Kalinaya: Blood of the Forgotten Gods

"Some mirrors don't show truth. They show what you fear to become."

Khushi was playing by the courtyard wall, drawing with charcoal.

She liked to sketch people — Mira fixing wires, Rishav stirring pots, Ankita watching from above. But today, she drew Yash.

White hair. Empty eyes. The Ash-Bearer.

A man stood beside him in the sketch. Same face. But… red eyes. Cracks on his skin. Like he was made of broken glass.

She didn't notice it at first.

Inside, Mira sat upright in bed. Pale, twitching fingers still gripped the fabric of her cot.

She hadn't slept. Not really.

Visions of the mark still echoed in her mind — and one word kept repeating in her internal HUD: "REPLICA."

"It's not just a mark," she whispered.

"It's… a gate."

Yash had sealed off the hollow chamber, covered it with stone and symbols. But the energy hadn't stopped. At night, the walls seemed to hum — faintly, but enough to drive a sensitive mind into madness.

And one of the children — the quiet boy named Neel — had started behaving… oddly.

Neel was 11. Orphaned during the Collapse. Never spoke much.

But today, he walked like Yash.

Tilted his head like Yash.

Even wore his scarf like him — even though no one had seen him take it.

At first, Rishav laughed it off."He's just idolizing the guy. We all do."

Until Neel stood at the fire pit and whispered,

"Time is a wound… and I remember bleeding."

Words Yash had once spoken — but never aloud.

Later that night, Mira checked the logs on her Vira scanner.

It pinged Yash's divine aura — but showed two locations.

One on the roof.

One inside the children's dorm.

Her breath froze.

She ran.

Neel stood by the broken mirror in the washroom.

His eyes were not blue anymore. They were turning white.Like ash.

And on his back, faint but spreading, was a divine mark — not granted, but copied.

Yash entered slowly. Sword sheathed. Voice low.

"You're not Neel."

The boy smiled. And it wasn't a child's smile.

"I'm what you'd become… if you stopped pretending to care."

The fight wasn't physical.

It was spiritual.

Yash reached for his power — but the mark on Neel's back surged. For a second, Yash's own vision split — he saw himself from outside, cold and brutal, his hands stained with fire.

He blinked. Sweat on his brow.

Neel was gone.

Only the mirror remained — cracked, but showing two Yash's reflected at once.

One white-eyed.

One blood-red.