Morning in Taxila came wrapped in cold mist.
Kunal pulled on his jacket, tightening the strap of his duffel as Vaibhav rubbed sleep from his eyes, hair sticking up in all directions.
"Bro, you didn't sleep, did you?" Vaibhav muttered, watching him with a knowing look.
Kunal gave a crooked grin. "Sleep can wait."
Outside, the streets stirred to life — shopkeepers unlocking shutters, the smell of chai floating through narrow lanes, distant temple bells marking the hour. But Kunal's mind wasn't on the city. His focus was sharp, stuck to the southwest — the itch under his skin that had only increased overnight.
By noon, they slipped out of the lodge, cutting away from the crowds.
Vaibhav was in his adventurer skin — slipping through alleyways, ducking past the weathered courtyards, blending them into the background noise. By late afternoon, they stood at the edge of a sparse field, the ruins far behind them, the hills ahead bathed in late sun.
"There," Kunal murmured, eyes narrowing.
Vaibhav squinted.
"Bro, you sure? Looks like goat trails and some abandoned shrines."
"Yeah," Kunal's voice dropped low.
"That's the whole point."
---
They walked cautiously, boots crunching over brittle grass.
Vaibhav's instincts sharpened, picking out faint trails, crumbled stone, a patch of disturbed earth, he was carrying himself as a hunter now with all his experiences of camping and trekking. Kunal followed close, pulse steady, feeling the pull deepen with every step.
The air felt… strange.
Heavy. Like the ground was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.
As the sun dipped low, casting gold across the hills, Kunal crouched, fingers brushing a groove on a half-buried slab, picking a peculiar stone stuck stuck in between the slab and the ground.
"Yo, bro…" Vaibhav began —
—and the earth under his feet buckled.
A yelp, a burst of dust, and Vaibhav disappeared just like that behind him with a cracking noise.
"VAIBHAV!" Kunal lunged forward— and the ground gave way beneath him, too.
---
They hit the floor hard, dust choking the air.
Kunal groaned, seeing stars on broad daylight.
"Bro… first you piss on me, now you fall on me? Why am I always blessed by your falling things?" Vaibhav whined beneath him.
Kunal pushed up, heart thudding, hand instinctively going to his pocket — the obsidian fragment was still there which he picked in reflex.
"Shut up, you idiot. You okay?"
Vaibhav coughed, swiping at his hair.
"Yeah… though your bony ass blessing nearly cracked my ribs, bro."
Flashlights flicked on.
The space around them was cold, stone-lined — not a pit, not a cave.
A hidden chamber deep within the ground.
The light swept over walls carved with ancient markings in an unfamiliar script, over a shelf set carefully into the rock. A disc sat there — dark metal, etched, humming faintly in the dark silence.
Kunal exhaled slowly.
"So you were the one that's been messing with me, huh?"
For a few moments, they just stood there — in shock and anticipation, the dirt, the pulse of adrenaline making everything sharpen at the edges of their senses.
Vaibhav's voice cut through softly.
"Bhai… this isn't just some old ass ruin, is it?"
Kunal glanced at him.
"No."
Vaibhav ran a hand through his hair, shaking off dust.
"Good. I'd hate to waste a perfect near-death experience on some broken old junk."
Kunal gave a short, tired laugh — tension cracking just a little.
---
Above them, high on a distant ridge, binoculars tracked the now-empty ground. A voice whispered into a comm:
"Control, Observer One. Target has entered subsurface anomaly. Two confirmed. One extra. Holding position. Waiting for further instructions."
He raised the binoculars again, scanning the surroundings for any other movement.
---
Back below, Kunal moved toward the disc, his steps light, heart filled with anticipation.
His fingers hovered over the obsidian fragment in his pocket which was trying to go towards the disc on it's own.
Vaibhav watched, rocking slightly on his heels.
"Hey… you sure we're ready for this?"
Kunal shot him a sideways grin, eyes sharp.
"Not even close."
Then looking at the disc and pulling out the stone from his pocket hovering in front of the disc but then the stone started glowing and then a sudden flash.
---
Flash.
He was younger. A boy in saffron robes. Not the prince, not the warrior — just a student, standing in this very courtyard, walls whole, sunlight spilling across murals, the scent of incense thick in the air.
Across from him, a monk, stern-eyed, scroll in hand.
"The mind, young Kunala," the monk's voice rang calm, "shapes the very fabric of reality. Understand the patterns and you'll hold the keys to the world."
The monk pointed at the symbol towards the wall behind him.
"It's more than a mark. It's a map."
"It is far more than mere artistic representation, young prince. It is a map, etched into the very essence of reality. A beginning. It's Ārambha. Everything comes from it and everything ends in it."
The vivid memory dissolved as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving Kunal kneeling in the dust of the ancient chamber, gasping for breath as if he had just emerged from a deep dive, the phantom scent of sandalwood incense and aged scrolls lingering faintly in his nostrils.
His forehead and eyes glowed faintly as Vaibhav sprinted toward him.
"What happened? Why are you going entering your divine persona mode suddenly? And what was that light?"
Kunal coughed once more.
"We have to look everything around here. It's a heritage we can't afford to lose."
While looking towards the walls of the chamber.
"We need to check everything here. This isn't just history or some ancient useless markings on the stone walls. It's our best shot at survival and safety."
To be continued…