It started with the dreams.
Aarav saw books burning. Monks in chains. Children born with no breath—not because they were dead, but because they had never been taught to breathe.
The world had forgotten.
One morning, deep in meditation, a voice whispered inside him—not heard, but known.
"Dig beneath the goddess."
He returned to the ruined temple. Dug with bare hands, fingernails bleeding, dirt caked in his palms. Hours passed. Then—a hollow thunk.
A wooden box, wrapped in dry cloth. Inside: scrolls.
Handwritten. Faded. Sacred.
Pages from the lost Dhanurveda. Instructions for stances. Sequences of movements. Mudras. Mantras. Even breathing maps tied to the lunar cycle.
He spent weeks decoding them by moonlight. His body moved through forgotten forms—stances of the bowman, the tiger, the still lake.
He crafted a training staff from an old neem branch. Practiced until his hands blistered and his arms wouldn't lift.
This was no longer about survival.
It was about remembering.
He didn't seek to become powerful. He sought to become right—to move in harmony with the world, not above it.
The villagers watched from a distance. One man muttered, "He fights nothing. Who trains with no enemy?"
Pagal Baba laughed. "The first enemy is the self. The second is forgetfulness. The third… comes soon."
And above them all, the false gods watched—and waited.