't know," Rachit said. "But it says this—translated as best I could:
'He who seeks the balance shall walk where the clouds kneel. Beyond the dying breath of the world, at the foot of Gandamadana, waits the trial of remembrance.'"
There was silence.
Only the wind moved.
"Gandamadana..." I said the name slowly, letting it sit on my tongue. It didn't sound like a place in Sector 3A—or anywhere near.
"I cross-checked the term," Rachit added, digging through his side pouch. He pulled out a folded paper—weathered, smudged, but detailed. A map.
It wasn't like the demon-drawn maps of safe zones and danger zones. This was older—marked with hand-drawn rivers, valleys, mountains. Inked stars and rotating sigils.
He unfolded it on the ground.
"The scripture had this sealed in wax inside a hollow space in the cover," he explained. "I didn't want to open it until I was sure."
The map was marked in two places—our current location, circled in red charcoal, labeled crudely as S-3A, and far to the south-east, past mountains I'd never seen, was a symbol of a tree, struck through by lightning and flames for some reasons its roots reached sky and further beyond while the branches reached the soil.
Gandamadana.
"We're supposed to go there?" Gaurav asked, brows knitting. "Why?"
"I don't know," Rachit admitted. "But it might be better than dying slowly here."
He gestured around us.
"You've seen it—Sector 3A is dying. The food runs thinner every month. Demons patrol now even in daylight. Radiation storms come faster. And if that wasn't enough, the ground beneath us? It's cracking. Drying out."
He paused, his tone sharper now.
"And you know what's worse? People aren't scared anymore. They've just accepted it. As if this rot is normal."
Gaurav rubbed his face. "It's suicide to travel out there."
"Maybe," Rachit said, his eyes locking with ours. "But staying here is just slower suicide. I'd rather walk toward something—anything—than rot in a corner."
I sat in thought, watching the map, the scripture, the tension growing in Rachit's usually unreadable face. He had always been the most quiet, the most withdrawn. But now he looked... alive. Determined.
And I realized something.
He believed in this.
Whatever was calling from that mountain—it had reached him first.
Gaurav sighed. "Fine. But if we die halfway, I'm haunting you."
Rachit cracked a rare, half-smile.
"I'd be honoured."
After that Gaurav went to sleep.
I didn't say yes. I didn't need to.
I just picked up the map and folded it neatly.
As we turned in for the night, I couldn't shake the feeling that something had just shifted.
Not outside.
Inside us.
This wasn't just a new path. It was the first time in years we had something dangerous.
Hope.
And sometimes... that's the deadliest weapon of all.
AN HOUR LATER….
Gaurav's snoring had a rhythm to it—sharp, stubborn, like even in sleep he refused to surrender completely. His hand dangled off the cot, still curled like he was ready to punch something in his dreams.
Rachit and I sat a few feet away, backs resting against the crumbling wall of the shelter. The fire between us had faded to a dull orange core, casting flickering shadows on the scripture and the edges of the map beside it.
But neither of us could sleep.
The silence between us wasn't heavy—it was thoughtful. Rachit, for all his sharp edges and secretive habits, had a kind of presence that didn't need words to communicate. He looked at the fire like it held answers.
I broke the stillness. "If we go... who takes care of them?"
Rachit didn't blink, but I saw his jaw tighten slightly. "Been thinking the same thing genius."
"The kids still trust us. The elders... most of them barely speak anymore. Some don't even remember their own names. And the old man—" My throat caught, just a little. "He's alive because he doesn't know how to die."
Rachit nodded slowly. "And we're alive because we chose to keep him that way."
We sat with that truth.
Five years ago, we'd been prisoners—enslaved by demons in a labor camp outside what used to be the remains of Kanpur's industrial zone. There was no sunlight, no clocks, just pain, hunger, and death delivered with methodical cruelty. It was there that I met Rachit and Gaurav. We didn't bond instantly. It took months of surviving together. Taking beatings together. Holding back sobs in the dark while others didn't wake up the next morning.
We earned each other.
And when the chance came, we escaped together.
But we didn't run for freedom. We ran back—to free the ones who couldn't.
That was five winters ago. Since then, we became something else. Not a rebellion. Not a family. Just a scarred group of humans too stubborn to vanish. Feeding children who weren't ours. Tending to elders who barely remembered our names. Building hope with dirty hands and empty stomachs.
But now...
"We can't leave unless we leave something behind," I said. "Security. Food. A promise."
Rachit looked at me, and his reddish-brown eyes had that stormy glint again. "Then we do it. One final raid. Our biggest."
I let the words settle before nodding. "We need enough rations for a year. Six months for the journey. Six months if we don't make it back in time."
"And if we don't make it back at all?"
Silence again.
"We plan like we will," I said quietly.
Rachit picked up a stick and started scratching on the ground—marking numbers, routes, supply caches. His mind worked like a machine when it needed to.
"And the old man?" he asked. "He's tied to you. We can't risk his care falling apart."
I smiled faintly. "I already thought of someone. Kushagra."
That name made Rachit's brow lift.
"He's smart," I continued. "Not a fighter, but practical. He's handled ration distribution before, and he's got respect in the circles. He doesn't follow anyone—but he owes me."
"And what does he want in return?"
I turned toward Rachit. "Twenty percent of whatever we bring back. No questions asked. No matter what it is."
Rachit actually whistled softly. "That's generous."
"It's survival."
We finalized the thought in silence, the fire dimming between us until the warmth barely touched our hands.
The wind outside howled again. Like the night itself was uneasy about what we were planning.
"I hope we're not being stupid," I murmured.
"Of course we are," Rachit said, eyes still on the glowing scripture. "But better stupid and moving than smart and rotting."
We both chuckled softly.
That night, there were no stars. Just the darkness of a world long lost, and the fragile light of three humans about to step into something far bigger than they understood.
But for now?
We planned a heist.
Not for gold. Not for glory.
For food. For children. For the fragile world we would leave behind—and hopefully return to.
The cold stillness before dawn blanketed the settlement in eerie silence. The ash-laced wind that always lingered at night had dulled, as if even the air itself feared to move.
Swayam finally allowed himself a few hours of rest. He lay curled near the fireplace, the embers barely glowing now, his breath even, arms loosely wrapped around the cloth bundle that served as a pillow. It was rare for him to sleep—even rarer for him to do it without guilt. But tonight, there was purpose in his exhaustion. Plans had been made. Risks calculated.
Rachit remained awake, as always.
He sat alone under the broken wooden archway of the entrance, legs crossed, a stillness about him that didn't match his age. At seventeen, he was already taller and broader than most adults. A weapon shaped by struggle. But in that moment, he didn't look like a fighter. He looked like someone holding on to something long gone.
In his hand was a silver locket.
It clicked open with a whisper, revealing two faded photographs. The first—a man in his early forties, stern but kind eyes, and a woman in her mid-thirties with an expression that carried equal parts fire and grace. The second photo showed two children—one a boy, around seven, with messy hair and a mischievous smile, the other a girl, younger, clutching a stuffed elephant to her chest. Her smile was soft. Pure. Innocent.
Rachit stared for a long while.
His fingers traced the edges of the photographs like they were relics of a forgotten world. His jaw tightened—not from grief, but from restraint. Whatever the story behind the locket was, he had never spoken of it. Not once. Not even to Swayam or Gaurav.
After what felt like hours, he closed the locket, kissed it silently, and slipped it back around his neck. It vanished beneath his tattered shirt, its weight now hidden but never absent.
Not long after, the others stirred.
Gaurav woke first—stretching like a cat, groaning and mumbling curses at the cold floor. Swayam was up next, his senses sharper even in drowsiness. A brief nod passed between the three of them. They didn't need morning pleasantries.
They had a mission.
Their morning routine was simple—clean up, check on the elders, share bread with the kids, maintain the illusion of safety for the others. They didn't speak much during it. Words were unnecessary. Every movement had purpose. Every glance carried meaning.
By afternoon, they gathered in the abandoned schoolroom that served as their planning bunker.
Swayam laid out the map. "Sector-6O," he said, pointing to a circled zone on the east side of the state's remnants.
Gaurav frowned. "The demon market?"
"Not just a market," Rachit added. "A city. Fully functional. High-tech, magically reinforced. There's no ruin there—only their future."
Sector-6O was unlike other parts of the world.
Where most human cities had fallen into rubble, Sector-6O and some other cities had become something else. A demon utopia. Towering spires of obsidian glass. Roads that shifted like liquid when touched. Floating platforms powered by blood-bound spells. Surveillance systems woven from corrupted spirit-fire. Magic mixed with technology in grotesque harmony.
It was also one of the largest trafficking hubs for humans—slavery, consumption, breeding, and whatever dark desires the demonic elite could conceive.
But it had one weakness: supply.
Deep within its core was a cold storage complex. A fortress of frozen rations—meat, grain, even luxury goods—stored for demon feasts and high-ranking consumption. The facility was said to be vast enough to store food for an entire region for a year. And it was relatively under-guarded, because few would be insane enough to target it.
Except the three of them.
"This will be the riskiest thing we've done," Swayam said flatly.
"We've said that before," Gaurav smirked. "Last time we robbed a demon baron's caravan and lived."
"Barely," Rachit muttered.
They began charting entry points. Magical wards. Guard rotations. Rachit, who had been secretly gathering data on demon tech movement for months, unfolded a hand-drawn schematic of the storage complex.
"It's beneath the city core," he explained. "Entrance disguised as a water purification plant. But deeper inside... it's a fortress of ice."
They would need disguises. Distraction. A timed exit. And the kind of nerve that came from knowing failure meant death—or worse.
Swayam looked at the map, then at the scripture that now lay next to it, partially translated. A reminder of the journey ahead. But first, they had to feed the ones they would leave behind.
"We do this fast. Clean. No fire. No blood unless we have to. We get in, we take what we can, and we vanish."
Gaurav punched his fist into his palm. "Finally. Some fun."
Rachit didn't smile.
This was more than a heist. It was their last service to the people they cared about.
A way to leave without guilt.
And if they succeeded... it would also be their first step toward Gandamadana.
150 kilometers south.
That was the distance between them and Sector-6O.
Just 150 kilometers of scorched land, shifting dunes of ash, and demon patrols.
But it felt like a world away.
The night before their departure was heavy—too quiet. No laughter from the children. No singing from the elders. Everyone could feel it. The tension. The kind of silence that comes before something breaks.
Swayam sat on the roof of the ruined schoolhouse, his back to a shattered chimney, eyes scanning the distant horizon. The stars above seemed dimmer, like even the heavens were holding their breath.
He didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stared.
Gaurav found him there an hour later, chewing on roasted root chips like he wasn't about to risk his life tomorrow.
"You thinking about backing out?" he asked, sitting beside Swayam and offering the bag.
Swayam didn't respond.
"I'm not," Gaurav said, mouth full. "But I've been pissing every fifteen minutes since we finalized the plan. So maybe I am."
That made Swayam chuckle, just barely. "I'm not scared," he said. "Just... aware."
"Of what?"
"Of everything we could lose."
Gaurav leaned back, resting his head on the cold stone behind them. "I don't know, man. You're always thinking like that. I think about what I could gain. What we can win. Fear doesn't help my fists."
Swayam looked at him. "And if we lose someone? What then?"
"I'll blame the demon. And I'll break every one of his ribs before he can beg."
The quiet between them wasn't awkward. It was familiar. Like an old coat—worn, but warm. They stayed like that until dawn bled red into the sky.
The next morning, they moved.
It wasn't a flashy farewell. No speeches. No dramatic goodbyes.
Just Rachit locking the scripture in a hidden chamber beneath the old well. Just Gaurav giving high-fives to the kids. Just Swayam handing the old, half-rotted man a warm blanket and whispering, "You'll be okay."
Kushagra, their quietest friend, waited by the north fence.
"You sure you're ready?" Swayam asked.
Kushagra gave a sharp nod. "You three better come back. I don't want to live off 20% for nothing."
And with that, the trio departed.
The Approach
The journey took two days—no direct roads, no safe passage.
They stayed off the main routes, cutting through canyons, ruins, and forests now haunted by mutated beasts. They travelled only at night. During the day, they slept under thermal-reflective tarps buried under debris.
Swayam took point. His eyes, sharper than most, caught even the smallest shifts in shadow. His body, honed through years of survival, barely made a sound as he moved. He wasn't just fast—he was precise.
Gaurav stayed in the middle, ever alert, but quick to complain.
"My legs are going to fall off."
"No," Rachit replied. "Your soul will, when a demon detects you."
"And that's better?"
"You tell me."
Rachit was always the last in line—scanning the horizon, checking for magical distortions with a compact spectral compass, silently recording mental notes about the terrain.
On the third night, they saw it.
Sector-6O.
A city that didn't belong in this broken world.
The Enemy's Heart
It looked like a god had built it for demons.
Massive dark towers pulsed with runes, their edges too sharp, too symmetrical to be natural. Streets shimmered with liquid light—moving and adjusting to their users. Drones hovered above like flies, each carrying a magic core. The air smelled like incense and blood.
The trio set camp half a mile out, beneath a broken stone arch.
Rachit unrolled a canvas map and marked their entry point: "Sector Gate 14B."
"It's an auxiliary waste intake," he explained. "Unwatched. The kind of entrance no one guards because it stinks."
Gaurav grimaced. "We're sneaking in through sewer sludge?"
"Yes."
"I hate this plan."
"You hate every plan," Swayam muttered.
They waited until nightfall.
Then moved.
The Infiltration Begins
The sewer shaft was narrow, rancid, and lined with demon excrement that shimmered slightly in the dark. It took every ounce of willpower not to gag.
But they were inside.
For the next two hours, they followed Rachit's memorized blueprints, crawling through tunnels, cutting through magical wires, and avoiding flame-sentry orbs that roamed like lost spirits.
Every step was life or death.
At one point, a demon warden passed inches from them—a hulking beast of molten skin and thorns. Swayam pressed Gaurav to the wall with one arm, not breathing until the beast's echo faded.
"That was too close," Gaurav whispered.
"I know," Swayam said, steady but pale.
Finally, they reached the first inner gate—where cold vapor hissed out from the metallic walls.
They were there.
Just one more corridor and a vertical shaft away from the cold storage.
Gaurav cracked his knuckles. "So... we're stealing from the heart of the beast now?"
"Not stealing," Rachit whispered. "Reclaiming what they hoarded."
And with that, they climbed into the frost-bitten shaft, slipping deeper into the underbelly of Sector-6O.
The cold bit into them like teeth.
Not the kind of cold from wind or snow—but the engineered kind. The artificial, arcane, calculated chill of the cold storage vaults beneath Sector-6O. The moment the trio slipped through the access vent, their breath turned into white mist. Magic-infused frost lined the walls, pulsing slightly with life—like the structure itself was watching, breathing.
Swayam touched the metal wall with the back of his hand. Frost clung to his skin instantly.
"We don't have long in here," he whispered. "We'll lose function in our limbs if we stay too long."
Rachit's breath fogged the glass of a bottle he used to drink water from. "Then we move like ghosts."
Ghosts in the Cold
Their first challenge was a corridor of shifting floors.
The demons used a randomized magic grid—a defense system that rearranged the floor panels every few minutes to confuse intruders. On some panels, the weight of a single footstep would trigger a silent alarm.
Gaurav crouched low, scanning the runes beneath the transparent floor. "I can't tell which are safe."
"You don't have to," Swayam said, voice calm. "Just follow me."
His lightning aura flickered faintly—so faint it didn't even illuminate the space around him. It was like watching a nerve pulse through a vein, silent and alive. He tapped the back of his palm twice, generating the smallest static field possible.
The runes reacted.
Two tiles flickered red.
"That's it," Swayam murmured. "Red is rigged."
They moved like dancers, feet brushing down on safe tiles with uncanny grace. Gaurav almost stumbled once—too used to charging through enemies, not avoiding them—but Swayam caught him by the wrist.
"You're better with fists," Swayam teased softly, "but this... this is my ring."
They reached the vault gates, where they paused to catch their breath. Gaurav leaned against the wall, arms folded.
"You ever think we're too good at this?" he muttered. "Stealing, sneaking... it's like second nature now."
Rachit gave a bitter smile. "Maybe we're just good at surviving."
Meat for the Starving
The vault opened like a blooming iron flower—cold mist rushing out like breath from a beast.
Inside, it wasn't just dry rations.
Rows upon rows of frozen carcasses hung from enchanted hooks—animals they hadn't seen in years. Deer. Elk. Giant fowl mutated slightly by demonic environments. Some were likely human once.
Gaurav looked away, jaw clenched. "We taking this crap?"
"We have to," Rachit said, stepping forward.
He stared at a slab of frozen meat, then down at his own muscular, scarred hands.
"We don't eat meat. Not you. Not me. Not Swayam. It's not just a habit—it's belief. And still, here we are, stealing it for people who've forgotten their beliefs just to live and not everyone's body adapted to extract protein from plants"
Swayam, standing beside a crate of dried rice, answered quietly, "We give them hope, not ideals."
Rachit nodded. "Then let's steal them some hope."
Struggle and Strategy
Loading the meat was only the beginning.
They had to disable the vault's magical security. Rachit took lead here, whispering incantations in a dialect long lost to most. Sanskrit—shaped for deconstruction rather than invocation. He collapsed detection spells like folding paper swans.
But it drained him.
His breathing turned ragged. Blood trickled from his nose.
Swayam stepped in without a word, supporting him, then redirecting the pran field to himself. It burned along his arms like liquid voltage, but he endured it.
Then came the transport phase.
They couldn't carry everything on their backs—not without being noticed. But they'd seen something earlier. A demon livestock chamber near the east annex—home to mutated beasts the demons used for transport and food.
A plan began to form.
The Silent Wrangle
Creeping through Sector-6O's east annex was a nightmare.
Unlike the cold storage, this place breathed. Literally.
It was lined with bio-grown walls that shifted, sensing motion. Every five minutes, demon handlers walked in to check the beasts. The creatures—scaled rhino-like animals with tusks and thick haunches—were docile, drugged on spell-chains.
Swayam went in first, disabling the spell chains with his static interference. Each one had to be broken without waking the others.
Gaurav stayed by the door, scanning the corridors. When a guard came near, he held his breath, waited for the footsteps to align—and then used a two-finger earth pulse through the wall. Just enough vibration to collapse dust from a higher level, drawing the guard away with a false "noise."
It was risky.
But it worked.
Rachit then approached the alpha beast—a male with dulled eyes and a scar running down its side. He reached out, touching its forehead.
"I need you," he whispered. "Just for a while."
It stared at him for a moment... then blinked.
They loaded the meat and rations onto two of the beasts, covering them with stolen trader cloth and illusion cloths woven from magical silk. The whole caravan looked like a demon merchant unit now.
But the city still needed to be crossed.
The Exit
Crossing Sector-6O in disguise was the most dangerous part.
Swayam wore a stolen demon mask—etched with runes of a minor warden class. He walked in front, leading the beasts. Gaurav and Rachit trailed behind as guards.
They didn't speak. Didn't breathe more than necessary.
At one point, a full-blood demon noble passed by, eyeing the caravan. Its long tongue flicked toward them, sensing.
Swayam didn't flinch. Just tilted his head in the perfect angle of subservient disdain expected from a minor-class demon. The noble snorted, uninterested.
The trio walked for forty-seven minutes through the glowing city, surrounded by monsters, temptation, and death.
Not once did they break cover.
Not once did they speak.
Until they reached the outer gate and passed into darkness again.
The Quiet Ride Home
The beasts moved slowly across the ash fields. Behind them, Sector-6O faded into a shimmer of demonic glory.
Gaurav sat on one of the crates, finally breathing deeply.
"Never again," he said. "Next time, I just punch through the front."
"You'd die," Rachit said flatly.
"Yeah," Gaurav grinned, "but in style."
Swayam, leading the beasts in front, didn't say much. But he turned slightly and muttered, "Thank you. Both of you."
Rachit smiled. "We all made it out alive. That's enough."
"But it's not just about us," Swayam said quietly. "We brought back food. Life. For people who forgot how to hope."
And in the middle of that ruined, ash-stained field, beneath a broken sky, the three of them rode back home—carrying survival on the backs of beasts and hope in silence.
The road back from Sector-6O was long.
Their beast caravan trudged slowly over the ashen plains. A bitter wind cut across the grey expanse, but it felt different now—less of a threat and more like a reminder. That they'd been somewhere terrible. That they'd done something necessary. That the world hadn't changed, but perhaps they had.
Swayam walked ahead in silence, guiding the beasts with steady hands and distant eyes. Rachit rode on one of the crates, locket around his neck, glasses cracked slightly more than before. Gaurav sat beside him, chewing on a piece of dried root, slouched like he'd run a marathon in hell.
"So," Gaurav said eventually, "we gonna talk about what we saw or are we pretending the meat came from magic cows that died of old age?"
Swayam didn't turn, but his voice carried. "The demon kids."
Rachit blinked. "What?"
"The children," Swayam repeated. "They were playing with bones. Human bones. Like toys."
Gaurav snorted. "I saw a noble eating someone while they screamed prayers. Said the sound made the meat softer."
"No one stopped them," Rachit murmured. "Because there were families. Demon parents, demon children. Like a society. With rules. With homes."
"But no mercy," Swayam added. "Not for humans. Not even a flicker."
A long silence stretched.
Gaurav stared out at the plains, face unreadable. "Do you think there are any good ones left? Demons, I mean."
Rachit didn't answer right away. He pulled out his locket, stared at the photo of the man, woman, and the two children. His expression was stone.
"If there are," he finally said, "I'll mourn them too."
Gaurav raised an eyebrow. "Mourn?"
Rachit looked away. "Just talking."
But Swayam caught it—the subtle shift in tone, the quiet edge. A glimpse of something simmering beneath Rachit's calm exterior. Not rage. Not grief. Something colder.
Resolve.
They reached the base by twilight.
The broken structure of Sector 3A's safe zone rose before them—part ruins, part shelter, part miracle. Children ran out to greet them, eyes wide at the sight of the beasts. Elders hobbled forward, leaning on crutches and sticks. Some cried. Some prayed.
And Kushagra was there—lean, sharp-eyed, with his old hunting bow slung over his shoulder.
"Took your time," he said, smirking. "I thought demons turned you into stew."
"Almost," Gaurav said, grinning. "But we turned it around. Brought some stew back instead."
They hugged briefly, then Swayam nodded toward the crates. "We need to talk."
Inside the old hall, around the firepit, the four of them sat together.
Rachit laid it out first.
"We're going to Gandamadana. It's time."
Kushagra frowned. "What about the people here?"
"That's why we made the deal," Swayam said. "Food for a year. And twenty percent of whatever we find, if we come back."
"If?"
Rachit didn't flinch. "There are no guarantees. This isn't a road trip. It's a pilgrimage into a myth."
Gaurav leaned back. "But if we're lucky? We find something that changes everything. Weapons. Knowledge. Artifacts. Even a cure for this rotting world."
Kushagra considered it. Then nodded. "Deal stands. I'll take care of them. Just make it worth the trouble."
After Kushagra left, the three of them sat in the quiet.
Rachit stood up. "I need a week."
"For what?" Gaurav asked.
"To study. The map. The language. The terrain. If we're going into uncharted zones, I need to understand what we're stepping into."
Swayam nodded. "We agree. I've got some things to handle too. The old man... he needs more care now. I'll arrange it."
"I want to train the kids," Gaurav said. "At least a few of them. They need to know how to throw a punch."
The fire crackled.
Rachit watched the flames flicker in his glasses.
"There's something twisted coming," he said. "Something older than the demons. Maybe even older than the gods."
Swayam glanced at him. "And you think it's waiting for us?"
Rachit didn't answer.
But in the shadows behind him, his hand clenched the locket tighter.
The sky outside bled orange into violet as the sun dipped behind the jagged remains of what was once a mountain range, now nothing more than a silhouette of wreckage and craters. Sector 3A seemed quieter today—like even the air was holding its breath.
Inside the half-collapsed, reinforced bunker they called home, a heavy stillness lingered after the week-long storm of preparation. The trio sat around a scorched metal table, its surface blackened by years of abuse and heat. Dust clung to the map Rachit laid out, carefully unrolling it with steady hands.
"This," Rachit said, his voice solemn, "isn't just a path to some forgotten mountain. It's a history no one remembers."
Gaurav leaned in, squinting at the fine lines and intricate curves, while Swayam stood with arms crossed, his eyes focused like he was analyzing a battlefield.
"There are two maps hidden in the scripture," Rachit continued. "I only realized it after redrawing them again and again… tracing over each line. One map is from 2008 AD. The other... from now—428,899 CE."
Swayam blinked. "You're saying you found a map of this world? Like... now-now?"
Rachit nodded. "Not just any map. A cartographer-level reconstruction. Every ridge, river, and ruined city marked. Someone made this as if they knew what was coming."
Gaurav raised an eyebrow. "Why 2008? Why that year?"
"I don't know yet. But it's the most intact portion of the Sanskrit script. It marks a time of technological saturation and the last age before the first recorded breach by demons. Maybe the world started unraveling then."
He pointed to a detailed curve in the map. "Here. This is what used to be the Himalayas. And here's Gandamadana—still marked. Still standing."
They fell silent.
Swayam's eyes narrowed as he traced a path between Sector 3A and Gandamadana. "That's... not a short trip."
"No," Rachit confirmed. "Almost 1,200 kilometers on foot. Maybe more depending on what terrain's changed. We'll need food, water, weapons, shelter—and something to carry all of it."
Gaurav cracked his knuckles. "A beast."
"Exactly," Rachit replied. "We can use one of the captured draft beasts from the cold storage raid. Remember the three that didn't attack? The hybrid yaks. Smart, strong, and huge. I've already been watching one of them—it responds to commands. With a week of training, it should follow."
Swayam smiled faintly. "So we're riding a demon city's supply beast to a forgotten mountain on the other side of a shattered world?"
"We're not riding it," Rachit corrected. "It's carrying the weight of everyone's hope. And our rations."
"Hope's heavy," Gaurav muttered, then smiled too.
They began discussing the practicalities. Which paths to avoid. Where to rest. How to filter water without drawing demonic attention. The maps became the centerpiece of their planning—every inch telling a story, every mark forcing a choice. Rachit handled the route with surgical precision, but it was Swayam who built the contingencies: where to fall back, how to scatter if ambushed, what signs to leave behind in case one got lost.
"Every seventy kilometers," Swayam said, "we set up a beacon mark. Nothing big. Just a carved symbol only we recognize. That way, even if we're split, we know the direction."
"And if someone's caught?" Gaurav asked.
No one answered. The question hung like smoke.
Later that evening, the three stepped outside for air. The wind was cold—biting, like everything else in the world these days. The distant howls of creatures echoed faintly across the broken plains.
"Do you ever think..." Gaurav began, then stopped.
Rachit looked at him. "Think what?"
"...that we're insane? Following a myth, based on a scripture found in a demon warehouse? Trusting a mountain from a map older than all of us combined?"
"I think," Swayam said softly, "we stopped being sane the day we were born into this world."
Rachit didn't reply. He only reached into his shirt, pulling out the silver locket and looking at it for a moment.
Inside, still unchanged, were the two pictures.
He snapped it shut.
"There's more I haven't told you," he said suddenly. "But for now... just know this map? This scripture? It's not random. Someone left it behind for us."
Gaurav raised a brow. "Us, specifically?"
"No. But for someone who hadn't given up yet."
They stood there, staring at the distance. Somewhere out there was Gandamadana. Somewhere even further was a purpose.
For now, all they had was a beast, a plan, and each other.
NEXT DAY,
The sun bled into morning skies like fire against rusted steel. Wind carried the scent of soot and damp soil—faint, yet ever-present in the shelter's outskirts.
For six days straight, the beast had been the center of everyone's focus.
It was a hulking hybrid yak, scarred from years under demonic control but no longer feral. Its reddish-brown fur was matted, its left horn chipped, and its eyes still held the trauma of its past—but it followed commands. It remembered touch. Trust, although slow, began to take root.
Each of the trio had their turn with it.
Day One: Gaurav.
Gaurav approached the beast without hesitation, his broad form radiating confidence. He fed it dried roots, thick grains, and water. No fear, no caution—just presence.
"Animals sense emotion," he told the others. "Confidence calms them. Fear rattles them."
He led the yak through weight drags, attaching broken pipes and stone-filled sacks. Every time it flinched, he calmed it with low hums and steady hands.
By sunset, the yak followed him like a shadow.
Day Three: Swayam.
Swayam used a different method. Patience. Repetition.
He approached the beast with silken threads of lightning running between his fingers—not to intimidate, but to show control. Static crackled gently in the air. The beast twitched, but did not run. Swayam let it grow familiar with the buzz, until the creature no longer flinched.
He taught it terrain response—how to climb inclines, descend without slipping, avoid sharp rubble.
By the end of the day, the beast learned to recognize his hand gestures from meters away.
Day Five: Rachit.
Unlike the others, Rachit kept his distance at first. He studied the beast—its reactions, posture, blinking rhythm. He noted the left hindleg's slight limp, a scar on the underbelly likely from electrical chains.
When he finally approached, he spoke in low tones. His hands barely moved, but the beast froze.
He placed a palm a few inches from its snout, vibrating the air between them gently. A hum—a frequency only the beast could feel.
It snorted, then lowered its head.
"You feel everything, don't you?" Rachit whispered. "Just like me."
From that day, the beast would raise its head slightly whenever it sensed Rachit nearby, as if listening.
The Eve of Departure
The training was over. The rations were packed into canvas sacks, reinforced with salvaged demon-fiber netting. Weapons were cleaned, maps were rolled tight into sealed canisters, and final checks were complete.
But before sleep—or whatever passed for it—they agreed on one final ritual:
A friendly match.
The open ground beyond the bunker was cleared, a circle drawn with melted ash and chalk.
Children peeked from behind slabs of concrete, elders sat on makeshift crates. Even Kushagra leaned on a rusted shovel, watching with interest. The air buzzed with quiet excitement.
The trio stood in the circle—Rachit barefoot, fingers twitching. Gaurav cracked his neck, already grinning. Swayam stood in still silence, arms folded behind his back.
"Rules?" Gaurav asked.
"No killing," Swayam replied.
"No mercy," Rachit added.
The Match Begins
Gaurav lunged first—always the one to charge.
He swept low, aiming a punch at Swayam's side. But Swayam vanished in a crackle of air, reappearing behind Gaurav with a spark-laced kick aimed at his spine.
Gaurav blocked it just in time, the impact forcing him to slide back through dirt.
Rachit didn't wait. He touched the ground and sent a burst of vibrational shock through the soil, throwing both off balance.
Swayam countered, planting his hand down and launching a pulse of lightning upward—detonating a flash that blinded the area.
Gaurav, now airborne, twisted mid-spin and launched a double hammer-fist toward the ground, landing with a small shockwave that cracked the chalk ring.
The crowd gasped.
Swayam flickered in and out of vision, moving through static trails—never still. Rachit adapted, using vibrations to map his movement like echolocation.
"You're fast," Rachit muttered. "But you're not quiet."
He caught Swayam mid-dash with a wave of sound that sent him tumbling.
Gaurav rejoined, grabbing both by the necks with a double-arm lock. "Gotcha!"
Then he groaned. "Okay—no, never mind—TOO MUCH LIGHTNING—!"
Swayam's skin flickered with white sparks, shocking Gaurav into letting go. Rachit seized the moment, diving low and placing both palms into the earth.
A circular dome of vibrating air pushed outward, lifting all three off the ground briefly—before they fell, panting and laughing.
Kushagra clapped. The kids cheered. The elders smiled—some with missing teeth, some with missing limbs, all with weary eyes that hadn't seen this kind of hope in years.
Even the beast gave a low snort, unimpressed but present.
The Nightmare Returns
That night, Rachit tried again.
He lay on a slab of metal just outside the shelter, locket still clutched in his hand. He whispered a name—then closed his eyes.
In the dream, the ground cracked open.
His sister's voice screamed.
Demons stood behind his parents. Fire consumed his old home.
This time, the nightmare changed.
It was Swayam dying. Then Gaurav. Then the children.
Each face twisted by guilt he didn't deserve to carry.
He screamed once in his sleep, loud enough for the beast to stir and the ground to crack beneath his hand.
No one came. He slept alone.
Departure
Morning came like a silent agreement.
The trio stood at the edge of the shelter as dozens gathered to see them off.
Kushagra walked up, firm and stoic.
"Remember our deal," he said. "I care for the old man, you bring back something worth 20%."
"You'll get it," Swayam promised.
Gaurav nodded to the children. "You keep training, alright? Punch hard, eat harder."
Rachit just offered a quiet wave.
They turned, the beast grunting under the weight of the load, and began walking—slowly—toward a horizon that none of them had ever crossed before.
From behind them, silence. Then a voice:
"Come back," an elder said. "With answers."
Another whispered, "With hope."
The three didn't reply. They only walked—shadows stretched long, maps in their packs, stories in their bones, and a future still hidden beneath mountain clouds.
The road had begun.
End of Chapter 2.