The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, flickering like they, too, were tired. The air was thick with the scent of stale coffee and the relentless clicking of keyboards, each keystroke hammering the illusion of purpose. It was just another day in the corporate grind.
Kunal Shukla leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers into his temples as a new email blinked onto his screen.
Subject: Urgent: Client Reporting Deadline Extended to 9 PM.
He exhaled slowly, lips pressed in a tight line. Another late night. Another spreadsheet marathon while the world outside moved on without him. Frustration stirred in his chest — familiar, dull, and expertly buried.
He had climbed the rungs of corporate stability with discipline and precision. Five years as a business analyst at one of Mumbai's top financial firms. The salary was decent, the title respectable. On paper, he had arrived.
And yet, every morning as he adjusted his tie in the mirror, a quiet hollowness took its place behind his eyes — the gnawing sense that he was meant for something more. He had always been fascinated by patterns and logic, which had initially drawn him to the structured world of data analysis. But lately, his mind craved a different kind of puzzle, something that felt both deeply ancient and held the promise of an unimaginable future.
Lately, that sense had become impossible to ignore.
It started as fleeting daydreams — flashes of faraway lands, voices in languages he had never studied yet somehow understood. Then came the dreams. Vivid. Repeating. Each night, a clearer window into another world. A battlefield stretched across the horizon under twin moons. A throne carved from obsidian and bone. An empire bound to his will. And in the center of it all, himself — though older, cloaked in royal armor, a crown of gold and sapphire upon his head.
He tried to rationalize it. Stress. Burnout. Some subconscious reaction to his monotonous life. But then… reality cracked.
Yesterday, while researching market trends for a client, he'd stumbled upon a digital scan of an ancient manuscript — a long-lost text buried in an obscure academic archive.
The moment his eyes fell upon the intricate script, it was as if a long-dormant part of him awakened. He could read it, the meaning flowing into his mind not through recognition, but through an innate understanding, as if the words were echoes from a forgotten past etched into his very soul.
His laptop had snapped shut instantly. Hands trembling. Heart racing. There was no logical explanation. But a quiet voice inside him whispered: You already know the answer.
Now, as he walked home through the neon-lit lanes of Lower Parel, the night pressed in heavy around him. The city pulsed as usual — taxis honking, food stalls sizzling — but the world felt… thinner, like a screen ready to tear.
He paused at a crosswalk, his mind swirling with doubt, questions, and the weight of knowing something was about to change.
A chill swept past him, not just cold but carrying a faint whisper of ozone, as if a storm of ancient power had briefly touched the city.
And then he saw it.
Beneath a flickering streetlight, which seemed to dim and flicker even more erratically in its presence, stood a figure — impossibly tall, their form exuding an aura of profound stillness amidst the city's chaos. They were cloaked in robes of deep indigo, the fabric itself seeming to absorb the surrounding light, yet etched with intricate patterns that pulsed with an inner luminescence, like constellations shifting across a midnight sky. Their face remained hidden within the shadows of the hood, but their presence was not merely seen, but felt – a weight of ages settling upon the very air.
They raised a hand, slender and pale, catching the faint light. Not a gesture of threat, but a beckoning, timeless and inevitable.
And then they spoke — not with vocal cords, but with a voice that resonated directly within the deepest recesses of Kunal's mind, bypassing his ears, his thoughts, and settling straight into his soul, carrying the weight of forgotten epochs:
> "Kuṇāla… the veil thins. It is time to remember."