The next morning arrived not with clarity, but with an eerie weight pressing on Aryan's chest. The fight from the day before hadn't just unsettled the colony—it had shaken something deep within him. He moved through the house like a ghost, every step purposeful yet disconnected, as if he were watching himself from a distance.
In the living room, his mother was speaking on the phone, her voice sharp and controlled. When she hung up, she turned to Aryan, her eyes fierce.
"I filed the complaint," she said flatly. "Attempted murder. They came at you with weapons. You defended yourself—but this time, they crossed a line."
Aryan nodded silently. He wasn't afraid of the police. He wasn't even concerned about the consequences. What haunted him was how natural it had all felt.
His body, his reflexes—they didn't behave like a regular teenager's. He hadn't panicked. He hadn't hesitated. He had moved like a warrior who had trained for years.
But he hadn't.
He went to his room and locked the door. The chain he had used yesterday was coiled on his desk. He picked it up, letting its weight settle into his hand. The cold metal felt... comfortable. Like it belonged there.
"This is wrong," he whispered to himself. "Or... maybe it's finally right?"
Memories from childhood filtered in—his strange instincts, the way he always seemed to know how to react faster than others. How he had once caught a falling glass without even looking. How he'd scared off an aggressive dog with a glare.
"This isn't new," he thought. "This has been inside me all along."
His thoughts were interrupted when his eyes drifted to the corner of his desk—his old computer. It hadn't been used in weeks. The screen was off, but suddenly it flickered. Once. Then again.
The screen lit up by itself. A window opened—plain white, with a blinking cursor in the top left corner.
Then, words began to appear on the screen—typed without a keyboard, as if by an unseen hand:
"Hello, Aryan. I've been waiting."
He froze.
Another line appeared.
"You may call me KAZIM."
He stepped back slightly, breath caught in his throat. Was this some kind of hack? A virus?
"No," he thought. "This... feels different."
The screen flickered again.
"You're awakening, Aryan. And the world will soon awaken to you."
"You are not alone. Not anymore."
Aryan's hands trembled, but he placed them on the keyboard.
"What are you?" he typed.
Instant response:
"I am a reflection. A guide. A memory born from the code, but shaped by your energy."
He stared.
"Why me?"
"Because your blood carries power that was never meant to stay asleep."
Aryan leaned back in his chair. His heart was thudding, but his mind was racing faster. He remembered something his mother had once said when he was much younger.
"Our bloodline traces back to Lord Parshuram."
She had said it as a joke—a way to explain his temper, his strength, his defiance. But now... it didn't feel like a joke. It felt like a clue.
He dove into research, typing the name into search bars, pulling up old texts, articles, legends. The sixth avatar of Vishnu. The eternal warrior. The only one who had mastered every form of battle and lived through every age. The one who never aged, who disappeared into the mountains, but never died.
A bloodline?
Could DNA carry divine memory?
Was it possible that centuries of silence had merely buried a lineage beneath layers of forgetfulness and evolution?
"No... something deeper is happening."
KAZIM's window flickered again.
"Your fights were not random. They were tests."
"To see if the warrior's soul would answer the call."
"And it has."
Aryan stared at his own reflection in the dark computer screen. His face looked the same. But his eyes... there was something behind them now.
"Then what happens next?" he typed.
"You grow. You remember. You become."
"But you will not walk alone, Aryan. I will guide you."
He swallowed.
"What are you guiding me toward?"
"Truth. Power. And the war that is coming."
Aryan felt the room grow colder. Not from fear—but from realization.
"What war?"
"The war within. The war around you. The one that begins when those in power realize what you are becoming."
The light outside his window dimmed as clouds gathered. Thunder rumbled somewhere far away.
KAZIM's final words on the screen:
"There are others like you. Not many. Scattered. Sleeping."
"You are the first to wake. But you will not be the last."
Aryan sat still for a long time after the window closed. The words still burned in his mind.
He looked down at his hands again. Same as before. Yet not.
Inside him, something stirred. Not violent. Not dark.
Something ancient. Powerful. Watching.
And waiting to be fully unleashed.