Finally, I found it.
The tomb of Taffi.
And now… the world will finally know the truth behind World War III.
My name is Bhanu, an ordinary son of a family whose ancestors survived and witnessed that great war.
This is my story.
I grew up in a place filled with the broken remains of an ancient civilization. Everywhere around us were the scraps of massive buildings, now collapsed and covered with thick vines and wild plants.
Our house stood on a plain land near those ruined structures. Around five hundred to six hundred people lived there together, forming a small settlement.
Animals also existed, though very few of them. Their numbers were so small that each one of them was known by name.
I lived with my grandfather and my father. My mother was nowhere to be found, and my grandmother died long ago after giving birth to my father.
Since childhood, my grandfather used to tell me stories about the Great War.
He told me how humanity nearly vanished… how skyscrapers—buildings so tall they seemed to touch the clouds—collapsed into ruins.
He told me how the survivors of humanity lived inside a massive underground bunker for nearly one hundred years.
And in every story, one name was always mentioned.
Taffi.
The man who saved humanity.
The man who saved the world from total destruction.
According to my grandfather, many animals existed three hundred years ago. But almost all of them died during the war.
Only a few survived because Taffi managed to protect them and help humans breed them again so they would not disappear forever.
At first, I thought my grandfather's stories were nothing but fairy tales.
But the way he described the past… the details he knew… it almost felt as if he had witnessed those events himself.
Because of these stories, I didn't have many friends. Most people in the village believed my grandfather and I were crazy.
He told me about machines called cars that could carry people across long distances in minutes. Today we travel only by walking.
He spoke about planes that flew through the sky and ships that crossed the oceans.
Just imagining such things felt unbelievable… yet strangely fascinating.
The more stories he told, the more curious I became.
Was the Great War real?
Did the world truly look different once?
Did Taffi really save humanity?
These questions often stole my sleep at night.
When I turned seventeen, I began exploring the lands around our settlement.
But no matter which direction I went, I saw nothing but endless ruins covered with plants and vines. I was always afraid of going too far and losing my way back.
There was also something else that always caught my attention.
A wooden box that belonged to my grandfather.
It was locked, and I was never able to open it. The key was always hanging around my grandfather's neck like a locket.
Whenever I asked him about the box, he would simply smile and say,
"I will tell you about it when the time is right."
Years passed.
My grandfather continued telling stories about how his parents had lived inside the bunker and how the survivors eventually came out to build new settlements like ours.
We created light at night by rubbing stones together. But my grandfather once told me that people in the old world had far easier ways to create light.
He also said that the Great War happened around three hundred years ago.
Three hundred years… and the world was still suffering from its consequences.
That thought never left my mind.
Time moved forward, and eventually I stopped exploring the ruins. Life in the settlement was peaceful.
People prayed every day and lived by a simple rule:
Do not harm nature.
No one remembered exactly why this rule existed, but it was followed as if it had been carved into our souls.
When I turned twenty-one, my grandfather fell seriously ill.
Before his death, he called me to his bedside.
With trembling hands, he removed the key from his neck and gave it to me.
"Our ancestor fought alongside Taffi," he said weakly. "His name was Ayush."
He pointed toward the wooden box.
"Inside that box is Ayush's diary. It contains the truth about the war… about the world three hundred years ago."
He looked at me one last time.
"Read it… follow Ayush's path… and make this world better. Let people know about the legend who saved them."
Those were my grandfather's final words.
After his funeral, I opened the wooden box.
Inside it lay a thick diary.
Old. Dirty. Torn.
The pages were fragile and yellow with age.
With shaking hands, I opened the first page.
Written on it were the words:
"Hello.
I don't know who you are.
Maybe my successor… maybe a thief… maybe even something not human.
But it doesn't matter.
I wrote this diary so that someone, someday, would know the truth about the ancient war… and the world that existed before it."