The moment Meera reached the park, an inexplicable pull tugged at her heart. She could feel her son was near somewhere in this maze of shadows and flickering lights. The maternal instinct that had guided her through eighteen years screamed that he was close.
"Danny!" Her voice echoed through the empty pathways. "Danny!"
Her desperate shouts pierced the night air, bouncing off concrete and rustling through leaves. Then, as if summoned by her voice, she saw him.
A figure shrouded in darkness sat on a weathered bench beneath a flickering streetlight, his back turned toward her. Even from behind, she recognized the familiar slope of his shoulders, the way he held his head details memorized through eighteen years of loving him.
"Danny?" The word escaped as barely a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might make him disappear. Her feet suddenly felt like lead.
She took a step forward, then another, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Danny? Is that you?"
The figure turned toward her, and Meera's world tilted.
It was Danny's face the same strong jawline inherited from his father, the same expressive eyes. But those eyes held none of the warmth she remembered. They were cold, calculating, studying her with detached interest.
And his hair dear God, his hair was crimson, a deep red that seemed to absorb the streetlight rather than reflect it.
"Danny, my son," she breathed, stopping just out of arm's reach. Every maternal instinct screamed at her to rush forward, to pull him into her arms. But something held her back a primal recognition that the boy before her was both her son and not her son.
"I've been looking everywhere," she continued, her voice gaining strength even as her hands trembled. "Two days, Danny. Two days I've been going crazy with worry. Where have you been?"
The entity that had once been Rudra studied the woman before him with careful attention. In Danny's memories, he could see flashes of this face hundreds of times throughout the fifteen days of memory he had witnessed as if he himself was Danny.
Rudra hadn't just seen Danny's memories; he had lived them. Looking at this woman at Danny's mother he felt something stirring in the depths of his borrowed body. Something absent from his previous life, a hunger he had never known existed.
"Mom," he said finally, his voice carrying an odd formality that made Meera's instincts scream in alarm. The words felt strange in his mouth, like trying on clothes that didn't quite fit.
Meera instantly recognized the difference. The way Rudra spoke wasn't how her son Danny used to speak. But the worry, the fear, the hours of desperate searching everything crystallized into a moment of pure maternal fury.
Her hand moved before her conscious mind could stop it, striking his cheek with a sharp crack that echoed through the empty park like a gunshot.
"Where have you been?" she screamed, her voice breaking with eighteen years of suppressed pain and current terror. "Do you have any idea what I've been through? Do you know what it's like to think your child might be dead?"
The slap barely registered on Rudra's consciousness. He had endured far worse torture, starvation, pain that broke lesser minds. But something about this woman's anguish, the raw desperation in her voice, stirred something deep within him.
She struck him again, harder this time, her palm stinging from impact. "Answer me! Where were you?"
A third slap, weaker now, her strength failing as adrenaline ebbed. Her eyes welled with tears not just anger, but relief, joy, and terror at what could have happened. The emotions crashed over her like a tidal wave.
"I thought..." she sobbed, her anger melting into pure maternal love. "I thought I'd lost you forever, just like I lost your father."
Without waiting for a response, she pulled him into her arms, hugging him with desperate intensity. Her embrace was fierce, protective, as if she could shield him from the entire world through sheer force of will. Her tears soaked into his shirt as she held him, and Rudra could feel her entire body trembling.
"When your father died," she whispered into his hair, "I thought I couldn't survive it. But I had you. You were my reason to keep going, to keep fighting. If I lost you too..."
She couldn't finish the sentence.
Rudra allowed the embrace, and something unprecedented happened. In his previous life, he had been created for destruction, shaped by pain and isolation. He had never known tenderness, had never felt the warmth of human connection. But this woman's love Danny's mother's love reached into the darkest corners of his borrowed soul and touched something dormant.
For the first time in either existence, Rudra felt what it might be like to be truly wanted, to be loved unconditionally. The void where a mother's love should have been began to fill with something warm and protective. This woman had loved Danny with everything she had, and now, inhabiting Danny's body, Rudra found himself the recipient of that same fierce devotion.
"Don't ever do that again," Meera whispered fiercely, her tears continuing to fall. "Don't ever leave me wondering if you're alive or dead. Promise me, Danny. Promise me you'll never leave me like that again."
For a moment, Rudra felt Danny's memories surge forward countless moments of this woman's sacrifices, her unwavering devotion, the way she had given up everything for her son's future. The guilt of deceiving her began to gnaw at him, but it was overwhelmed by something else: a fierce protectiveness he had never felt before.
In his previous life, he had been alone, unloved, expendable. But looking at this woman at his mother he understood what Danny had lost, what he himself had never had. In that moment, he made a decision that would change everything.
"I promise," he said softly, surprised to find that he meant it. He would protect this woman, this mother who had shown him what love could be. He would be the son she deserved, even if it meant living a lie.
But as he held her, feeling her warmth seep into his cold soul, Danny's final memories began to surface memories of that day, of what had really happened at the SP's house.
The weight of truth pressed against his chest like a physical force. He had to tell her something, had to explain the changes she would inevitably notice. But how could he explain that her son was gone? That he was someone else entirely, living in Danny's skin?
He had to say something. Anything.
He couldn't tell her the real truth.
Not yet.
"I've lost my memories," he whispered. A single tear slipped down his cheek.
And the lie settled between them like a secret too heavy to lift.
****************************************************
Like it ? Add to library!
If you like my work please support with Power Stones
Contact : Telegram: SHAKTIMAAN2003