The forests of Wayanad grew quieter the deeper Aadi walked, until silence itself felt like a living weight. Guided by the Naag sadhus' whispers, he pressed forward until the ground rose sharply. Before him, a mountain wall loomed, etched with black and rust-red veins of iron that glimmered faintly as though they bled fire.
At the base yawned a narrow cave. The air reeked of metal and ozone, pulling at Aadi's lungs. Each breath felt heavy, charged with currents he couldn't name. He stepped inside.
The walls shimmered with dull red light, pulsing like a beating heart. Aadi felt his thoughts scatter—flashes of past, present, and unknown futures colliding in his mind. Time bent. The cave was not only a place, but a fracture.
And at its center stood a boy.
He was young, yet his eyes were ancient. His skin glowed faintly under the shimmer of the iron veins, his body trembling as if it bore a weight no mortal could. Flames of memory flickered across him, sometimes leaving scorch marks on his skin, sometimes vanishing like smoke.
When his gaze locked with Aadi's, his lips parted, and his voice came like a whisper cut from thunder.
"You have come."
Aadi froze. "Who are you?"
The boy straightened, his breath ragged. "Kairava. Ekaaru. The bearer of all that mankind cannot carry."
The cavern pulsed, and visions spilled into the air: famine, wars, mothers crying over lifeless children, rivers running red with blood. Aadi staggered back, clutching his head as if the agony were his own.
Kairava stepped closer, his face strained yet steady. "Every sorrow, every betrayal, every scream of history—it finds me. I take it into myself. So the rest of you may forget, and dream of peace."
Aadi's throat tightened. He looked at the boy's burned arms, his blistered palms trembling under invisible weight. "But forgetting… forgetting means repeating. If no one remembers, how can we ever learn?"
Kairava's eyes glowed, molten with centuries of pain. "That is the curse. To shield humanity with mercy, yet doom them to stumble again. Truth is a fire, Aadi. And fire consumes."
For an instant, the cave split in two—two realities folding into one. In one, Aadi held Arul's frail body as storms raged. In the other, he stood beside Kairava, watching the boy's form ignite under the crushing burden of memory.
Their fates brushed like sparks striking flint.
Kairava raised a trembling hand, stopping inches from Aadi's chest. "The wheel turns because someone always pays the price. You will have to decide if that price is your brother… or the world."
The veins flared blindingly, then darkened. The boy dissolved into the iron walls, his voice fading like an echo swallowed by stone.
Aadi collapsed to his knees, his chest burning with guilt and fear. The cave was silent again, but its truth weighed heavier than any chain.
He had not just seen Kairava. He had seen his own possible end.