The moment Rana finished speaking, Leader fell silent.
Several seconds passed. He drew a slow, deliberate breath — then stepped forward without drama or theatrics, positioning himself directly in front of Rana. Face to face. Close enough that neither could look away.
"You want to go." Leader's voice carried no anger. Only a quiet, heavy understanding — the kind that settles in the chest rather than the air.
"Then let me —"
"Listen." Leader raised one hand — not to stop, but to speak. "Do you genuinely believe I don't want revenge?" His voice fractured for one single moment — just one — before steadying itself again. "Those were my people, Rana. Mine. I knew their names. I knew their homes. I knew their faces." A pause that felt like the weight of every loss compressed into silence. "I want revenge too. Perhaps more than you do."
Rana said nothing.
Leader continued, his voice controlled now — measured, deliberate. "But how can you simply walk away like this? Driven only by rage? Guided only by grief?" He looked directly into Rana's eyes, unwavering. "There is a weapon inside you, Rana. A weapon capable of reshaping the balance of the entire universe. And that weapon has not yet been activated."
Rana's eyes sharpened — and then, beneath that sharpness, something flickered. Fear. "But to activate it... Riya would have to —" He stopped himself. "No."
"It is not that simple," Leader said quietly. "I understand. But perhaps the files hold another way. Another path we haven't considered yet." He exhaled. "If you go to their base now — without your weapon, without a plan — they will end you in seconds. And then no one survives. Not the universe. Not the lower aliens. Not Riya."
At the sound of her name, Rana's footsteps stilled — involuntarily, completely.
Leader noticed. And pressed forward, gently.
"Ryvok's death will not be wasted, Rana." His voice carried a firmness born not from argument but from grief — from the kind of pain that hardens into resolve. "But only if we move forward the right way." He glanced once toward Ryvok's still form, then back to Rana. "He fought for tomorrow. Your tomorrow. If you die today in blind rage, his tomorrow dies with you."
The room held its silence.
Slowly, gradually, Rana's fist began to loosen — finger by finger, tension dissolving into something else entirely.
"Then what must be done?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Leader took one step forward.
"Three things." His voice had shifted — clear, commanding, the voice of someone who has led armies and buried the cost of losing them. "First — the files must be accessed. The ones Zaneath concealed within the Ovilious Astra Building. Everything we need is inside — Veyrath's plans, the framework of universal balance, the path to making this right." He paused. "Second — the weapon must be activated."
"But to activate the weapon..." Rana's voice broke slightly. "Riya would have to —"
"Rana." Leader met his gaze directly. "I don't know whether the files contain another way. I genuinely don't. But I do know this — this universe has never moved forward without sacrifice. Your father sacrificed everything. Ryvok sacrificed everything. Every one of us has surrendered something irreplaceable." His eyes remained fixed on Rana, unwavering. "The power inside you is dormant. Until it fully awakens, you are nothing against Veyrath. Nothing."
Leader held the silence for a moment before continuing. "And third — a plan. A real plan. One that leaves no room for error."
Rana drew a long, slow breath. He thought of Riya — her face, her voice, the life she deserved to keep living. And somewhere deep within himself, he made a silent promise that no one else could hear.
I will save her. Whatever it takes — I will bring her back.
"And after?" he asked, looking at Leader. The pain in his voice remained — but beneath it now lived something new. Something purposeful.
Direction.
Leader answered quietly, without hesitation.
"After — we take our revenge. Complete. Absolute. The right way."
Silence settled over the room like dust after a collapse.
Rana looked once more at Ryvok — at his closed eyes, at the absolute stillness of his face. Then he turned back to Leader.
"Alright." His voice was low, but every word carried the weight of something unbreakable. "But remember one thing, Leader."
"What?"
Rana's eyes held that fire — cold, steady, and genuinely dangerous.
"When the moment comes — I will not be held back."
Leader held his gaze for one long second.
Then gave the smallest, most deliberate nod.
"I won't try to stop you."
Rana took one step — directly toward the Ovilious Astra Building.
Leader moved instinctively beside him. "I'll come with —"
"No."
One word. Simple. Absolute.
Leader stopped. His eyes stayed on Rana. "Rana —"
"Stay here." Rana did not turn back. His voice held no argument — only a decision that had already been made, long before the word left his lips. "They need you." He gestured toward the base — the injured lower aliens, the broken consoles, the people who were still fighting, still surviving on nothing but stubbornness and belief. "You are their leader. These people depend on you."
"And you?" Tension threaded through Leader's voice. "You'll go alone? There are upper aliens out there — Veyrath's people —"
"I have the gadget." Rana reached into his pocket — the screen glowing faintly, steadily. Then he tightened his grip on the gun Leader had given him. "And I have this." He paused for just a moment, his voice dropping lower. "It's enough."
"It is not enough." Leader stepped forward. "Rana, I cannot let you go alone. Zaneath would never have —"
"Zaneath made his sacrifice." For the first time, Rana turned back — and looked directly into Leader's eyes. Completely. Without flinching. "He made that decision alone. Without taking anyone with him." A beat of silence. "I am his son."
Leader had no answer.
He knew he had already lost this argument — not because Rana had silenced him, but because Rana was right.
"If something happens to you —" Leader's voice fractured — just once, just barely.
"Then you take care of them." Rana answered without hesitation. "That is the plan."
Leader studied him for a long moment. Something lived in his expression — that specific look that appears when someone understands that stopping another person is no longer possible. When the realization settles that the person standing before you has already decided — and that their decision is the right one.
He exhaled slowly.
"The gun is fully charged." Leader reached into his coat and withdrew an additional power cell, extending it toward Rana. "Take this. For emergencies."
Rana accepted it without a word.
One moment of silence passed between them — unspoken, unhurried. No dramatic farewell. No grand gesture. Only the kind of understanding that forms exclusively between two people who have walked through the same grief.
Then Rana turned away.
And walked.
Leader remained at the broken entrance of the base, his eyes following Rana's retreating figure — watching until the smog swallowed him completely, until there was nothing left to watch.
Then Leader pressed his fist slowly, quietly, against his side.
"Zaneath," he said — so softly that only the silence could hear. "Your son is braver than you were."
And then he turned back — toward his people. Because a leader's work is never finished.
Rana walked on alone — toward the files, toward the truth, toward whatever waited for him inside that building.
Rana was moving toward the Astra Building — but on the other side of existence, others were waiting for him too.
His parents. Riya. Earth.
The house held a silence unlike any other.
The kind of silence that descends when someone is missing — when the clock's ticking becomes inaudible, when the sounds of the outside world fail to penetrate. A heavy, suffocating stillness that occupies every corner of every room, pressing against the walls like it belongs there.
Twenty-four hours had passed.
Rana had not come home.
His mother sat in the prayer room. Hands folded. Eyes closed. Words formed on her lips — but no sound accompanied them. Only the quiet, rhythmic movement of her mouth, as though she were speaking to someone who could not be heard — but who was listening nonetheless.
"Bring my son back... just once more... please don't let anything happen to my Rana..."
The faint fragrance of incense drifted through the room. Before the shrine, a small flame burned — steady, unextinguished, refusing to yield to the air that moved around it. As though it had decided, on its own, to keep burning until he returned.
She opened her eyes. Looked at the flame. Then pressed her hands together more tightly.
"He didn't come home a few days ago either... and now again..."
Inside her, a conversation was unfolding that could not be spoken aloud:
What could have happened to him? Could something have gone wrong? Could he have gone somewhere he shouldn't have?
No. No, no, no.
He will come back. He is my Rana. My son. He always comes back. Late — but he always comes back.
He always comes back.
Tears reached her cheeks — but she stopped them. Held them inside. Because if she broke, his father would break. And Riya would break. And the house would break.
So she continued to pray. In silence. Alone.
His father stood in the hallway.
Phone in hand. Screen filled with names — Rana's friends, his college classmates, the warehouse number that no longer connected to anything. He had searched every street, every market, every place Rana was known to go.
"Aman... Neeraj... the supervisor's number..."
Every call had been made. Every answer had been the same.
"We don't know. We're looking too."
He set the phone on the table. Picked it up again. Set it down again.
His gaze drifted to the window — to the road outside. Occasionally a motorbike would pass and his heart would pause, suspended in a fraction of a second. Then it would continue past. And his heart would return to its heaviness.
"I need to go to the police station," he said to himself, quietly.
Then he stopped.
If I file a report, it means I've accepted that something has gone wrong.
No. I cannot accept that.
But somewhere beneath the composure, something was quietly breaking — that particular pain a father carries when his son is absent. The pain that never shows itself outwardly because the house requires someone to appear strong. The pain that burns in silence, completely alone, without witnesses.
He lifted his coat from the hook.
"I'm going... to the police station."
His voice was steady. Entirely steady. But his hand trembled slightly as he reached for the door.
Riya sat in her room.
Phone in hand — Rana's number on the screen. Her finger hovered over the call button. Then withdrew. Then returned.
Switched off.
The number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable.
She had heard this message more times in the last twenty-four hours than she could count. And yet each time, it produced the same sharp pain — as though she were hearing it for the very first time.
She placed the phone on the bed.
Moved to the window. Outside, the city carried on — autorickshaws calling to passengers, people drinking tea along the roadside, a child learning to balance on a bicycle. Everything was ordinary. Everything was exactly as it always had been.
That normalcy was its own kind of pain.
Where is he?
She knew — regardless of Rana's attitude, regardless of his stubborn exterior, he never disappeared without telling her. That had been their agreement since the beginning, since the day they had both arrived in this house. We tell each other. Always.
There had to be a reason.
But what reason was large enough to silence a phone?
Sometimes — only sometimes — Riya felt something she could not explain. A faint sensation, deep in her chest. As though something inside her was shifting — quietly, inexplicably, without her permission. Today it was stronger than it had ever been. As though something far away was pulling at her. Or she was being pulled toward it.
She pressed her hand against her chest.
Her heartbeat was normal.
But the feeling was not.
"Bro..." she whispered — barely audible, barely a word at all.
It went nowhere. Dissolved into the still air of the room.
From elsewhere in the house, her mother's voice reached her. "Riya, come inside."
She looked once more at the road below. Then upward — at the sky. A memory arrived without warning — the two of them, sitting on the rooftop late at night, Rana beside her, looking up at the same sky.
"Feels like the sky is hiding a story," he had said.
"Jahan bhi ho bhai..." she whispered — so quietly it was almost not a sound at all.
"...come back."
Her eyes held tears. She did not allow them to fall.
She stepped away from the window and walked out of the room.
And the silence of the house returned — that specific silence that only exists when someone is missing.
On the other side, Rana was moving through the broken surface of Zyphoros.
His steps were steady. But his mind was not.
The scanner denied access before.
Why?
I am Zaneath's son. The same bloodline. So why was the door closed?
A new question with every step.
Perhaps the body wasn't ready then. Perhaps the weapon was dormant. Perhaps the scanner doesn't measure only bloodline — perhaps it measures something more. Something that wasn't present before... and is present now.
The smog was thick. The gun was firm in his grip. Beneath every footstep, broken metal crunched against the silence.
Rana reached the building.
But he was not alone.
Someone else was inside — waiting.
Someone Rana had never encountered before. Someone about whom Rana knew absolutely nothing. Someone who had never once been mentioned in the story Rana believed he understood.
Someone whose entire existence was unknown to him.
And yet — this person knew Rana.
Completely. Intimately. Without question.
As though they had watched him for years. As though they held knowledge of every experience Rana had never shared with another soul. As though they were woven into the very fabric of Rana's story — present in every chapter, every moment, every decision.
Except that Rana's memory held no place for them.
None at all