The flat was heavy with silence.
Kunal sat cross-legged on the floor, elbows on his knees, a mug of cold tea forgotten in his hands. Ananya paced near the window, arms folded tightly across her chest, while Abhishek leaned against the wall, fidgeting with a pen between his fingers.
Kunal brought a cigarette to his mouth to light it, however Ananya looked at him with side eyes angrily and Kunal put it back in the packet with a pouting face.
The night outside was beginning to pale toward dawn, but no one had slept.
"We need to break this down," Abhishek said finally, voice low but steady. "Because right now, this sounds like a myth, a prophecy, and a classified intelligence report all slammed into one."
Ananya stopped pacing, turned.
"Agreed. Let's start with what we know for sure."
Kunal nodded, drawing in a breath.
"One. The Devas are real. And they're watching, have always been watching me and ones around me. However they've made it clear that they are not going to babysit me."
"Two," Ananya added quickly, "the Rakshasas or Ashuras— whoever or whatever they are — have been moving. Hunting. And they're after anyone with… divine spark. And you have one of the biggest out there."
Abhisek questions cheekily again with a perverted smile on his face.
"Biggest what?"
Ananya replied while rolling her eyes. And Kunal looking at Abhisek weirdly as if he is a mad man going to fight a bull while wearing all red.
"Biggest divine spark. You idiot."
Abhishek snorted softly.
"Yeah yeah I know. So, you're basically a human lighthouse for monsters."
Kunal smirked tiredly.
"Apparently."
"Three," Ananya continued, "you have about twenty months before whatever protection you have runs out. And after that… you're on your own. Not you, WE."
Kunal glanced down at his hands, flexing his fingers slowly.
"And four. This —" he gestured to his eyes, his forehead, the weight humming just beneath his skin "— isn't stopping. It's accelerating. I think there are some different changes happening to my body with each passing second."
He looks at his reflection on window glass again.
"Why does it looks like the forehead tilaks of ancient warriors of Mahabharata and all always shown in the illustrations?"
Abhisek snorts
"Because you are a reincarnation of an ancient prince? With some divine boon? You genius."
---
They fell into a rhythm, voices overlapping, breaking the tangle into pieces.
Abhishek: "The start-up idea of yours based on Sanskrit about which you always talk about. How did you get the idea of it? Or was it planted in your? — why did the Deva even mention it? As I understood per your explanation it's just a pattern recognition software. Right?"
Kunal looks at him with a strange face: "So making a whole new coding language with its own environment, interpreter, compiler, syntax… combining ancient languages, building a quantum dictionary — and you call that 'just' pattern recognition? Really, Abhishek?"
Abhisek scratched back of his head looking confused and Ananya laughing out loud at him. However after a moment she looks seriously at Kunal.
Ananya: "But Kunal, you said it yourself — you were running sequences from the Rigveda, the Upanishads. Maybe you've been touching something you didn't even understand or just overlooked?."
Kunal: "It started after I saw the crimson star at that time. The visions, the headaches, the… memories. Maybe that was the trigger. And one more strange thing it's not just the crimson star, now it's whole constellation now. And with each growing star it's affecting me differently each time."
Abhishek muttered, "So we've got an ancient system rebooting inside you, a bunch of murder-gods on the move, and no manual."
Ananya gave him an annoyed look.
"Very funny, but bhai, we can't afford a slip up here."
---
The conversation turned tactical.
Abhishek mapped their contacts — historians, archaeologists, linguists — people who could help them without knowing the whole truth. Ananya promised to dig deeper into the old texts, cross-checking the myths Kunal had glimpsed in his visions, still looking for grand throne.
Kunal just sat quietly for a long time, then finally murmured, "I need to train."
Ananya looked over sharply.
"Kunal, you've been through hell. You need rest."
He shook his head, clenching and unclenching his fists.
"No. This thing inside me — it's waking up whether I'm ready or not. If I don't move soon, it'll tear me apart."
Abhishek rubbed his chin, then nodded slowly.
"Fair. But we do it smart. Controlled. You don't push this alone."
He now looked directly at Kunal and Ananya with an intense gaze.
"We're not just crossing a line here — we're drawing one. We're stepping into a world where anyone in it can crush us like bugs. We move together complementing each other, as one. That's the only way."
For the first time in hours, a faint smile tugged at Kunal's mouth.
"Yeah," he said softly. "Not alone."
---
As dawn broke across Mumbai, the three of them sat at the window, watching the city stir back to life.
Behind the glass, the world looked the same.
But inside this flat, three lives had crossed a threshold of a new world.
And outside, something ancient had started watching back.
To be continued…