The afternoon sun had a lazy warmth to it, the kind that made shadows stretch long over the school courtyard. It was late enough for the day to start losing its brightness, but not so late that the cricket field was empty. From the second-floor window of Class 11-B, I could see boys in white uniforms running under the sun, the thud of the bat echoing faintly even through the glass.
I wasn't one of them.
It wasn't that I hated sports. I could play cricket well enough if I wanted to. But while my classmates spent their free periods perfecting cover drives or arguing over the latest IPL scores, I was usually buried in the pages of history—India's history, to be exact. My teachers called it an "interest." My mother, before she passed away, used to call it an "obsession." And maybe they were both right. There was something intoxicating about the thought that beneath the ground we walked on, beneath the cities and highways and glass buildings, there were worlds upon worlds of the past—stories that had shaped everything we were today.
Most people think India's civilization is five thousand years old. That's the number you hear in casual conversation, in tourist brochures, in those random facts people post online. But dig deeper—past the surface level dates, past the polished narratives—and you find whispers of something much older. Civilizations lost before they could even be named. Cultures that left no written word, but whose echoes still hum beneath our feet.
A few months ago, there had been a discovery. Nothing big enough to make the front page for weeks, but it caught my attention like a spark in the dark. Archaeologists had found a buried site—tools, structures, and carvings—that predated the Indus Valley Civilization by several thousand years. Several thousand. If the reports were true, it would push the timeline of Indian civilization so far back that it would rewrite history books across the world.
I'd read every scrap of information I could find on it.
But for all my curiosity about the past, the present… well, the present was a little less fascinating. The final bell of the day rang—a sound most students awaited like a divine blessing. Within seconds, the classroom emptied in a rush of backpacks and chatter. I was the last to leave, as usual. No group waiting to walk home with me, no plans for gaming sessions or sports practice. I didn't mind. My friends were books and the strange, sprawling map of history in my mind. Most people couldn't follow my conversations when I started talking about Vedic urban planning or the astronomical alignments of temple structures.
By the time I stepped into the school courtyard, the cricket game had broken up, and the main gate was already crowded with students heading in every direction. I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder and began the familiar walk home.
It was a peaceful route—quiet residential lanes, old banyan trees lining the road, the faint smell of spices drifting from street-side food stalls. The hum of traffic was there, but distant enough not to be oppressive.
And then, in the space of a heartbeat, peace shattered.
A screeching sound ripped through the air—high-pitched, metallic, desperate. I turned my head toward it on instinct. My mind barely had time to register what I was seeing: a large truck barreling toward the junction ahead, swerving wildly. The driver's hands gripped the wheel like a man wrestling a wild animal. His face was pale, eyes wide. The sound I'd heard wasn't just the brakes—it was the brakes failing.
The next second, everything blurred.
I remember the sunlight flashing against the truck's windshield. I remember the rush of air as I tried to move, the sudden heaviness in my limbs. And then—impact.
The world vanished.
Not in a slow fade, not in a dizzy fall. One moment, the roar of the truck and the sting of the air on my skin. The next—nothing. No ground beneath me. No air in my lungs. Just blackness.
When I opened my eyes—if I even had eyes anymore—I saw… nothing. Not darkness like closing your lids. Not even the kind of night where you can still sense the faint shapes of trees or the glow of distant lights. This was complete absence. A void. I couldn't feel my body. Couldn't hear my breath. Couldn't even be sure I was breathing.
And then, from somewhere both near and impossibly far, came a voice.
It was unlike any human voice I'd heard—neither male nor female, young nor old. It was layered, as if many voices spoke at once, overlapping in perfect harmony.
"You have two wishes, according to the good deeds you have done across all your lives."
For a moment, I thought I'd misheard. All my lives? As in… past lives? Was that what this was? Had I died? The last clear thing I remembered was the truck. The brakes. The helpless tilt of the driver's face. Then nothing.
If this was real, if I wasn't just hallucinating in the final seconds before my brain shut down, then this voice was telling me something incredible. That I had lived before. Many times. And that the sum total of my good deeds—scattered across lifetimes—was enough to grant me… wishes?
My first thought was as quick as it was selfish.
Immortality.
The word pulsed in my mind like a forbidden fruit. To live forever. To witness the rise and fall of civilizations firsthand. To walk through the pages of history instead of reading them in dusty books.
But almost as quickly, I pushed it away.
Immortality without purpose was a curse. The history books were full of stories—myth and legend—about those who lived too long, outlasting everyone they loved until the weight of eternity crushed them. And besides… life without a heart that still burned for something wasn't life at all.
So what did I want? If this wasn't a dream, I was about to start over. Somewhere else. Maybe some other world entirely.
A slow excitement began to coil in me. Not fear. Curiosity.
If I was going to live again, I wanted to live at the peak of possibility. I wanted a foundation no one could match. A talent so boundless it would carry me across every barrier.
"My first wish," I said, my voice steady even though I wasn't sure I had a mouth to speak with, "is to have a talent that has no limits."
The words hung in the void. The voice did not interrupt.
Talent without strength, though, was wasted. I'd read enough history to know that in every era—ancient or modern—those without power became the playthings of those who had it. You could have the mind of a genius, but if you lacked the strength to defend yourself, someone stronger could still take everything from you.
So my second wish came as naturally as breathing.
"My second wish is for my body to have the potential to grow stronger without limit. Strength as a foundation, endlessly."
I paused, letting the weight of those words sink in.
The voice remained silent for a moment. Then:
"Approved."
The tone was final, echoing through the blackness like the toll of an ancient bell.
And then, the voice spoke again—this time with something that felt like a smile beneath it.
"You shall be born into a royal family, as is your destiny. Your memories shall return when you reach ten years of age."
Before I could ask where, before I could question what kind of royal family or what kind of world, the blackness around me shifted. It didn't brighten—it deepened. My weightless form began to sink, as if the void itself were pulling me down.
Sleep claimed me like a tide.
The last thing I felt was not fear, but anticipation.
I didn't know where I would wake. I didn't know who I would be.
But I knew one thing:
I was ready.