The days that followed were strange.
Not the strange of another world. Not the strange of floating people and two suns and a tower that touched the sky. A different strange. A soft strange. The strange of waking up and not feeling the weight.
Veda opened his eyes each morning to the smell of his mother's cooking. He sat at the table with his father, listening to him read newspaper headlines about corrupted souls and Tower expeditions. He went to college. He sat through classes. He ate lunch alone in the corner of the cafeteria, ignoring the whispers and the pointing fingers.
And slowly, something began to thaw.
He laughed at his father's terrible jokes. Not the fake laugh he had worn for strangers. A real laugh. Small at first, then fuller. His father's eyes would light up every time, as if he had won a prize.
He helped his mother in the kitchen. Cut vegetables. Stirred pots. Listened to her hum old songs. Sometimes he hummed along, and she would stop and look at him with tears in her eyes, and she would say nothing, just touch his cheek.
He was forty four years old in a nineteen year old body. He had killed a thousand men. He had watched his wife burn on a riverbank. He had jumped off a rooftop and landed in another universe.
And here, in this small house in Bhubaneswar, with these two people who loved him, he felt something he had not felt in thirteen years.
Home.
Not the home of memory. Not the home of longing. A real home. Warm. Alive. Breathing.
The pain did not disappear. It never would. Gita's face still visited him in dreams. The sound of the flatline still echoed in his ears. The smell of the pyre still clung to his clothes some days, even though those clothes were gone, even though that world was gone.
But the pain had a roommate now.
Joy.
Small. Fragile. But there.
College was college.
Students still whispered. Veer still glared. The food incident had made Veda a laughing stock, the boy who stood like a statue while food dripped from his hair. But Veda did not care. He had stopped caring about what people thought a long time ago. In his old life, he had been called a hero and a monster and a ghost and a devil. None of those words had saved Gita. None of those words had brought his mother back.
So he sat in the back of the classroom and listened to lectures about soul energy and Asura stages. Sometimes he took notes. Sometimes he stared out the window at the Tower. Sometimes he slept.
Today was a sleeping day.
His head rested on his folded arms. His breathing was slow. The teacher's voice faded into a distant hum.
"Mr. Das!"
Veda did not move.
"MR. DAS!"
He jerked awake. blinked. The teacher stood over him, arms crossed, face tight with irritation.
"Since you find my lecture so boring, perhaps you would like to explain the difference between Stage Three and Stage Four Soul Monsters to the class?"
The students turned in their seats. Some grinned. Some whispered. A few laughed.
Veda looked at the teacher. Then at the board. Then at the laughing faces around him.
He did not know the answer. He had been asleep. He had been dreaming of something he could not remember.
"I don't know, sir," he said.
The teacher sighed. "Of course you don't. Stay awake or leave my class."
The students laughed again. Veda watched them. Their faces were young. Careless. They laughed because they did not know what real pain felt like. They laughed because they had never held a dying wife in their arms.
And Veda laughed too.
Not a bitter laugh. Not a sad laugh. A confused laugh. A laugh that said, I am in a classroom in another world and none of this matters and maybe that is okay.
The teacher stared at him. The students stared at him. Even Young Veda, floating near the ceiling, tilted his head.
Veda kept laughing. He could not stop. It was not funny. Nothing was funny. But the sound kept coming out of his mouth, soft and helpless, like a pressure valve releasing steam.
He covered his mouth with his hand. His shoulders shook.
The teacher turned back to the board. The students lost interest. The moment passed.
But Young Veda watched.
He watched the old man in a young body. The killer who had slaughtered a thousand souls. The Ghost of Death. Sitting in a classroom, laughing at nothing, sleeping through lectures, buying groceries for his parents.
He looked like a child.
He looked like a fool.
He looked like someone who had finally, after forty four years, learned how to be happy.
Young Veda said nothing. He just watched. And somewhere behind his ancient eyes, something shifted.
Three weeks passed.
Veda saved money from a small part time job at a bookshop near the college. Not much. Enough. His parents' wedding anniversary was coming up. Twenty Five years. Silver. He wanted to get them something special.
He walked through the market, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning every shop. Clothes. Watches. Jewelry. Nothing felt right.
He stopped in front of a small bakery. The window display was filled with cakes. Chocolate. Vanilla. Black forest. And there, in the center, a white strawberry cake.
The cream was pure white, smooth and soft, like clouds that had fallen to earth. Fresh strawberries sat on top, bright red against the white, their green stems like tiny crowns. The layers inside were visible through a small cut in the display: soft sponge, pink strawberry filling, more cream. It looked light enough to float. It looked sweet enough to heal wounds.
Veda stared at it.
Veda glanced at the empty air beside him. "Young Veda," he said quietly. "Help me. What should I buy?"
The ancient soul appeared beside him, floating, arms crossed.
"What should I buy?" Veda asked again.
Young Veda looked at the cake. Then at Veda. Then back at the cake.
"How about a cake?"
Veda blinked. "A cake? Why?"
Young Veda smiled. That cheerful, timeless smile.
"Because it is tasty. And everyone likes cake."
Veda remembered something. A small room in Puri. A little boy with empty stomach. His mother saying, Wait here, beta. Mama is going to buy you a big cake. He had wanted a white cake. The one made in white clouds.
He smiled.
"You are right."
He walked into the bakery. Bought the cake. The shopkeeper wrapped it in a white box with a silver ribbon. Veda held it in his hands like something precious.
He walked home. The two suns were setting. The sky was orange and pink and purple. Birds flew overhead in lazy circles. The cake box was warm against his fingers.
Young Veda floated behind him. Watching.
He spoke.
"A human life is a strange thing, child. When a person is given a second chance, they do not become a hero. They do not become a warrior. They become soft. They laugh at nothing. They buy cakes for their parents. They sleep in classrooms. They forget that the world is hungry."
Veda kept walking. He did not turn around.
"You have been given something rare. A new life. A new family. A new chance to be happy. And you have taken it. You have let yourself become human again. You have let yourself love again."
Young Veda looked at the sky. The clouds were turning red.
"But happiness never lasts long."
Veda stopped.
His head hurt.
A sharp pain. Behind his eyes. Inside his skull. Like someone had driven a nail into his brain.
He stumbled. The cake box slipped in his hands. He caught it. Held it to his chest.
And then he saw.
His mother. His father. Lying on the floor of their home. Blood everywhere. Their bodies broken. Their eyes open. Empty. Dead.
The walls were cracked. The furniture was shattered. The ceiling had collapsed in one corner. The smell of smoke and iron filled the air.
His mother's hand was reaching toward the door. Toward where he should have been.
His father's glasses were broken on the floor, one lens cracked, the other gone.
They had died waiting for him.
Veda gasped. The vision vanished. He was back on the street. The cake was still in his hands. The sky was still orange. But his heart was pounding like a drum.
"What... what was that?"
Young Veda floated in front of him. His face was calm. Too calm.
"We did not make a contract. But I am still connected to your soul. You just saw the future."
Veda's blood turned to ice.
"No."
Young Veda looks at Veda's face and notices the change.
"The wheel always turns, child. A person's life is like a cycle. It spins and spins, and you cannot stop it. It just happens."
The sky turned red.
Not the red of sunset. The red of blood. The red of warning.
A siren blared across the city. Loud. Piercing. Everywhere.
"AREA 16, PURI DISTRICT. LEVEL THREE ASURA APPEARANCE. ALL CITIZENS MUST EVACUATE TO SAFETY IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT. AREA 16, PURI DISTRICT. LEVEL THREE ASURA APPEARANCE. ALL CITIZENS MUST EVACUATE TO SAFETY IMMEDIATELY."
Veda looked at his phone. The news was already there. A red zone on the map. Area 16. Puri.
His home.
His parents.
"No..."
Young Veda floated beside him. "I told you, child. He is coming. The Heavenly Lord does not wait. He does not forgive. He sent this. To test you. To push you. To see what you would do."
Veda's hands shook. The cake box fell. It hit the ground and bounced. The white box opened. The cake slid out onto the dirty pavement, cream smearing, strawberries rolling into the gutter.
He did not look at it.
He ran.
His feet pounded the pavement. His lungs burned. People were running too, but in the opposite direction, toward shelters, toward safety. He ran against the current, pushing past families, dodging cars, jumping over barriers.
The buildings around him began to change. Metal shutters rolled down over shop windows. Large steel doors slid out of walls, sealing entrances. The ground opened in places, revealing staircases that led underground. People disappeared into them like ants into a nest.
A policeman grabbed his arm.
"Boy! The shelter is that way! You need to…"
Veda ripped his arm free. Did not stop. Did not look back.
"YOU CAN'T GO THAT WAY! THERE'S A BARRIER! YOU'LL DIE!"
Veda kept running.
Young Veda floated beside him, keeping pace effortlessly.
"You cannot do anything, child. Your body is weak. You cannot even enter that barrier. The energy field will shred you apart."
"I don't fucking care what you think!"
Veda's voice was raw. Desperate.
"I need to save my parents!"
Young Veda looked at him. For a long moment, his ancient face showed nothing. No smile. No judgment. Just stillness.
Then he spoke.
"I have a plan."
Veda's eyes flicked toward him.
"But if we do it, you might die."
"Contract?"
"No. A contract takes time. A place. Rituals. You do not have time."
Young Veda floated closer. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"I am going to give you a fraction of my power. Not a contract. A temporary bond. It will last thirty minutes. After that, your body will collapse. You may not wake up."
Veda did not hesitate.
"Do it."
Young Veda looked at him. Those gray eyes, ancient and deep, searched Veda's face.
"As you wish, child."
He moved forward. And entered Veda's body.
The pain was immediate.
Veda's eyes glowed. Light poured from his pupils, white and blinding. His mouth opened and the light came out of his throat, his chest, his fingertips. He screamed. The sound was not human. It tore through the street, echoing off the buildings, rising into the red sky.
Then the light faded.
Veda stood in the middle of the empty street.
His face had changed. The softness was gone. The laughter was gone. The confusion was gone.
There was no emotion. No fear. No anger. No hope.
Just cold. Just purpose. Just the stillness of something that had been forged in fire and never cooled down.
He looked at his hands. They were steady.
He looked at the distance. The barrier was visible now. A shimmering wall of red energy, crackling with lightning, cutting off Area 16 from the rest of the city. Beyond it, the sky was darker. Smoke rose from somewhere.
His parents were in there.
He bent his knees. Lowered his body. Hands touched the ground.
Then he ran.
The wind screamed. The pavement cracked under his feet. The buildings on either side blurred into streaks of gray and glass. The sound of his passage was a thunderclap, a sonic boom, a roar that shattered windows as he passed.
He ran like a rocket.
The barrier grew closer. Red energy crackled. Lightning arced across its surface. Any normal person who touched it would be vaporized. Turned to ash. Scattered to the wind.
Veda did not slow down.
He hit the barrier.
And passed through.
The energy screamed against his skin. His clothes burned. His hair stood on end. Pain exploded across his body like a thousand needles. But he kept moving. Kept running. Kept going.
He emerged on the other side.
The world was on fire.