The sound of his own pain, a strangled "AAGH!," echoed in the heavy silence. The man in front of him, the brutal giant, lowered the stick but kept his eyes locked on Arjun, waiting.
The pain in Arjun's ribs was blinding, making him gasp. Yet, through the haze of agony, his mind processed the man's next words with perfect clarity.
"I said, MEDITATE properly, new one. If you stop, if you fail, if I have to strike you again, I will not simply break your bones. I will kill you myself and move on."
The words were spoken in a harsh, guttural language, but Arjun understood every single syllable. There was no translation needed, no delay. The language just existed in his mind, clear as his own Hindi. He didn't have time to question this impossibility. The cold, final threat was the only truth that mattered. He knew the man meant it. The memory of the blade in his chest was too recent, too real.
Arjun lowered his head, pressing his hands against the dusty ground. The searing ache from the stick strike had not yet begun to fade, but the fear of a second, fatal blow was overwhelming. It was a crippling, paralyzing fear that drove out every other thought: his school, his mother, the missing students, even the identity of the brutal man. He knew only one thing: survive this moment.
He forced his body to settle. He sat cross-legged, mimicking the posture of the other empty-eyed workers. He closed his eyes and inhaled a shallow breath, trying to bring the panic under control.
Instantly, his mind began to relax. The tension that had held his neck and back rigid eased away. Once the immediate fear-response was dulled, a flood of desperate, complex questions poured in: Where is this place? Why do I understand their language? What does the Mindrift want?
But he fought them back. Not now. The terror of the man's threat was a cold iron grip on his sanity. Do not stop meditating. If he opened his eyes, if he shifted, he would be struck again. He had to earn his survival.
Time blurred. He sat, forcing his mind into a strange, shallow focus—not on emptiness, but on the simple necessity of not moving.
After what felt like a long, silent eternity, the silence was shattered.
"KHAA. OPEN! Open your eyes, new one. The quota is met."
Arjun flinched at the abrupt, harsh sound. He slowly lifted his eyelids.
The brutal man, his face a mask of stone, was already moving away. Arjun finally had a moment to observe his surroundings.
He realized he was small. His hands were thin and scraped, and when he looked around at the other workers, he saw they were all boys and girls with the same lanky, unfinished bodies—none older than fourteen. And they all looked like him: not just thin, but pale, wearing the same vacant expression. They were students, or had been. There were so many more of them here than he had ever guessed.
The workers, mechanical and silent, started to move toward a heavy, dark gateway carved into the massive wall they had been chipping away at. Arjun followed, a ghost in the procession.
As they passed through the gate and out into the open, a familiar, deep sense of wrongness washed over him. He felt the cold pull, the low thrumming in his chest, identical to the feeling he got near the banyan tree at his school.
He looked around. It was the vast, ruined expanse he remembered. The towering, impossible spire in the bruised sky. And there, in the distance, was the jagged edge of the mountain cliff that overlooked the misty void. He recognized the shape of the crumbling landscape perfectly.
Simultaneously, a massive torrent of information slammed into his brain. He suddenly understood the basics of the Mindrift: its hierarchy, its danger, the concept of 'V'aar' as a specific form of psychic energy they were being forced to harvest. He knew the purpose of the digging, the cycle of the transfer. The world he was in was no longer a mystery; it was a horrifying fact, downloaded instantly into his awareness.
But one question eclipsed all the terrifying knowledge: If dying here sends me back... Will I return to my world if I kill myself again?
It was the most important question of his life. He had to confirm it now. He had to know if the Mindrift was a prison or a bridge.
Driven by a desperate, panicked hope, he broke away from the slow-moving line of workers. He started running toward the distant cliff, his thin legs pumping, the pain in his ribs a dull throb against the adrenaline.
He reached the cliff's edge without issue. The graveyard was exactly as it had been during his first visit: the toppled stones, the damp earth. He looked where he had woken up last time, searching for the body he had possessed. It was gone. The corpse that had been him had been cleared away. The evidence of his last death was simply erased.
His mind settled on the one, final solution. Jump. It's the least painful way to die.
He stood at the precipice, looking down at the swirling mist below. The fear was monumental. It was the fear of true, eternal non-existence, not just of pain. His body screamed at him to back away, his every nerve telling him to step away from the absolute drop. His consciousness was split: one part was the desperate student who needed to escape his failing life, the other was a primordial animal terrified of the fall. He fought an unbearable inner war on the very edge of the stone.
What if I don't go back? What if I just fall forever? What if this death is permanent?
He closed his eyes. He didn't think about his mother, or his grades, or the brutal man. He thought only of his small, dusty room, the soft mattress, the certainty of the familiar.
He took one, final, shuddering step forward.
He felt the cold air rush past his face for only a second. Then, instead of falling into the abyss, he hit the hard ground.
There was no soft landing. He felt a shock of unbearable, crushing pain as every bone in his body seemed to splinter on impact. He was lying face up, unable to move a single muscle, every breath a fresh stab of agony. The fall had only been three feet, but it was enough.
He forced his eyes to focus through the tears of pain.
A shadow fell over him, blocking the sight of the bruised sky. Looming above him, arms crossed and wearing a look of chilling, calm judgment, was the man who had stabbed him before.
"You mistake the anchor for the door."