The road stretched endlessly beneath the fading orange glow of evening. The sun was slipping lower, dipping behind half-broken rooftops, its light spilling across the cracked pavement like liquid fire. Each step I took scuffed softly against the gravel, a rhythm that filled the silence because nothing else did.
My name is Ansh Agrawal. Sixteen years old. Orphan.
Some people are born into laughter and warmth, into voices that call their names at dusk. I wasn't. My life had been silence from the beginning—silence in the government hostel that raised me, silence at the library tables where I sat alone, silence in the empty corridors I walked every day.
Friends? None. Family? Gone before I even opened my eyes to the world.
But I wasn't entirely alone. Stories kept me company. Books had been my world for as long as I could remember.
I devoured anything I could find. The yellowed pages of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the verses of ancient battles where gods and men fought side by side. Mythologies from other lands—heroes who wrestled monsters, kings who defied fate, warriors who carried thunder in their fists. And not just the old ones. I read about knights and sorcerers, about chosen ones who stood against darkness, about men who wore iron suits or carried shields in stories printed in bright colors. Marvel, DC, fantasy novels, epics—it didn't matter. If it spoke of power, courage, or destiny, I consumed it.
They were all fuel for the same fire.
Books shone brighter than gold. They were the only light in my lonely world.
That evening was no different. My head was still swimming with battles I had just read. Heroes drawing bows that could pierce armies. Shields that turned aside gods themselves. Armor that shone like the sun. The clash of ideals, the weight of destiny, the kind of lives that made mine feel unbearably small.
So lost was I in those visions that I didn't notice the sound until it was too late.
A horn blared.
My head snapped up.
A truck, its headlights burning like two white suns, barreled down the narrow road. The roar of its engine swallowed everything. My breath froze. My feet stuck to the ground. There was no time to run.
The steel wall struck me before I could even scream.
Pain ripped through me, violent and absolute. My chest caved, my bones shattered, and the world spun wildly before tearing itself apart. My vision blurred, my ears rang, and my mouth opened, but nothing came out.
And then—silence.
The pain was gone. My body was gone. The world was gone.
When I opened my eyes, I stood in something else entirely.
Blankness.
No road. No sky. No city. No body. Only a space that stretched endlessly, without color, without air, without edges. Not black. Not white. Just… nothing.
And then it spoke.
The voice.
It didn't echo. It didn't rise or fall. It wasn't human. It was simply there, carved directly into the silence.
"You have done good deeds in your past lives. You are granted two wishes."
The words sank into me like stones dropped in still water.
My chest tightened. Past lives? Rebirth? I had read of such things in scriptures, but hearing it here—spoken so plainly—made my breath tremble.
"Past lives…?" I whispered, but no one answered.
The voice wasn't here to comfort or explain. It had no warmth, no cruelty, no interest. It was a judgment that allowed no questions.
Two wishes.
Anything.
My mind spun. Anything was possible. Strength beyond measure, knowledge of every secret, even a life surrounded by riches I had never known. But none of that mattered if I didn't survive the first step. I didn't even know where I was going, what kind of world awaited me. My wishes had to be something I could rely on no matter what—something absolute.
"Which world am I going to?" I asked, my voice shaking despite myself.
The reply came instantly, sharp as steel.
"Not in your authority to know. Just ask your wish."
The coldness of it froze me. No clues. No answers. Just rules. Whatever awaited me would remain hidden until I was thrown into it.
My fists curled tightly. If the world was unknown, then my choices had to be strong enough to protect me anywhere.
Images swirled in my mind, fragments of every story I had devoured. Heroes wielding weapons of impossible power. Men who stood against armies because of the steel in their hands. Slowly, one image rose above the rest.
A bow.
I didn't know why it surfaced first, only that it had burned into me for as long as I could remember. The curve of wood, the string drawn taut, the arrow flying with the weight of destiny. I had read of bows that loosed fire, lightning, divine astras that could unmake the world. It was more than a weapon. It was a symbol.
The word slipped from my lips before I even realized.
"I want a bow. A divine bow, with arrows that can overpower any weapon in the world you send me to."
The blankness stirred faintly, like it had listened. Not approval, not rejection—just acknowledgment.
But even as my heart steadied, another thought struck me. A bow could destroy, but could it save me? What if I was struck down before I even pulled the string? What if the world crushed me before I had the chance to fight?
And then another image surfaced, as sudden and sharp as lightning. Armor. Gleaming plates that could not be pierced. Earrings like suns, radiating untouchable strength. I had read of them before, always fascinated by the idea of absolute defense. The Kavach and Kundal.
If I had a weapon to strike, then I needed protection to survive.
"My second wish," I said, my voice firmer now, "is for the Kavach and Kundal. Armor and earrings that cannot be broken by any attack. And more than that—I want them to heal me. Regeneration strong enough to recover from any wound, down to the last cell."
The silence stretched unbearably long. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. For a moment, I thought I had asked too much, that the voice would strip me bare for my greed.
Then it spoke.
"Approved."
The word struck like thunder. Final. Irrefutable.
Relief surged through me, so fierce it nearly buckled my knees. The bow. The Kavach and Kundal. Both granted.
But the voice was not finished.
"You will reincarnate into your parallel self in the world ahead. That soul has departed. Its vessel waits for you."
My breath caught. A parallel self? Another version of me, gone, leaving only a body waiting for me to step into? The thought twisted in my chest, sharp with unease. Why had that soul left? Was it fate? Coincidence? Or something darker?
But the voice did not explain.
"Go to that world. There lies your destiny."
I opened my mouth, desperation clawing at me. "Wait—what kind of world? What am I supposed to—?"
But my words dissolved before they left my lips. The void gave nothing back.
The silence deepened, pressing tighter against me. Then, suddenly, another force closed in.
Darkness.
Not the still emptiness I had woken into, but something thicker, heavier, suffocating. It clung to me like chains, pulling me down. My body—or soul, whatever remained—grew sluggish, heavy as stone. My thoughts blurred. My knees buckled though I wasn't sure I had knees anymore. My eyes closed though I no longer knew if I had eyes.
I tried to resist. To hold on to awareness. To demand answers. But the darkness was stronger.
It dragged me down.
Deeper.
Deeper.
Until even silence was gone.
Sleep wrapped around me, merciless and heavy, pulling me into an abyss I could not escape.
Sleep came to me like—