The humid night air clung to Kunal like a second skin as he moved deeper into Elephanta Island. Each step took him away from the rocky bay where the boat had dropped him and toward the heart of ancient stone.
No streetlights. No human sounds. Only the rhythmic hiss of distant waves and the low thud of his own heartbeat against the dense silence.
He stuck to the overgrown trail Abhishek had mapped out for him, if you could even call it a trail, it was just feeling more than seeing his way. Sharp branches scraped against his jacket. Hidden roots threatened to trip him at every step.
This wasn't the Mumbai he knew. This wasn't even the same island he remembered from college trips. It felt older now. Now it radiated a raw, mysterious energy that gave him goosebumps.
The weight of unseen centuries pressed down on him, just as the growing pressure inside his skull pressed against his sanity. Then the memories. Echoes. Warnings. Everything blurred together.
He tried to reach inward — towards that faint pulse of awareness gifted by his hidden consciousness hidden somewhere deep. Combat Awareness. Tactical Alertness. Anything that could sharpen his instincts.
But the only thing he could feel was a low, vibrating hum, like the island itself was awake. Waiting.
While all this time since he got the invitation, his mind was working on overload and now he was feeling repercussions of that as time to time his vision was getting blurry.
The trees thinned suddenly.
He stopped, catching his running breath.
Ahead, framed by the skeletal silhouettes of ancient banyan trees, loomed the grand entrance of the Trimurti cave — Cave 1 — black and massive against the faint night sky. The immense stone pillars stood like silent sentries. Carvings too ancient for memory seemed to breathe with the night.
And then — a flicker of blue light.
Kunal tensed immediately, slipping behind a crumbled stone outcropping.
The light pulsed again — soft, cold, unnatural against the ancient stone.
A figure stepped out from the shadows near the entrance.
Kunal froze.
The man was tall, dressed in a tailored white suit that somehow seemed more unsettling than any armor. His features were sharply defined, disturbingly perfect. A tablet glowed faintly in one hand, its screencasting a ghostly gleam across the marble.
The man wasn't searching anything.
As if he already knew what he has to look for.
He looked up, gaze sweeping the clearing — and then locked directly onto Kunal's hidden position.
Instead of addressing him, the man tilted his head upward.
Kunal instinctively followed his gaze.
High above, between the gaps in the canopy, he saw them — the Red Star pulsing faintly — and beside it, its crimson twin burning brighter, fiercer and then suddenly a third star pulsed forming a pattern with other two stars.
And at once, the sharp pain struck him — sharp-hot needles stabbing behind his eyes, a burning sensation through his temples. He staggered, gasping, blinking furiously against the sudden blur of tears.
He ripped his gaze away closing his eyes.
When it became bearable he looked back toward the cave, the man was standing calmly, hands folded behind his back, studying him like an interesting experiment subject.
A slow, knowing smile touched his lips.
"You must be getting your memories returned of Kunala by now," the man said, voice smooth and cultured. It carried without needing volume. " By the looks of it not all, perhaps... but something."
The words thudded inside Kunal's mind like hammer shots.
Before Kunal could react, the man raised a hand — fingers snapping once, sharply.
The very air between them shimmered — and coalesced into a perfect, floating mirror, hanging impossibly in the darkness.
Kunal's breath caught.
He was looking at his own reflection — but not as he remembered.
His eyes.
They were changing before his very gaze.
The dark brown irises he'd carried all his life were churning — threads of crimson weaving outward like veins of molten metal — the pupils flaring, contracting, swallowing and bringing up golden light.
It was not realistically possible. Not anymore.
The mirror dissolved into smoke with a whisper.
The man — or whatever he was — gave a slight, almost approving nod, then turned, retreating toward the darkened interior of the cave without another word.
He didn't beckon.
He didn't demand it.
He simply left Kunal no choice. With that show of prowess.
Heart hammering in his chest, Kunal hesitated only a second longer — then moved.
---
The cave swallowed him whole.
The shift from humid night to cool, dead stone was immediate. The air inside the sanctum was heavy, metallic, and so silent that even his shallow breathing and light footsteps sounded too loud.
The colossal Trimurti carving — Shiva's three-faced aspect — loomed somewhere deeper within the dark, unseen but tangibly present. An ancient god of creation, preservation, and destruction, watching with stone eyes across untold ages.
The suited figure stood near one of the central pillars, waiting patiently with crossed arms, as if this meeting had been written even before Kunal had drawn breath.
"You've finally taken your first step," the figure said quietly, voice echoing faintly from the ancient walls. "And that's the hardest part against which a human always struggles. Very few reach even this far. This is the first step out of your mediocracy. This booming sound your light steps proves that."
Kunal approached slowly, every muscle tense, his mind screaming for caution, for retreat.
But something deeper overrode it.
The same something that had driven him to not face everything head on.
The same something that had walked through blood and betrayal before.
Kunal stopped just outside arm's reach, squinting through the darkness.
The man studied him with mild curiosity — like a scholar observing a half-awakened relic.
"You seek answers," the figure said. "We offer them. But only if you are ready to hear truths that will tear apart the little world you've clung to all this time. It will shatter your beliefs, it will break your world apart. Are you ready for that? Are you ready to enter in a world which has death in it's every step?"
The cold certainty in his voice was more terrifying than any threat.
Kunal met his gaze.
His hands were trembling slightly — but he didn't look away. His blood started to boil at the way the man talked down to him, but he forced himself to stay calm.
"I came this far," Kunal said hoarsely with a steady gaze, sharper than before. "I'm not turning back now or ever. If I have to die to get my answers then even the death will have to fight me to take my breath."
A faint hint of satisfaction passed over the figure's face.
He turned slightly, gesturing deeper into the darkness, where a faint, unnatural light now flickered like distant fireflies.
"Then come, Kunala," he said.
"Let us show you who you truly are."
To be continued...