Chapter Two: The Fall Between Time
City Outskirts – Present Day, 2025
The alarm buzzed at 5:00 AM sharp.
Kartik Rawat opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his small room. Faint cracks ran across it like tired branches. Two posters hung directly above his bed—Lord Shiva, seated in deep meditation on Mount Kailash, and Goddess Durga, fierce and divine atop her lion. Their eyes followed him each morning, quiet reminders of something ancient in his blood.
Their modest two-room flat sat on the city's quieter edge. It wasn't much, but it was home. Mahesh Rawat, his father, was a government school teacher, known for his honest smile and stack of notebooks that always smelled of chalk. His mother, Suman, ran the house like a temple—efficient, sacred, and full of scolding love.
And then there was Gauri, his 9-year-old sister, snoring in the next room like a sleeping bull. Kartik smiled. She had once declared herself queen of the balcony and refused to let anyone else use it until she was bribed with mango candy.
Despite the laughter and love, Kartik carried a weight.
Every time he saw headlines about the Ambanis, the Tatas, or any great Indian legacy family, his heart tightened.
Not out of jealousy.
But purpose.
"Why not us?" he often thought."Why shouldn't the Rawat name rise again?"
He didn't want just money.
He wanted honor. Power. A future for his clan that reached beyond villages and valleys.
He wanted Rawats to matter.
One year ago, on a quiet trail behind the city temple, he met a man who changed everything.
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An old yogi, skin like bronze bark, sat beneath a peepal tree no one visited anymore. His eyes were closed, yet he spoke as Kartik walked past.
"You seek something," the yogi said, without opening his eyes.
Startled, Kartik turned. "I... I was just walking."
The yogi smiled faintly and untied a thin red thread from his wrist. He reached out and gently tied it across Kartik's forehead, like a warrior's band.
"This is not tied to your head, boy. It is tied to your soul."
"You carry a question that doesn't belong to this age. But when the stars forget time, your answer will arrive. And if Mahadev wills it... you may rise."
Since that day, Kartik wore the thread every morning. It burned slightly on colder days, like a warning.
Now, as the sun prepared to rise, Kartik stood at the edge of the same forest trail. He had climbed high above the city to a place locals called Yogiyo Ka Sthaan—The Place of Yogis.
He came here to breathe, to think, and lately... to wait for something.
He sat cross-legged on the flat stone, touched the sacred thread on his forehead, and whispered:
"Mahadev, show me what I'm meant for."
The wind stopped.
The air around him thickened.
And then—
"Kartik Rawat..."
The voice didn't echo. It vibrated inside his chest.
Suddenly, the sky twisted gold. A bolt of blue light fell like a silent thunder from the heavens, striking the ridge.
Kartik had no time to scream.
He was already falling.
Not downward—but inward.
Through memories that weren't his.
Through fire.
Through stars.
Through time.
1718 A.D. – Garhwal, Devbhoomi
Warmth. Darkness. A rhythm.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Kartik floated in silence inside the womb of a mountain mother. His senses were dim, but his mind stirred with something ancient.
He remembered posters.
He remembered his sister.
He remembered Shiva.
And still... he was someone new.
In a stone house under pinewood beams, Meera Rawat jolted awake. Her unborn child had just moved—not with a kick, but like a lightning spark had entered her body.
She gasped and clutched her belly.
In the corner, her grandfather, Raghunath Rawat, sat by the fire. His eyes slowly opened.
"The thread has crossed," he whispered."He has returned to his beginning."
