Their eyes opened violently—like drowning men breaking through the surface of a dark ocean. The trance dissolved, leaving behind fragments of visions that still clung to their breathing; ancient echoes lingered in their pulses, remnants of what they had just witnessed. Their bodies felt heavy, their breaths shallow, their hearts still beating with someone else's memories.
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Wind crossed the barren field around them—gentle, yet indifferent. Stars still glowed in a sky that was unbearably calm. Almost wrongfully calm.
Aryan pushed forward from his knees and sat upright. His fingertips unconsciously brushed the ring as though confirming its existence was real—not imagined.
Abhi exhaled sharply, clutching his wrist where the bracelet now pulsed with that quiet current of unshakable divinity.
Ahaan's palm pressed over his chest as if protecting something sacred—his pendant warm against his skin, warmer than flesh ever should be.
The three sat still, absorbing the remnants of cosmic histories that no mortal was ever meant to carry.
Finally, Abhi whispered, voice fractured and not yet fully present.
"…so that… was real."
Aryan nodded, voice coarse.
"All of it."
They remained seated for several seconds—just letting silence fill every space it could—because silence was the only thing holding them steady.
Their journey resumed.
Not as they once were.
Not as clueless teenagers.
But as chosen bearers of something older than myths—something older than war itself.
Their feet dragged at first, their steps unfamiliar—as though part of them still walked through centuries long gone. They moved slowly down the earth trail, moonlight sketching elongated shadows behind them.
No one spoke for the first hour.
Finally Ahaan broke the silence.
"You know… this is the last stretch."
Aryan looked ahead, not turning his head.
"I know."
Abhi smiled faintly.
"So… we are not planning a victory party?"
Aryan snorted.
"You'd throw yourself one even if the world collapsed."
"And when did it not?"
Their laughter wasn't loud.
It wasn't joyful.
But it was real—something to remind them that they still existed, they still felt—still belonged to this world.
They walked deeper into the night.
Until the path bent into a slope.
And the ground slowly turned darker.
And the air changed.
Smoke.
Burnt wood.
Charred soil.
Something metallic—blood, perhaps.
The three froze.
The horizon ahead glowed with an orange hue.
Not sunset.
But the aftermath.
Smoke towers rose, spiraling high enough to stain the sky into something grey and lifeless.
Ash drifted in quiet snowfall.
Silent.
Weightless.
Cruel.
Aryan stepped forward first.
Ahaan followed.
Abhi swallowed hard.
Nothing needed to be said now.
The closer they moved, the heavier their steps fell—as though the earth itself resisted their arrival.
Trees collapsed into crooked silhouettes.
Structures that once stood proudly were now fractured skeletons.
Walls that once held life were nothing but cracked lines and rubble.
They stopped on the exact rise of the last elevation.
And then Bhutala came into view.
Or rather what remained of it.
Buildings had fallen like cards pushed by careless fingers.
Towers leaned like broken pillars.
Homes had melted into unrecognizable heaps.
Roads were fractured and blackened.
Wind carried embers that refused to die.
It was devastation not caused by time
—not caused by nature
—but inflicted.
Deliberate.
Precise.
Unmerciful.
Ahaan's voice trembled—barely audible.
"…how long… have we been away?"
Abhi whispered,
"Long enough."
Aryan didn't speak.
He stared.
Jaw tightening.
Knuckles locking.
Presence burning.
Something deep placed itself inside him again—that same fire that once shaped destruction in the age they witnessed.
Only now it belonged to him.
The city that once welcomed them now looked like its final breath had already been taken.
The air had that after-war stillness—the kind of silence that meant everything was already over.
Abhi looked down, eyes burning—but not crying.
Ahaan clenched his teeth.
Aryan stepped forward—stopping right at the edge of the fallen city.
His voice was not loud.
But it carried weight.
"This is not the end."
Behind them, flames flickered.
Ahead of them, ruins breathed.
And somewhere within that ruin, something awaited.
A truth.
A confrontation.
A war that had already started without them.
Aryan took one more step.
Abhi followed.
Ahaan walked beside them.
They did not run.
They did not panic.
They entered the ruins—
as three boys no longer.
But as wielders of artifacts born from worlds beyond ages.
The wind blew bitter ash across their faces—as though the land itself whispered:
"You returned too late."
Yet beneath that whisper…
There was something else—
A quiet pulse across the ground.
A vibration.
A calling.
As though all destruction was simply the beginning.
Their beginning.
And they walked deeper inside Bhutala…
knowing the next page of their fate had already turned.