The streets smelled of dust and diesel.Morning had barely begun, but the world was already rushing—vendors shouting, rickshaws honking, children dragging worn-out school bags through puddles.
Ishaan walked silently, each step a reminder of how fragile his new body was.His school uniform was wrinkled and one size too big, the shoes unevenly stitched.But it wasn't the clothes that bothered him.
It was the way people looked at him.Pity.Dismissal.Like he was invisible. Or worse—irrelevant.
He reached the school gate just as the bell rang.The building was old, its paint faded. A large banyan tree swayed in the corner of the ground, its roots more alive than the people who walked past it.
As he entered the classroom, whispers began.
"Sick boy's back.""Ishaan the ghost.""Why does he even come? Just drop out."
He recognized none of these kids. But they all seemed to know him.
He kept his head low, walked to the last bench, and sat.
The teacher entered—a young man in his thirties. Strict. Sharp.
"Ishaan," he said after roll call, narrowing his eyes. "You've missed six days this month."
"I was—" Ishaan began.
"Sick. As always," the teacher cut him off. "Excuses don't build futures. Discipline does."
The class snickered.Something in him stirred—a flicker of the man who once ran a billion-dollar empire, who had boardrooms clapping at his every word.
But now… he said nothing.
An hour later, during recess, it happened.
He was sitting alone, eating the plain roti his mother had packed—no vegetables, no sides—just dry bread and a pinch of salt.That's when a boy walked past and deliberately knocked the food from his hand.
"Oops," the boy said. "You can pick it up from the floor. It's not like you've ever tasted food above ground level anyway."
The group behind him laughed.
Aarav's hands trembled—not from fear, but something deeper.Not again… not this silence… not this powerlessness…
In his previous life, people bowed when he entered a room. Now, they kicked his food.
He clenched his fist. His heart pounded.And suddenly—
A memory flashed.A long dining table. Him eating alone in silence while maids served. No laughter. No company.Only a birthday cake delivered by email confirmation.He had everything. And nothing.
His breath hitched.
Someone threw a pencil at him."Don't cry, sick boy."
He wasn't crying.He was remembering.
"I died richer than kings, but emptier than beggars… and now I'm being treated like one."
Aarav—Ishaan—stood up slowly.No anger. No fight. Just… a strange calm.
He picked up the fallen roti, brushed off the dust, and sat back down.
And for the first time in this new life, he whispered something to himself—not in pain, not in shame, but in quiet promise.
"You'll laugh now.But someday, you'll bow to the boy you mocked.Because I am not just Ishaan.I'm a man who has died once.And I won't waste this second life proving it to you…I'll prove it to myself."