Ch.1: Prologue: The Cost of Dreams

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- Greater Noida, NCR, Uttar Pradesh, India -

- November 22, 2024 -

The wedding reception hall was grand, with glittering chandeliers and laughter reverberating through the crowd. Aryan Yadav stood in a corner, a glass of sparkling water in hand. His tailored suit screamed wealth, but his face betrayed something deeper—an emptiness he couldn't quite conceal.

Across the hall, the bride stood radiant in red, her smile brighter than the décor. Aryan couldn't take his eyes off her. She was once his world—Meera.

He recalled their days In college. Those years when he was just another engineering student with ambitious dreams of starting his own business, crushing his competition and making his country proud with his innovations. Meera was his anchor then, the one who brought warmth to his chaotic world. But Aryan had pushed her away.

"You're always too busy, Aryan. Do I even matter to you, huh?" she had asked him once after yet another canceled date.

"Meera, you already know how much this project means to me. It's my future, no, our future," he had argued.

"Our future? What future, Aryan? You can't even spare some time for our date, I was so looking forward to after a long time!" Her voice cracked, and Aryan remembered how he had stood there, silent, unable to offer her the reassurance she needed.

That argument was one of many, and eventually, he ended it himself. Not because he didn't love her, but because he thought he was protecting her from the storm that was his life, from the many enemies he was making during his rise to success and wealth. "Once I've made it," he had told himself back then, "I'll definitely come back for her."

But life didn't work that way.

Now, as he watched her laugh with her husband, Aryan felt a bitter pang. She looked happy—truly happy. He couldn't blame her. Time had moved on. So had she.

After politely wishing the couple a happy life, Aryan left the reception. The valet brought his sleek sports car to the entrance, its roaring engine a stark contrast to the quiet storm inside him. As he slid into the leather seat, his mind wandered.

"What did I really gain?" he thought, gripping the wheel. "All this money, this success—what's it worth if I couldn't keep the one person who mattered the most?"

The streets were busy, but Aryan barely noticed. The city lights blurred past him as he pressed the accelerator.

"I thought money would fix everything," he mused bitterly. "Happiness, love, everything. But all it did was leave me with regrets. If only I had tried harder back then—listened to her, balanced my dreams with my life. Maybe things would've been different."

He remembered her laugh, the way she used to call him out when he got too serious. "Aryan, life isn't just about work. You have to live it too."

A sad smile crossed his lips. "You were right, Meera," he whispered to himself. "I see it now. But it's too late, isn't it?"

As he sped through the streets, his mind was a whirlwind of memories—his first big business deal, destined to change the world, the late nights building his empire, the loneliness that came with it all. And then, Meera's face.

The traffic light ahead turned red, but Aryan didn't see it. His thoughts drowned out everything else. A blaring horn jolted him back to reality, but it was too late.

A truck barreled Into the side of his car, the impact devastating. Time seemed to slow as the glass shattered and metal crumpled around him.

As his vision blurred, Aryan's life flashed before his eyes—his childhood in a modest orphanage, the laugher of the orphanage staff and children, his close friends he once cherished, the sleepless nights working toward his dreams, Meera's face when he first told her he loved her. And her face again, tonight, smiling at someone else.

"Is this it?" he thought, as the pain began to fade and a cold numbness crept over him. "I had everything, yet nothing at all."

His final thought wasn't of his success, his wealth, or his achievements. It was of Meera's voice, soft and full of love, calling his name one last time.

And then, there was silence.

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- Outside the Omniverse, The Void -

- Unknown Time -

Aryan's consciousness flickered in and out. It felt like an eternity had passed—or maybe no time at all. He couldn't tell. There was no body, no pain, no sound, just a feeling of existence.

His soul, now a small radiant orb of light, floated aimlessly in the void. The endless expanse of nothingness stretched in every direction, silent and cold. There was no sky, no ground, no horizon—just a deep, unfathomable void.

"Is this what death feels like?" he wondered. The thought came not as words but as a faint ripple of emotion in the light that he had become. He had expected something—anything—but this emptiness gnawed at him.

Time didn't exist here. Or perhaps it did, but in a way beyond his understanding. Aryan's memories began to fade, his identity slowly unraveling. Faces blurred, moments lost their sharpness, and the weight of regrets he carried began to dissolve into the void.

But then, something changed.

A presence appeared in the distance, unlike anything Aryan had experienced in life. It wasn't human—it wasn't even mortal. It was vast, incomprehensible, and ancient. A radiant being, its form impossible to define, seemed to emerge from the nothingness. It wasn't just bright—it was existence itself, a force that pulsed with an overwhelming power.

The being regarded Aryan's soul with curiosity, as if inspecting an artifact it hadn't encountered before. It felt no malice, no kindness—just an unyielding interest.

"Hmm, what an interesting specimen of a soul you are," the being's voice echoed, not in sound but directly within Aryan's essence. "You have escaped from the cycle of death and reincarnation. A fragment untethered from the threads of time, who has somehow found itself in the unending and limitless void."

Aryan felt the presence envelop him, and for the first time since his death, he felt…aware. The being's energy surged into his light, a power so immense that it threatened to shatter whatever was left of his consciousness.

"Wake up," the being commanded.

In an instant, Aryan's soul flared brightly. Memories returned like a flood—his childhood, his struggles, his rise to wealth, Meera's face at the wedding, and the truck that ended it all.

"What… what is this?" Aryan's voice echoed in the void, though he had no mouth to speak.

"You are a curiosity," the being replied. Its form shimmered as it drew closer. "A soul unbound. You are neither here nor there, neither alive nor truly dead. Tell me, mortal, do you know why you are here?"

"I don't," Aryan said, his thoughts trembling as he struggled to understand what was happening. "I… I was alive, and then… the accident…"

"Yes," the being interrupted. "And yet, you are here. Your soul has slipped through the cracks, untethered from the cycle of life and death."

Aryan tried to process its words, but the vastness of the being's presence made his thoughts feel small, insignificant. "Why me?"

"Why you?" The being seemed amused, though its tone carried no warmth. "You mortals often ask that. Perhaps it is chance. Perhaps it is design. Does it matter? You are here now. That is enough."

Aryan's light dimmed slightly, his confusion evident even without a face. "What happens now? Do I… move on?"

The being's form flickered, its energy shifting as though contemplating. "Move on? Perhaps. But first, you will answer my question."

Aryan hesitated. "What question?"

The void seemed to tremble slightly as the being spoke again, its voice sharper now, demanding. "What do you seek, mortal? In the memories of your previous life, you chased wealth, love, purpose—yet all eluded you. In this state, free from the burdens of the flesh, what do you desire?"

Aryan's essence flickered. What did he desire? He thought of the life he had left behind. The regrets, the emptiness that wealth couldn't fill, the faces of people he had pushed away, and the pain of realizing it too late.

"I don't know," he admitted finally. "I thought I wanted everything in life, but in the end, none of it mattered. I just… I just wanted to feel whole."

The being was silent for a long moment, its radiant energy pulsating in a rhythm Aryan couldn't comprehend. "Interesting," it said at last. "You do not yet understand your place, but I see potential in you. Perhaps I will grant you another chance. Or perhaps I will keep you here, as my curiosity demands."

Aryan's light trembled. "Another chance?"

The being didn't answer. Instead, it raised a glowing limb—or what could be called a limb—and channeled a surge of its energy into Aryan's soul. The void around him began to ripple, the nothingness folding in on itself as reality bent and twisted.

"Awaken, mortal," the being's voice echoed one last time, its tone both commanding and enigmatic. "Prove to me that you are worthy of this anomaly you have become."

And then, everything went dark.

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