By the ninth year, Akash no longer counted the days.
At some point, numbers had stopped helping. Time in this world did not move cleanly. It dragged in places, then jumped ahead without warning. Weeks vanished without leaving anything behind. Single moments refused to fade. He learned early that marking calendars only made the waiting heavier.
What mattered had narrowed down.
He was still here, and still not where he belonged.
The valley lay quiet that morning. The kind of quiet that did not ask to be noticed. Wind moved through the grass without urgency. Birds called once, then went silent. Akash sat on a flat stone near the path, his back against a tree that had grown crooked instead of tall. Its roots pushed up through the soil like they had given up on hiding.
His boots were worn thin at the soles. He had patched them too many times to remember. His hands rested on his knees, fingers loose, palms open. The posture was unconscious. He had been waiting like this for years.
Across from him, Prathamesh tightened the strap of his satchel and studied Akash with quiet attention. He had learned when to speak and when not to. The land had taught him that. So had Akash.
"You did not sleep," Prathamesh said.
Akash nodded once. Denying it would have taken more energy than the truth.
"I was close last night," he said. His voice held no excitement. Only a tired steadiness. "I could feel it."
Prathamesh had heard this before. Enough times to recognize the tone. He did not challenge it.
"Close to what," he asked.
Akash watched the valley instead of answering. The path curved upward ahead, disappearing into fog and stone. He had crossed that ridge before. More than once. Each time, it had taken him somewhere else.
"Home," he said eventually.
Prathamesh lowered himself onto a rock opposite him. "You always feel that way when you are exhausted."
Akash's mouth curved slightly, not quite a smile, just acknowledgment.
He had arrived in this world as a boy. Old enough to remember his own name clearly. Young enough to believe that someone would explain what had happened. The first weeks had been sharp in his memory. Fear without direction. Kind faces that still felt wrong. Words he did not understand spoken too gently.
People helped him. Some because they were kind. Some because he was strange. Some because he worked hard and asked for little. He learned the language slowly. He learned the terrain faster. Hunger and danger were efficient teachers.
Belonging never came.
Stories spoke of others who crossed worlds and found purpose waiting for them. Roles shaped exactly to their hands. Power, even. Akash had listened to those stories by firelight and tried to imagine himself inside them.
He trained. He worked. He stayed when others left. Once, he helped rebuild a town after a flood tore through it. People shook his hand. Someone called him brave.
The feeling passed.
At night, when the valley went dark and the fires burned low, his thoughts returned to the same place. A narrow street. A familiar gate that never closed properly. The smell of dust after rain. A voice calling his name with an ease no one else ever had.
Prathamesh unfolded a weathered map between them. The parchment curled at the edges, marked and remarked until the ink thinned.
"The paths end here," he said. "Beyond this, there are only guesses."
Akash leaned forward and traced a finger along the lines. He knew them well. He had followed each one at least once. Every route ended somewhere solid, somewhere real, somewhere wrong.
"I know," he said.
Prathamesh studied him. "Then why return."
Akash lifted his gaze. "Because the distance feels shorter."
Prathamesh did not hide his skepticism. "You have said that before."
"Yes," Akash replied. "And I am still standing."
They packed their things without speaking. The path ahead was familiar. Loose stones. Tall grass. Ground that demanded attention and offered nothing back. Akash walked first, steps measured and efficient. His body remembered routes even when hope faltered.
After a while, Prathamesh spoke again. He usually did.
"People here would understand if you stopped," he said. "They would not blame you."
Akash did not slow. "For what."
"For staying," Prathamesh said. "For choosing this place."
Akash stopped.
He turned carefully, making sure his words landed exactly as intended. "I did not choose this world."
Prathamesh met his gaze. "You chose to survive in it."
Akash considered that as they resumed walking. "Survival is a reflex," he said. "It does not mean acceptance."
By afternoon, the fog thickened. The path narrowed. Their shoulders nearly brushed. Akash felt the familiar pressure behind his eyes. The one that came when hope lingered longer than it should have.
They reached the stone arch near dusk.
It stood alone, half buried, its surface worn smooth by time. Akash had found it years ago, back when landmarks still felt meaningful. He returned to it often. Not because it worked. Because it reminded him how long he had been trying.
He stepped beneath the arch and rested his hand against the stone.
Prathamesh waited.
Nothing happened.
Akash's breath caught.
His fingers tightened. His posture shifted, subtle but unmistakable. Prathamesh rose at once.
"What is it."
Akash opened his eyes slowly. Something had changed. Not relief. Not excitement.
Recognition.
"I was wrong," Akash said.
Prathamesh frowned. "About what."
"I kept trying to leave," Akash replied. "That was never the problem."
Prathamesh waited.
"I have been arriving at the wrong place," Akash said.
Silence settled between them. The valley remained unchanged.
"How long," Prathamesh asked.
Akash exhaled. "I do not know. But this time feels different."
Prathamesh hesitated. "And if it works."
Akash's voice dropped. "Then I will stop searching."
Night gathered around them slowly.
For the first time in years, Akash did not feel lost.
He felt late.
Akash did not say goodbye.
There was no moment that demanded it. No pause where the world seemed to wait for a decision. The stone arch stood as it always had, silent and indifferent. The valley did not respond. Wind moved through the grass and went on its way.
Only Akash changed.
He stepped forward, then stopped.
Not from fear. Something else had settled in his chest, unfamiliar and steady. He turned his head just enough to look back.
Prathamesh stood a short distance away, hands folded behind him, expression calm. He had learned long ago that some departures did not improve with witnesses.
"You are certain," Prathamesh said.
Akash nodded. "I am finished with searching."
That was the closest he came to certainty.
Prathamesh waited, then spoke again. "If you arrive where you think you will, you may not belong there anymore."
Akash considered the words. He had carried that thought with him for years, though it had never taken shape so clearly. He had imagined doors opening to rooms that felt smaller than memory. Faces that carried recognition without familiarity.
"I know," he said. "But that is still where I need to stand."
Prathamesh accepted the answer without argument. Some truths resisted improvement.
Akash stepped beneath the arch.
This time, he kept his eyes open.
The world stayed intact. The stone beneath his feet loosened, like a knot easing after years of pressure. For a brief moment, the ground felt uncertain.
Then the ground vanished.
There was no feeling of falling. No movement at all. Just a pause, long enough for his thoughts to lose their order.
Weight returned suddenly.
Akash stumbled forward and caught himself on instinct. His boot scraped against rough ground. Real ground. He straightened slowly, breath shallow, heart pounding with a rhythm that felt almost forgotten.
The smell reached him first.
Smoke. Wood. Oil. Something burning with purpose rather than urgency.
He looked up.
The house stood exactly where it always had. Same faded paint. Same gate that refused to close fully. A string of lights hung above the entrance, their glow soft and uneven. People moved in and out, dressed in white, voices low and careful.
For a moment, Akash thought he had come too late.
Then he saw the photograph.
His photograph.
It rested near the doorway, framed simply, garlanded with care. The version of him that time had left behind. A face that had never learned another language or looked up at another sky, frozen at nine years ago.
The meaning took time to settle.
They believed he was dead.That was how they had learned to live with it.
Akash stepped closer. No one noticed him at first. He looked like a stranger who had wandered in by mistake. Taller. Thinner. Shaped by years no one here had witnessed.
He watched instead.
His father sat near the wall, back straight, hands clasped too tightly in his lap. Gray threaded through his hair now. His shoulders carried weight that had not been there before.
His mother moved between rooms with practiced calm. She corrected small mistakes gently. She did not cry. Her face held the stillness of someone who had already exhausted grief.
Friends stood nearby. Some he recognized immediately. Some took longer. Some wore lines on their faces he did not remember. Their conversations circled ordinary things. Work. Weather. Time. No one lingered near the photograph.
"It has been nine years," someone said quietly.
Another voice replied, "It does not feel that long."
Akash stood at the edge of the gathering. The moment pressed down on him harder than any climb or crossing ever had.
He had imagined this return in fragments. Never like this.
No one looked at him.
He took a step forward.
Gravel shifted beneath his foot.
A few heads turned.
Confusion passed across their faces first. Recognition followed more slowly, like something resisting belief.
His mother froze.
The plate in her hands slipped and struck the ground with a dull sound. She did not look down. Her eyes stayed on him, searching, cautious, as if naming what she saw might make it vanish.
Akash swallowed.
He crossed the remaining distance and stopped in front of her. His hands stayed where they were. He did not want to startle her.
"I am here," he said.
The words felt small once spoken.
Her lips parted. No sound came.
His father stood abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. Murmurs spread. People shifted, drawn closer by confusion and disbelief.
Akash felt their attention settle on him. The weight of it. The fear of hoping.
His mother spoke at last. Her voice shook, but it held.
"Where did you go," she asked.
There was no anger in it. Only the question itself, carried for years without an answer.
Akash opened his mouth.
Everything he had prepared dissolved. The other world. The time. The search. None of it belonged here. None of it would fit into this space.
He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.
She hesitated for a breath. Then she held him tightly, as if he might slip away again.
Around them, voices overlapped. Someone laughed in disbelief. Someone cried openly. Hands reached out, touching his shoulders, his back, confirming what their eyes still doubted.
His father stood close, one hand resting on Akash's shoulder, firm and grounding.
The tremor passed through him at last. It wasn't fatigue that caused it.
His mother pulled back slightly and studied his face, comparing it to memory, to the photograph.
"Where did you go," she asked again, softer.
Akash breathed in. Smoke. Familiar walls. Time that had waited without him.
He said, "I was lost."