Time had stopped moving.
Aryan didn't know how long he'd been here. Hours? Days? Weeks? The passage of time was irrelevant in this place—if it even passed at all. The grey sands stretched endlessly in every direction, frozen under a cold sky of fractured clocks and unmoving stars. Even his own heartbeat seemed quieter now, as if afraid to break the silence that ruled this realm.
The trial had no beginning, no end—only stillness. And in the stillness, the mind screamed.
He had walked for what felt like an eternity and found nothing. No voices. No paths. Not even the Watcher.
Just... himself.
At first, Aryan tried to stay strong.
He recited anime quotes under his breath. He sang songs. He even joked aloud like he did back home with Amit and Ritesh.
But slowly, even his voice began to feel foreign.
Time became a cage. And the silence was the warden.
It didn't take long for thoughts to turn dark. He began doubting everything.
Was any of this real?
Had he imagined Echo? The Watcher?
Had he simply gone mad and was now lying unconscious in a hospital bed while his real parents stood crying beside him?
Real parents...
The thought hurt more than it should have.
Aryan sank to his knees in the middle of the grey wasteland, fingers digging into the cool sand that didn't shift or fall. "I'm not ready for this," he whispered. "Why me?"
And then, as if the realm had been waiting for the question...
The illusion began.
A flicker in the distance.
Aryan stood up, squinting. Someone was walking toward him. The figure grew clearer with each step—slim, young, wearing the same college hoodie Aryan wore.
His own face.
It was him.
But this version of Aryan walked with confidence. Shoulders straight, glasses gleaming. Power radiated from his body like he belonged in this world.
"What is this?" Aryan asked.
"You," said the echo, "as you could be. If you weren't afraid of being more."
"I'm not afraid."
The double laughed. "You lie to your parents. You lie to your friends. You hide behind jokes. You pretend to be normal when you're not. You think a clock tattoo makes you chosen?"
Aryan took a step back. "I didn't ask for this."
"No," said the shadow. "But you were given it. And now Time wants to know: what will you do with it?"
Then the world cracked.
The grey sands shattered like glass, and Aryan fell through the sky—plummeting into a space that wasn't space.
He landed in a distorted version of his own life—home, college, city—all stitched together like a fever dream. Hallways curved in impossible directions. Time bent at angles that made his eyes ache.
He found himself in his living room. But it was not same room as before every thing was different his parents photo frame was in the ground there was also some bloods on the wall and in the table in middle of house there was a note when Aryan read it saya
" I am sorry mother and father " nothing else other than that then ,
. Aryan hurriedly open the door of his house and run outside to see if there is anyone whom he could ask where his parents but the scene he saw in front of him shock him to his spine
"the world was destroyed everything around him destroyed people were running , aircrafts were flying above him but these were designs that he had never saw and some creature attacking the people and when he saw in the sky there was very giant ship above him . the ship was larger than his whole planet and it was roaming around it and then he saw a squad or a army whatever they were among millions and line up like they are going on a battle and thousand of them were in the air floating and just they were about to move the fragment of memory ended "
*
A sob rose in Aryan's throat. He didn't remember writing it. But it felt real.
Voices echoed from the corners—his friends laughing, crying, blaming him. Professors shaking their heads. His father calling him Beta (son), disappointed.
The rooms warped as he ran. The corridors grew longer. Doors melted into walls.
He was trapped in a looping nightmare.
Then the Mirror Room appeared.
Twelve mirrors stood in a circle. Each reflected a different Aryan.
One where he was a hero. One where he was a villain. One where he was dead. One where he never received the Law.
Each image mocked him.
"You can't even decide who you are," said the reflections in unison.
"I'm trying!" he screamed.
The mirrors cracked.
And from their shards, shadowy creatures emerged—versions of him twisted by regret, fear, arrogance, and despair.
He fought them. Not with power—he had none to summon—but with will.
He took the hits. He staggered. He bled.
But he stood.
When the last shadow fell, the world froze again.
The Watcher descended like a ghost through the fractured ceiling of the sky.
"You have faced the Hour Within," it said. "And seen your soul fractured by choice, by fear, by identity. Still, you walked through it."
Aryan collapsed, panting, every muscle burning.
"Is this enough?"
"No," the Watcher said. "But it is a beginning. You now hold a moment of time within yourself. Not as a weapon. But as truth."
The tattoo on Aryan's hand shimmered—no longer a static clock.
Now, its second hand ticked once.
The sands stirred. The stars shifted.
"Stillness was never about peace," the Watcher said. "It was the silence before the storm. The storm begins with your next step."
The Watcher vanished.
Aryan stood alone once more.
And he smiled, though tears ran freely down his face.
And time… time moves again.
To Be Continued...