CHAPTER 1 — THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
ARYAN'S POV
THE SCAR OF ORIGIN
My name is Aryan.
And the word for me is Orphan.
It wasn't just a label; it was a physical weight, a cold shackle riveted around my soul since before I could walk. It felt like someone reached into my chest, not with a scalpel, but with a dull, ancient knife, and carved out the very core of my identity—my family, my history, my lineage. I don't know what my mother's voice sounded like—was it soft like the resonance of a temple bell, or sharp like a thunderclap? I don't know if my father had kind eyes—did they hold the calm weight of a Sage or the quick intelligence of an Engineer?
All I have are the cold, sterile records from Bal Jeevan Ashram, stamped with bureaucratic indifference: "Found near railway station, age approx 2 years. Male, unnamed."
That's it. That's the entirety of my origin story. A throwaway line, a bureaucratic asterisk against the vast, chaotic novel of Mumbai. I was nothing more than "Railway Baby."
THE COLOURLESS CYCLE: LIFE AT THE ASHRAM
For eight years, my world was a monochrome cycle of survival. Wake up at 5 AM to the clanging of steel bells that sounded less like a call to prayer and more like an executioner's gong. Drink milk from a steel glass that never felt warm, always tasting faintly of rust and regulation. Sweep floors until my small hands were blistered and raw, the skin cracked like dried mud on a riverbed. Stand in line for food that possessed neither taste nor nutrition, merely serving as fuel for another day of servitude.
Other kids had memories of warmth, of humanity. They spoke of a mother's lullaby, a father's shoulder ride during Diwali, the intoxicating scent of someone who loved them—the scent of home. I had... silence. A hollow, echoing space where a legacy should have been. The older, crueler boys would hiss my name like an insult: "Railway Baby." They made it stick. Maybe they were right. Maybe I was just a piece of misplaced baggage, tossed from a speeding train.
The nights were a special kind of torture. I'd lie on the thin, prickly mattress, the damp air clinging to the rags we called blankets, listening to the rhythmic, mournful drumming of the distant trains. Each chug-a-chug was a phantom pulse, a question: Were my parents on one of those trains? Were they out there somewhere, listening to the same iron lullaby, wondering about the boy they left behind? The feeling was less about sadness and more about a simmering, desperate anger—a feeling of being fundamentally wronged by the universe.
THE FIRE THAT REWROTE FATE
I was eight when the world, already monochrome, turned to blinding, savage orange.
It was a cold January night. The fire started in the kitchen—someone whispered it was a shoddy gas line, a cheap, criminal shortcut. I woke to smoke so thick it was chewy, bitter on my tongue. The heat was a living thing, a primal entity licking at the thin wooden door of our dormitory.
Screams—high-pitched, terrified, animalistic—echoed through the halls. I saw the faces of children I had eaten beside, children whose feet had kicked mine in the night, turn into running shadows in the choking blackness. Then came the horror that seared my memory: Mrs. Sharma, the kindest, most overworked caretaker, trying to break open a jammed window. A heavy wooden beam, thick as a tree trunk, fell, pinning her. I still remember the horrifying beauty of the moment her simple blue sari caught fire—the flames blooming over the cotton like lethal, aggressive orange flowers.
In the ensuing chaos—the frantic panic, the noise, the collapse—no one came for me. I was disposable. In that moment of ultimate abandonment, the anger solidified into a core of pure survival instinct. I ran—barefoot, my small feet burning on the hot floorboards—through the collapsing darkness. The heat felt like a physical slap, but I didn't stop. I couldn't. I was running away from the flame, but towards something unknowable.
I never looked back. The orphanage burned, and with it, the last vestige of the life I had known.
MUMBAI: CITY OF SURVIVAL
The police found me two days later, a shivering, soot-covered lump huddled under a concrete bridge, listening to the tidal traffic of the Mithi River. They put me in a state shelter—a locked room, false promises, and more stale milk. I hated the bars. I hated the lies. I ran again.
That's how my life on the streets of Mumbai began. This city is called the City of Dreams—but for me, it was a city of pure, razor-edged survival.
By day, I was a ghost. I sold sticky newspapers at signals—the midday sun beating down, baking the smell of asphalt and exhaust fumes into my cheap clothes. I learned to read people's eyes: the casual indifference, the momentary pity, the outright contempt. By night, I slept in a cramped, airless room above a paan shop that Chacha rented to me for 500 rupees a month. The pungent, sickly-sweet odor of betel leaf, cardamom, and stale cigarette smoke became my only constants.
KALE MOTORS: THE PEACE OF THE MACHINE
When I was twelve, I started working at "Kale Motors." Mr. Kale took me in because I was small, agile, and skinny enough to crawl under the chassis of massive, rusting trucks and luxury sedans alike.
The garage was a temple of grime—oil stains so thick on the concrete they looked like accidental, swirling black modern art. The air was a constant, heavy mix of gasoline, motor oil, and sweat.
"Aryan! Tighten that engine block or I'll throw you on the road like trash!" Mr. Kale never spoke; he yelled, his voice rough as sandpaper.
I never replied. I just worked. Silence was cheaper than words.
But I found an unexpected, profound peace in the machines. Engines had a logic, a metallic, reliable heartbeat I could fix. They didn't lie. They didn't pity. They simply worked, or they didn't. When I replaced a faulty spark plug or tuned a carburetor, I was solving a complex, physical riddle. Customers treated me like a small ghost—some with pity, most with the utter indifference reserved for a stray dog. I was the boy nobody saw—invisible, just another smudge of oil on the vast Mumbai canvas.
THE NIGHT IT HAPPENED: THE QUANTUM KNAPPING
It was November 12th again, my anonymous anniversary. The monsoon had retreated, leaving the streets slick and reflective, mirroring the harsh neon lights in fractured, silver streaks. I'd just finished a grueling repair on a heavy black Hyundai—my knuckles were bruised, my clothes thick with the smell of old oil and petrol.
It was past 11 PM. I pulled on my faded jacket and stepped into the cold, damp air, fifteen minutes from my paan shop room. I was lost in the quiet click-clack of my cheap shoes on the wet pavement, thinking about nothing and everything, when headlights blinded me.
A black, armored SUV—not a typical Mumbai vehicle—screeched to a halt, tires spitting dirty water. Two men jumped out—masks covering their faces, something glinting too brightly in their hands.
Police? Thieves? My heart hammered, a frantic drum against my ribs. Or something worse—like the men who chased my parents?
Before I could process the thought, a heavy cloth, soaked in a chemically sweet, pungent stench, clamped over my nose and mouth. Chloroform, my garage-trained nose identified instantly.
I struggled, screamed—"Save me! What are you doing?!"
Hands like iron grips grabbed my arms, dragging me towards the vehicle's open door. The overwhelming interior smell was a paradox: expensive leather, stale cigarette smoke, and a third, sharper scent—ozone.
I kicked out wildly—my dirty shoe connected with someone's jaw—I heard a sharp, painful curse in a language that sounded neither Hindi nor English.
The SUV swerved violently, the horn blaring in a long, panicked wail.
"Hold him! Quickly!" a voice snarled from the front seat—the voice was educated, cold.
I will not be locked up again. I will not be trapped.
Then—impact.
A violent, sickening crash. Shattering glass everywhere. The screech of twisting, collapsing metal loud enough to pierce my eardrums. We had hit something massive.
I was thrown—weightless for a terrifying fraction of a second—before the back of my head struck something hard and unyielding. The pain was instant, blinding, and absolute.
Everything went black.
AWAKENING: THE MANTRA SYSTEM BOOT
I woke to the distinct, pure scent of sandalwood incense and the intense chill of polished basalt stone against my bare skin. My ears rang with a deep, steady resonance—a sound that vibrated not just my ears, but my very core.
My vision blurred, then violently snapped into focus.
I was lying in what looked like an ancient temple—high, vaulted ceilings that disappeared into darkness, massive carved pillars of dark basalt, flickering oil lamps casting long, dancing shadows. This was not a hospital.
But something was terribly, fundamentally wrong.
Holographic symbols floated in the air—glowing Sanskrit verses that pulsed with a soft, undeniable, electrical hum. The light felt heavy, almost palpable, like thick syrup. This was Science masquerading as Mythology.
To my left, a blue energy vortex hummed and spun inside a traditional stone Yagya Kund (ritual fire pit). But this fire was plasma, crackling with ozone and raw power.
To my right, figures lay motionless inside transparent, vertical chambers—healing pods, pure science fiction.
I tried to move—my body felt heavy, foreign, and faintly vibrating.
That's when I saw them—intricate, luminous patterns etched into my skin, glowing with a soft golden light. They weren't tattoos; they were circuits made of living fire, weaving across my chest, arms, and wrists.
"What has happened to me…?" I whispered, my voice rough, alien, and cracked.
A voice—clear, mechanical, yet with an uncanny, rhythmic lilt—echoed inside my mind, bypassing my ears:
🎵 "System Booting… Welcome to the Mantra System, Aryan."
My blood ran cold. This wasn't a dream. This was a direct, internal command.
An elderly man approached—robes the color of sunset, eyes holding the calm, terrifying weight of centuries.
"Beta," he said, his voice calm, steady, like slow-moving water. "Do not be afraid. You are alive."
"Who are you?" I managed, pushing myself up despite the protesting pain in my head. "Where is this place?"
He smiled—a quiet, knowing smile that reached his ancient, luminous eyes.
"I am Rishi Vishwamitra. And you… are in our Ashram."
THE MANTRA VIGYAN ASHRAM: PHYSICS AS FAITH
This was no ordinary ashram. It was a bridge between eras—ancient architecture fused seamlessly with technology I couldn't even put a name to.
Stone walls were lined with glowing energy conduits. Scriptures made of light floated mid-air. A library where books were not paper, but swirling energy fields that responded to a mere gaze.
"What… is this?" I breathed, my mechanic's brain trying and failing to find a logical framework.
"The Mantra Science Research Ashram," Vishwamitra explained. "Here, we merge ancient mantras with quantum science. And you… are now a part of this world."
He explained the core principle: the Mantra System wasn't magic. It was a highly advanced form of Science—a technology that used precise sound vibrations (Mantras) to interact with the fundamental building blocks of existence, altering reality at a quantum level.
My DNA—the dormant, misunderstood 98% that geneticists ignorantly called "junk"—had been activated.
"Your world uses scalpels and CRISPR to edit the code," he said, gesturing to the glowing circuits on my skin. "We use sound, the primordial Nāda Brahma. We were editing the human source code with Mantras, three millennia before your scientists learned to spell 'DNA.'"
To demonstrate, he touched a rough stone pillar. It didn't melt; it instantly solidified into a column of shimmering, perfect gold.
Then he closed his eyes—and the entire ashram froze.
The smoke from the incense stilled. The oil lamps held their flame, unmoving. The hum of the energy vortex ceased. Time itself… paused.
"This is Samay Stambhan—Time Freeze."
My mind reeled. "How? How?"
"Understand the relationship between mind and energy," he said. "Your Einstein reached E=MC^2. We have reached E=MC^5—Energy equals Mind times Consciousness to the power of Five. The Mantras are the keys to the exponents."
THE TRUTH ABOUT MY PAST: THE CORE CODEX UNLOCKED
Then he showed me a brilliant, three-dimensional hologram.
My parents.
They stood in a high-tech lab filled with ancient-looking devices, surrounded by men in dark, militarized armor (Saturnia). My mother held me—a baby—chanted a powerful Sutra Mantra, and pushed me, not into an open door, but into a blinding portal of pure light.
Then, a shattering explosion. Darkness.
"These… were my parents?" My voice was thin, almost unrecognizable.
Vishwamitra nodded, his expression sorrowful.
"They were Mantri-Scientists. They had discovered something that could change the world: the Core Codex—the Sutra for Gravitational Manipulation. But the people of Saturnia wanted them dead. They gave their lives to save you. And you… are their descendant. Their final creation."
He pointed to the golden circuits on my skin. "The crash was the final trigger. It activated the most basic, most critical code: the Agni Astra (Fire Weapon) mantra, which resonates with your childhood trauma of the fire, and the Core Codex Syllable 1 (HRIM), which is stored in your very bloodline."
THE MECHANIC'S INHERITANCE
Before I left, Vishwamitra placed a hand on my head.
"Whenever you are in need, remember us in your heart. This Mantra System will protect you. It is your ultimate defense."
He chanted—"Om Tat Sat, Aryan, for rebirth."
A blinding, pure white light enveloped me. The world spun and compressed into a single point.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in my tiny room—the rusty ceiling fan whirring lazily, the city humming with its usual, chaotic energy below.
The scent of paan and exhaust fumes hit my nose.
But I wasn't the same Aryan.
On my wrist, under the grimy cuff of my jacket, the golden symbols still glowed faintly.
And in my mind, the system's voice echoed, no longer mechanical, but steady and vigilant—
🎵 "System Online. Welcome Back, Aryan. Core Mantra #001 (Agni Astra) Unlock Condition Met: Bloodline activation + 1st trauma echo (orphanage fire memory). Mission: Survival and Retrieval. Agni Astra Mana Cost: 1 mana for Spark mode."
My old life was over. The journey of the Reality Programmer had just begun.
CHAPTER END
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