Chapter 5: The First Encounter

The city of Kashi had always lived in two worlds at once. On the surface, it was a place of temples, rituals, and unbroken traditions. Yet beneath the chants and ceremonies lay something older, stranger—threads of history and destiny woven too tightly to separate.

Aarav walked along the ghats, still shaken from the meeting with the Anant Vrat. The night breeze carried the scent of the river and smoke from a hundred burning lamps. His hand never left the scroll tucked safely in his satchel. He kept replaying the leader’s words in his mind: “Because she has already found you.”

Mihika.

The name had haunted his dreams, and now it burned on his tongue like a prayer he didn’t understand. He felt her presence before he saw her, as though the air itself bent to acknowledge her arrival.

And then, there she was.

Standing near the steps of the Manikarnika ghat, her white dupatta fluttering in the river breeze, Mihika seemed both impossibly real and impossibly distant. She was dressed simply, in a pale blue kurta, but the faint glow of the diyas reflected in her eyes made her seem otherworldly. Aarav froze, breath caught in his chest, as if seeing someone he had known forever yet never met.

She turned, as though sensing his gaze. Their eyes met, and in that instant, the world collapsed into silence. The hum of prayers, the crash of the river, even his own heartbeat—all faded. Time itself seemed to pause.

Mihika tilted her head slightly, a soft smile brushing her lips. “You’re late.”

The words startled him. “Late? Do… do we know each other?”

Her smile deepened, tinged with something unreadable—sadness, perhaps, or recognition. “We always do. Every time.”

Aarav blinked, unsure whether to laugh or run. “I think you have me confused with someone else,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction.

Mihika stepped closer. The distance between them shrank until he could see the fine silver pendant resting against her collarbone—a circular design, eerily similar to the symbol etched on the scroll. “No, Aarav,” she said softly. “I could never mistake you. Not in this life. Not in any life.”

His breath caught. “How do you know my name?”

“I’ve known it longer than you’ve known yourself,” she replied. Her voice carried the calm of someone who had lived this moment before. “I’ve waited for you to find me again.”

A chill ran down his spine. This was no ordinary meeting. Every instinct screamed that this woman was tied to the prophecy, to the scroll, to everything he didn’t yet understand.

“You’re part of this, aren’t you?” he asked. “The prophecy… the wheel… the Anant Vrat spoke about you.”

Her expression hardened at the mention of the society. “Stay away from them. They twist the truth. They believe the wheel exists only to control time. But it was never meant for that.”

“Then what was it meant for?”

Mihika looked toward the river, as though the flowing waters might answer for her. “The Kalachakra isn’t a weapon. It’s a rhythm. A cycle that connects every soul, every age. It binds us, Aarav. It brings us back, again and again, until we learn what we must.”

Her words felt like fragments of a forgotten language. He wanted to dismiss them as superstition, yet standing before her, he knew. He had seen her in dreams too vivid to ignore. He had felt the bond long before this night.

“You’re saying we’ve met before? In another life?” he whispered.

Mihika met his gaze again, her eyes luminous in the lamplight. “Do you doubt it? Haven’t you felt it already—that pull, that recognition you can’t explain?”

He swallowed hard, unable to speak. The answer was yes. Every cell in his body screamed yes.

She reached out, fingers brushing his arm, and the touch sent a current racing through him. For a heartbeat, flashes of other times flooded his mind—a battlefield where they stood back to back, a forest where they ran hand in hand, a palace where she wore a crown of gold and wept as soldiers dragged him away. The visions were gone as quickly as they came, leaving him gasping.

Mihika didn’t flinch. “You see it, don’t you? The wheel shows us pieces. But it’s never whole until the end.”

Aarav pulled back slightly, overwhelmed. “Why me? Why us? I’m not a warrior or a sage. I’m just a historian. I don’t know how to… to carry something this big.”

Mihika’s voice softened. “Because history is not just about the past. It is about remembering what was forgotten. You carry memory, Aarav. That’s your gift. You keep the wheel from breaking.”

For a moment, they stood in silence, the river whispering its eternal hymns around them. Yet even in this fragile calm, Aarav felt the storm gathering.

“They said if I refuse, you’ll suffer,” he admitted, his voice cracking.

Mihika’s eyes darkened, but she didn’t look surprised. “They’ll try to use me against you. They always do. That’s why you must not give them the scroll. Promise me, Aarav. No matter what happens, you keep it safe.”

His chest tightened. “But if it puts you in danger—”

She stepped closer, her hand gently pressing against his heart. “It already has. But this isn’t just about us. It never was. If the wheel falls into the wrong hands, the Yugas themselves will collapse. Past and future will bleed until there is nothing left. Do you understand?”

He nodded slowly, though fear gnawed at him.

A sudden gust of wind swept across the ghat, extinguishing several lamps. The shadows seemed to stretch unnaturally, curling toward them. Aarav felt it instantly—the same suffocating presence he had sensed at the abandoned temple.

“They’re here,” Mihika whispered, her grip tightening on his arm.

Three cloaked figures emerged from the darkness, their glowing eyes fixed on the pair. The Anant Vrat.

The leader’s voice rolled across the stones. “And so, the wheel reunites its broken halves. Fitting. But do you think love will save you, Aarav? Love is the oldest chain. And chains can be broken.”

Mihika stepped in front of Aarav, defiance blazing in her eyes. “You will not take him.”

The leader raised his hand, and the air shimmered with unseen energy. The scroll in Aarav’s satchel pulsed violently, as though reacting to the threat.

Aarav’s instincts screamed to run, but his feet stayed rooted, locked by both terror and the undeniable need to protect Mihika.

For the first time, he realized the truth: he wasn’t just holding history in his hands. He was holding the future.

And the wheel of time was already turning.

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