The city streets blurred past as the group moved swiftly through the alleyways, keeping low and out of sight. The near miss with the SUV had rattled them all, but no one spoke of it. Vihan could feel the tension radiating from Zara and Asha, though they hid it well. He clutched the bag containing the last copy of the Bhagavad Gita, his grip tightening around the strap as if it were the only thing anchoring him to the present.

  But his mind was slipping, lost between the now and the past.

  The memory from the temple, the voice from his childhood—it had resurfaced with a force that made his head spin. He had spent so long burying it, dismissing it as a dream, a trick of the mind. But now, with everything that was happening, he could no longer ignore the truth.

  This was never just about hacking, never just about uncovering secrets. He had been part of this prophecy long before he had ever known what it meant.

  The past was calling him again.

  ---

  Flashback: The Forgotten Words

  Vihan had always been different from the other kids. He had known it, and so had they.

  He never fit in with the noisy crowds of the playground. While others played cricket in the dusty lanes, he preferred to sit under the old peepal tree behind his school, tinkering with broken radios or trying to fix old watches his uncle discarded. Machines made sense to him. They followed rules, patterns—things that people rarely did.

  But it wasn’t just his fascination with electronics that set him apart. It was the visions.

  They started when he was eight. Faint at first, like fragments of forgotten dreams that clung to the edges of his mind even after he woke. He never spoke of them—not even to his mother. How could he explain something he barely understood himself?

  Sometimes, it was flashes of fire, cities in ruin, the sky choked with smoke. Other times, it was whispers—voices speaking in languages he didn’t know, but somehow still understood. And then there was the figure. The one he had seen in the temple.

  The first time the visions had truly terrified him was on his ninth birthday.

  The day had started like any other. His mother had woken him early, pressing a kiss to his forehead, placing a small bowl of kheer in front of him, a simple birthday tradition. He had smiled, trying to ignore the unease that had been creeping into his chest since morning.

  Something felt off.

  That evening, his uncle had taken him to the old market near Crawford. It was one of Vihan’s favorite places, filled with stalls selling everything from books to strange mechanical gadgets that fascinated him. He had been looking at a rusted pocket watch when it happened.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The world around him blurred.

  The market, the sounds of people haggling, the honking of rickshaws—it all vanished in an instant.

  He was somewhere else. Somewhere cold.

  The sky above was dark, the city in flames. A figure stood before him, tall and cloaked in shadows. He couldn’t see the face, only the piercing glow of eyes that seemed to hold all the knowledge of the universe.

  “You cannot run from this, Vihan,” the figure had said. The voice was neither cruel nor kind—it simply was. “You were chosen long before you understood your place in this world.”

  Vihan had tried to speak, but no words had come.

  “The world is on the edge of collapse,” the voice continued, stepping closer. “Kalki will return, but not in the way the world expects. He is not here to simply destroy, nor to save. He is here to reset the balance. And when the time comes, you must decide—will you be the key to his awakening, or the one who stops him?”

  The vision ended as abruptly as it had begun.

  Vihan had found himself back in the market, gasping for breath, his uncle shaking him by the shoulders. “Vihan! What happened? Are you alright?”

  He had nodded weakly, not trusting himself to speak. But deep inside, he knew that something had changed.

  The visions weren’t just dreams. They were warnings. And he had no idea what to do with them.

  ---

  Back to the Present: Asha’s Revelation

  The sharp sound of a motorcycle engine jolted Vihan back to the present. He sucked in a breath, his heart hammering in his chest as he realized they had stopped moving.

  They had reached an old warehouse on the outskirts of Mumbai, hidden away from the prying eyes of the city. Zara pushed the rusted metal door open, ushering them inside. The dim interior smelled of dust and oil, remnants of a time when this place had once been something more than a forgotten ruin.

  Asha watched Vihan carefully as he stepped inside.

  “You saw something again, didn’t you?” she asked.

  Vihan hesitated. “How did you—?”

  “I can tell,” Asha said simply. “Your face. It’s the same look you had in the temple.”

  Vihan sighed, rubbing his temples. “I... I think I’ve been seeing these things since I was a kid. But I never understood what they meant.”

  Asha’s gaze was unreadable, but something in it softened. “You’re not the only one.”

  Vihan looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

  Asha took a deep breath. “I never told you how I got involved in all of this, did I?”

  He shook his head.

  Asha glanced at Zara, who nodded silently, as if giving her permission to continue. “I grew up hearing stories of Kalki—not just as a god, but as something more. My grandfather was a scholar, obsessed with the idea that the Bhagavad Gita held clues to Kalki’s return. He spent years studying the texts, convinced that history wasn’t linear, that time moved in cycles, and that at the end of every great fall, a force would rise to restore balance.”

  Vihan frowned. “So he believed Kalki wasn’t just a deity, but an event? A shift in the world?”

  Asha nodded. “Exactly. But what terrified him was that he believed the prophecy wasn’t about a single savior. He believed that someone—a mortal—would be the one to bring Kalki into the world.”

  Vihan felt his stomach twist. “And you think that’s me?”

  Asha didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But you’ve seen things, haven’t you? Things no one else should see. That means something.”

  Vihan exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. But I don’t know if I want it to mean anything.”

  Asha placed a hand on his shoulder, her grip firm but not unkind. “None of us chose this, Vihan. But the world is changing. The Council of 9 won’t stop until they control whatever power Kalki represents. If we don’t find the truth before they do, then everything our ancestors tried to protect will be lost.”

  Vihan closed his eyes for a brief moment.

  The voice from his childhood, the visions, the prophecy—they were all pushing him toward something inevitable.

  Whether he liked it or not, his past and future were colliding.

  And soon, he would have to make a choice.