The room was dark and old, the kind of place where hope had died years ago and no one bothered to bury it. Cracked walls leaned in like they were listening. A single shaft of weak light cut through a broken window, dust dancing inside it like ghosts that could not decide whether to leave or stay.
In the middle of the floor sat a skinny boy, no more than nine. Ribs pressed sharp against his torn shirt, thin arms bare, knees drawn up. He was pushing a toy car across the dirty concrete with one finger. The car was old, paint chipped, one wheel missing entirely. It wobbled and dragged, leaving a faint scratch behind it. Every time it tipped, the boy gently righted it, whispering to it like it was alive.
His stomach growled loud enough to echo.
"Maa…" His voice was small, cracked. "Maa, I'm feeling hungry."
He stood, legs shaky, and ran toward the shadow in the corner. A woman. We could not see her face. She was covered in black, the cloth falling over her like night itself had wrapped her tight. She caught him before he could reach her fully, pulling him into her arms with a gentleness that felt borrowed from another life. Her hands were soft on his back.
"Okay, beta," she whispered. We never saw her mouth move. "Wait here in home. Mama is going to buy you a big cake."
The boy's face lit up. A real smile, the kind children still have before the world teaches them not to.
"Maa, I want a chocolate cake!"
The woman laughed, low and warm, but something in it ached. "Chocolate cake? But you don't like chocolate. You always tell me it tastes bitter."
The boy puffed his cheeks, suddenly fierce. "Oh hohoh! Not that one. The white cake. The one made in white clouds."
She tilted her head, the black cloth shifting. "Hmmm… alright. I will buy you that. Wait here. Don't go anywhere, okay?"
The boy nodded hard, laughing happily. "Okay!"
She stood. The black cloth swallowed her completely as she walked to the door. One moment she was there. The next, she was gone, like smoke through a crack.
The boy waited.
He played with the broken car again, pushing it in slow circles. His stomach kept making small, sad sounds. Minutes became hours. The shaft of light in the window grew longer, then orange, then red. The sun was sinking outside. The room turned colder.
He curled up on the floor, arms wrapped around his belly, eyes heavy. "When is Maa gonna come…"
His breathing slowed. His small body went still. The broken car lay on its side beside him, three wheels pointing at nothing.
The room felt emptier than any room should.
He closed his eyes.
Everything went dark.
"Veda…"
A young female voice, soft as a memory.
"VEDA!"
His eyes snapped open.
I was on the floor.
Not the boy's floor. This one was covered in papers. Hundreds of them. Stained dark with blood that had dried into ugly brown maps. My body hurt everywhere. Every bone, every muscle screamed like it had been dragged through hell and left for dead. My head spun. The room smelled of old ink and fresh copper.
I pushed myself up weakly, arms shaking, legs threatening to fold. The world tilted. I blinked hard, trying to clear the blur.
"Where… am I?"
My eyes found a cracked mirror leaning against the far wall. I stumbled toward it, one hand on the wall for balance. The closer I got, the clearer the reflection became.
A young face stared back.
Not forty-four. Not the ruined man with gray hair and riverbed wrinkles. This face was smooth, maybe twenty-five, sharp jaw, gray eyes wide with confusion. I touched my cheek. Soft. No scars. No years of war and death carved into it.
My mind cracked open.
Army.
Puri.
Maa dying in the cot.
Gita's smile on our wedding day.
The baby that never breathed.
The four men in our house.
The finger in the freezer.
Seventy names.
One-Thousand Kill.
The rooftop in South Delhi.
The fall.
I remembered the air rushing past me. The glowing light in this exact room as I fell. The bleeding that stopped mid-air. The impossible.
I laughed. It came out weak, broken, more breath than sound.
"I can't even die peacefully, can I?"
My eyes twitched.
Left.
Right.
Left again.
I wasn't moving them. I was standing perfectly still, hands braced on the mirror frame, breath locked in my chest. But my eyes kept moving on their own, searching the blind spots like something was hiding just behind my skull.
My body did not move.
Just my eyes.
Like something was wrong.
Like something was watching.
"Who is playing with me?"
My voice came out deep. Cold. Dangerous. The voice I used when men came looking for money I didn't have. The voice that made people cross the street.
"No one is playing with you."
The voice came from everywhere. Inside the walls, inside my head, inside the empty place where my heart used to beat. It did not echo. It simply was.
I dropped into a crouch before I even thought about it. Feet shoulder-width, weight centered, fists ready. Ten years in the army. Thirteen years of blood. Muscle memory does not care what body you're wearing.
"Who are you?! Where are you?! Stop hiding and come out!"
"Veda. Calm down for a second."
Hearing my name from nowhere made my blood turn to ice.
I punched the wall where the sound seemed loudest.
CRACK.
My fist went straight through plaster and lath. Dust exploded. Symbols on the wall crumbled like dead skin around my wrist. Blood ran down my knuckles.
"My my. You're still strong. Even in a weak body."
The voice was amused now. Smiling.
I kept scanning every shadow, every corner, moving like I used to move through houses in Kashmir. Silent. Lethal.
"Veda. Stop acting like a little kid."
Laughter. Mocking.
"How do you know my name?!"
"Not just your name. I know everything about you. Who you are. Where you were born. What kind of job you did. How many people you killed."
Silence.
Then:
"How many family members you have. Your mother. Your wife Gita. Your dead child. Veer… or Shakti?"
My chest locked. The air turned thick.
"By the way. That child was actually a girl. So. Shakti."
My dead eyes opened wide in the mirror. Pupils blown. I looked like a man who had just been handed the one truth he had waited his whole life to hear.
"I… I didn't even know."
The words came out in a whisper.
No one had ever told me.
"Hahahaha! I like that expression, bro! Hahahaha!"
"Are you… God?"
The room went silent. Dust hung frozen in the air. Time itself seemed to hold its breath.
No reply.
My teeth ground together. Heat built behind my ribs.
"AT LONG LAST YOU FINALLY SHOW UP GOD!!"
"I am not a god."
The voice was quiet now. Calm. Close.
"I am you."
I froze.
I looked at the mirror.
The reflection was smiling.
Big smile.
Wide smile.
Wrong smile.
It stepped out of the glass like the mirror was only air.
Floating.
Glowing softly from behind.
Same face.
Same young body.
Same gray eyes.
Two of us.
One on the ground, bleeding from the knuckles.
One in the air, feet not touching the floor.
"I am also Veda. Veda Das."
He floated down gently and landed without sound.
"And you." He pointed straight at me. "Your soul is in a different world now."
I could not speak.
"Everything is the same as your old world. But different. This is a parallel universe."
He opened his arms. The light around him pulsed like a heartbeat.
"You are a one-of-a-kind soul, Veda. Blessed. You can travel time. Space. Everywhere."
I stared, confused, shocked, broken.
Young Veda tilted his head, smiling softly.
"Oh. You still don't understand?"
He stepped closer.
"Let me help you."
He walked straight into me.
No impact. No crash. Just the feeling of water pouring into water, filling every empty space I never knew I had.
Then the pain came.
It started in my chest like a second heart trying to beat inside the first. My head exploded with voices. Thousands. Millions. They came from everywhere. From the walls, the floor, the papers scattered around my feet. From the air itself. From inside me. They spoke in languages I had never heard, in words that did not exist, in sounds that had no meaning except the meaning they forced into my skull.
Screaming.
Whispering.
Chanting.
My eyes burned bright.
I screamed.
And then.
I saw.