Chapter 41 – River of Names
"The dead do not forget. They whisper. They remember."
The Ganges had always flowed quietly past the eastern ruins.
Brown water. Thick mud. Smoke rising beyond its far shore.
But today… the river whispered.
Yash stood at its bank.
Eyes closed.
Ash swirling around his boots.
The world behind him was broken.
Ahead — only the river and its silence.
But silence is not always empty.
First, it was a single voice.
"Yash…"
Then another.
"Beta…"
Then more.
Hundreds. Thousands.
The names of the dead.
Spoken one by one, carried by water and wind.
His parents.
Friends long gone.
Strangers he'd never met — but who died anyway.
Rishav stepped beside him, pale.
"The river's calling you, Bhai."
Mira's voice cracked in his earpiece.
"There's a vibration in the current. It's not natural. The signal is… names. Actual names."
Ashtashram had buried dozens along this river.
No proper rituals. No fires.
Just ash and memory.
But now the dead were speaking.
Not in vengeance — but in warning.
Yash knelt by the water.
Dipped his fingers in.
A burning shot through his body.
Not pain. Not divine.
Something else.
The fracture beneath the river had awakened.
He saw flashes:
A Rakshasa-Vira clan performing rituals on the opposite shore.
An altar made of bones and ash.
A child's face twisted by divine mutation.
Three shadows, walking toward Ashtashram — laughing.
And then… he saw himself.
Underwater.
Still.
Eyes open.
Dead.
He staggered back.
"The Kalinaya fracture… it's down there."
Mira gasped.
"There's a second fracture point beneath the river."
Rishav:
"So what do we do?"
Yash looked at the flowing water.
"We listen. We learn. And we don't ignore the dead."
At night, Khushi drew a picture.
A river.
A cracked moon above it.
And Yash — split in two — standing on either side.
The river knows.
And now… it remembers every name the gods forgot.