The Break and the Void
Goosebumps crawled across my skin as Ashok's words rang through the void. His voice was heavy with rage, yet filled with conviction.
"Hey, you see him there?" Ashok pointed straight at me. "I believe in him. I believe because I see the fire of peace burning inside him. You… you have to pay for your deeds today!"
Nermis smirked, his laughter echoing through the dark dimension.
"Believe him? Hahaha… HAHAHAHA! Fool. I will finish you both here and now."
Ashok roared in fury and charged, his anger overflowing. I could feel it—it was no ordinary rage. Something inside him was breaking loose.
"No… no, this isn't right," I whispered, then screamed at the top of my lungs, "STOP! Ashok, for God's sake, stop right there!"
But he didn't listen.
Nermis caught him with terrifying ease. His hand gripped Ashok's head like a vice. In an instant, Nermis snapped Ashok's sword in half, shards scattering across the purple void.
"You're just a child," Nermis sneered coldly. "It was a nice try. Now… go to heaven and meet your father."
With his other hand, he grabbed Ashok's right arm and ripped it clean from his body.
Ashok screamed in agony, his voice piercing the air as blood poured like a crimson waterfall.
I froze. My best friend—broken, bleeding before me. The sight was unbearable. My chest tightened, my breathing grew shallow.
Yet even as he knelt in a pool of his own blood, Ashok lifted his head. His face was pale, but his eyes… his eyes still burned. Defiance flickered in them, refusing to dim. His lips trembled, but he forced the words out between gasps:
"This fight… isn't… over."
It was both tragic and heroic—the last spark of a warrior refusing to bow, even when stripped of everything.
His pain, his cries, his blood… it was too much.
I shut my eyes.
And suddenly—
Everything went blank.
---
White.
Endless, suffocating white. The battlefield was gone. Ashok was gone. Even Nermis was gone. It was just me… and my thoughts echoing inside the void.
I lifted my hand and froze.
It was covered in a strange black haze, gaseous and shifting, its edges lined with a faint white glow. The same mist coiled over my whole body, wrapping around my wedding clothes, even seeping into my hair.
A creeping unease gr gripped me. But more than myself, I was worried for Ashok. Where was he? What had happened to him?
Then—
A voice.
"Son… Vayujit."
It came from everywhere at once, as if the void itself spoke my name. My heartbeat quickened. This was no battlefield—I was certain of it now.
The white plane rippled, the silence broken only by the faint drip… drip… drip of water. The sound grew louder, echoing unnaturally in the endless void until the surface beneath my feet shimmered like liquid glass.
Water spread outward in all directions, reflecting my form. From its center, a throne began to rise, sending waves across the mirrored surface. The air grew colder, stiller—so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears.
On that throne sat a tall figure draped in a hood, his face hidden in shadow. He leaned lazily, head resting on his fist pressed against the armrest, as though he had been waiting for me for centuries.
And in that suffocating stillness, I realized—I was no longer standing in a void. I was standing before something far older. Something that had chosen me.