---16 April 2021 — 2:55 AM
Broken Shrine, Jungle Outskirts, Ujjain
The jungle wind hissed through the trees like a restless ghost. Far behind him, the carcass of the predator he'd burned was already nothing but a memory — ash scattered by the rain that hadn't come yet.
Aadiv dragged his feet through the broken shrine's mouth. His palms were raw. His shirt stuck to his chest, soaked in sweat and blood. The ember in his hand pulsed quietly, like a second heartbeat he hadn't asked for.
He dropped to his knees at the center of the shrine — a half-buried circle of old runes, faintly glowing under layers of moss and soil. His breaths scraped his ribs, every exhale tasting of copper and smoke.
---He pressed a trembling hand to the floor. A spark danced up his wrist, weaving golden threads under his skin — the void tried to coil around it like a hungry snake, but the flame hissed and bit back.
> Aadiv (voice ragged):
"You... you're not done yet, are you?"
His eyes slipped closed. Behind his eyelids, the shadows came — illusions flickering like dying candlelight. He saw the predator's eyes again. Then his sister's smile. Then blood on the shrine walls that wasn't really there.
He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to let the flame consume all of it at once — to drown every ghost in ash.
---It came like a stone dropped into a silent pond — deep, ancient, so heavy it pressed against his ribs like a father's hand.
A voice — impossibly calm, but raw with power that didn't belong in any human throat. It echoed in the cracks of the shrine walls, in the slow beat of his heart.
---
> The Voice (echo, like a god murmuring through stone):
"Little flame… the predator was only the first meal. Grief feeds you. But grief alone will break you."
Aadiv's head snapped up. His eyes flew open — the runes on the floor pulsed brighter. His breathing turned shallow, his teeth grinding so hard they hurt.
> Aadiv (a rasp, raw with rage and disbelief):
"Who… who the hell are you?!"
---The wind outside stilled. Even the jungle insects fell silent — as if the whole forest was listening to the boy kneeling in the dirt.
---
> The Voice (warm, yet thunderous):
"I am your wound. Your fire. Your chain and your blade. My son, do not flinch from the bite — feed it. Shape it."
---Aadiv staggered back, pressing his burnt palm to his chest. He felt the ember flare — a warmth that licked at his bones but didn't destroy them. Not yet.
> Aadiv (voice trembling):
"Don't call me that. Don't… you dare call me—"
---But the Voice didn't answer him this time — not directly. It breathed through the shrine stones, rattling ancient runes that hadn't glowed in decades.
Behind his eyes, Aadiv saw flickers: visions of mountains cracked by lightning, rivers turned gold by fire, illusions of cities burning and rebuilding in the same breath.
---
> The Voice (like a father's whisper at the end of the world):
"The world will break its teeth on your flame. But first — you must break the chains that bind it."
---He fell forward, hands braced against the cold stone. The ember didn't flicker out — it pulsed brighter, casting a faint glow across the crumbling shrine walls.
He could feel it now: a door inside him, just barely cracked open. The predator's fear still clung to his bones, feeding the flame like dry tinder. But the voice told him — promised him — that there was more to burn.
---He forced himself up onto shaking legs. His reflection swirled on a puddle of rainwater pooled in a broken stone hollow — eyes ringed with gold, skin cut and bruised, but something alive flickered behind the exhaustion.
> Aadiv (quiet, but every word was iron):
"Fine. You want my rage? You want my grief? Take it.
But when this world kneels to this flame — it won't be you holding the chain.
It'll be me."
He pressed his palm into the old runes again — the golden flame hissed as the void shadows curled away. Somewhere beneath him, the Eclipse Chamber's veins pulsed, hungry yet waiting.
The Voice fell silent. But Aadiv knew it was still there — in his bones, in every ember that would one day devour the illusions that ruled this city.
---Outside, the first drop of rain hissed into the shrine's cracked stone. The Ash-Born's flame flickered — not as a spark, but as a promise.
---