Endless darkness...
Darkness.
That was all Aditya saw. Endless, suffocating darkness.
Where am I?
His thoughts were sluggish, like trying to wade through thick mud. He tried to move his hands. Nothing. He tried to speak. Silence.
Panic settled in his chest like a dead weight.
Why can't I move?
He focused harder, willing his fingers to twitch, his legs to shift, anything—but his body wasn't there.
A deep sense of unease crawled through his mind. The last thing he remembered… jumping.
He could still recall it so vividly. The cold railing under his fingers. The weightlessness. The rushing air against his skin. The split second before impact when regret clawed at his heart.
And then…
Pain?
He should have felt pain. Shouldn't he? But there was nothing. No shattered bones. No agony. No blood pooling beneath him. Just this—this formless, weightless nothingness.
Am I dead?
The thought came with an odd sense of relief.
So that's it?
But if he was dead, why could he think? Why was he… aware?
A faint, rhythmic sound interrupted his thoughts.
Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
A heartbeat.
No—two heartbeats.
His own… and another.
The second one was close. Too close. It almost felt like it was coming from inside him.
What the hell?!
His mind raced for an explanation. Was this some kind of afterlife? A dream? A hallucination?
He tried again to move—to escape this suffocating nothingness.
Nothing.
Time stretched. Minutes? Hours? Days? He had no way of knowing. He drifted between moments of clarity and strange, dreamlike states where his thoughts faded in and out like whispers in the dark.
Maybe this is my punishment. Maybe I don't get to die. Maybe I just get to float here forever, thinking about every mistake I've ever made.
The heartbeat beside him never wavered. It was steady, persistent. An unspoken presence in the darkness.
And oddly enough… it was comforting.
For the first time in what felt like eternity, Aditya wasn't completely alone.
Who… are you?
The other heartbeat didn't answer. It only remained, silent and unwavering.
Then, a shift.
The darkness around him felt different. Tighter. Like something was pressing against him, forcing him into a smaller and smaller space.
And then—light.
It wasn't much. Just a sliver. A thin crack in the void. But after what felt like an eternity in darkness, it was blinding.
Finally! A change!
Aditya tried to reach for it. Tried to push toward it. But he was trapped.
The light grew wider. Stronger. He could feel himself being pulled.
Wait—what's happening?!
Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared—the other heartbeat vanished.
No!
Panic surged through him.
Where did it go?!
The warmth that had surrounded him all this time shifted. It was leaving. He was being left behind.
No, no, no! Don't leave me alone again!
But his cries went unheard.
The light pulled away. The pressure around him faded. And he was alone.
Again.
Silence swallowed him whole.
Elsewhere…
In a small village bathed in the glow of flickering lanterns, the cries of a newborn filled the air.
A woman lay on a straw bed, her body trembling from exhaustion, but her eyes shone with love as she gazed down at the fragile life in her arms.
"It's a boy," the midwife said, smiling warmly.
Tears slipped down the woman's cheeks as she pressed her lips against the baby's forehead.
"He's so beautiful," she whispered, her voice full of warmth. "His name will be… Kael."
Back in the Darkness…
Aditya floated in silence.
No heartbeat beside him.No light.
Just him.
And yet, despite everything—
The darkness was still warm.