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The sun blazed overhead, its sharp rays bouncing off the unfinished steel and broken bricks of the construction site. Cement dust clung to Arjun's sweaty skin, and his arms ached from hours of digging and lifting. The foreman's yelling echoed in the background, but Arjun barely heard it anymore. It had become white noise—just part of the rhythm of surviving.
He was only 26, but the dreams that once filled his eyes felt distant—like a book he never got to finish. Now, he worked under the sun, among cracked helmets and rusted tools. His fingers, once made to flip through old manuscripts and ancient texts, now gripped a shovel.
Arjun dug into the hard earth again, his breath heavy. Then—thunk—the shovel hit something. Not stone. Not brick. Something... odd. Smooth.
He crouched down, brushing away the dirt with calloused fingers. It was a mirror, oval in shape, half-buried and strangely intact. The frame was worn, carved with patterns so intricate it didn't look like anything modern. It was enchanting, almost humming with a silence that demanded attention.
The glass wasn't clear—it shimmered with a strange depth, like it was staring back at him. As Arjun looked into it, he froze.
Not because he saw his face. But because for a second… he didn't.
He saw a glimpse of something else—a battlefield? Men screaming? A soldier with blood on his face holding something glowing?
It lasted only a second, maybe even less.
Arjun blinked. "What the hell…" he whispered.
Before he could process more, the mirror cracked—shattering in his hands.
"Aghh!" A sharp sting pierced his palm as shards of the ancient glass embedded in his skin. He hissed in pain, trying not to scream.
Blood began to drip onto the dry soil.
A few laborers nearby noticed and ran over. "Bhai! Kya hua?"
He shook his head. "Kuch nahi, bas kaanch chubh gaya…"
The manager came stomping over, clearly irritated. "Why are you bleeding now? Go get it cleaned and come back tomorrow. I'm not paying medical bills."
Arjun didn't argue. He wrapped his hand with a piece of cloth and quietly walked off the site.
---
The nearest clinic was a fifteen-minute walk away. The doctor, a middle-aged man with sleepy eyes, didn't say much as he began cleaning the wound. Arjun winced when the antiseptic hit.
Then he noticed something odd.
The mirror shard that had gone in the deepest—it was gone.
"Did you remove the biggest piece already?" he asked the doctor.
The man looked confused. "There was nothing embedded, just cuts. Maybe it fell out?"
Arjun stared at his hand. That wasn't possible. He felt it. It pierced him. His heart beat a little faster, but he shook it off. Maybe he was just exhausted. Too much sun, too much dust. Maybe that mirror wasn't real at all. Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him.
He left the clinic, his hand bandaged, still throbbing, but the pain seemed distant now—like his thoughts were louder.
---
By the time Arjun got to the bus stop, the sun was already beginning to sink. The construction site was far, on the outskirts of Mumbai. But it paid a little better than the others—enough to keep the lights on, buy a few vegetables, and maybe even surprise his little sister with sweets.
He bought a small box of jalebi from a roadside shop. It wasn't much, but Anu, his 12-year-old sister, loved jalebi.
He finally reached home an hour later. Their house was small—one bedroom, a kitchen the size of a closet, and a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. But it was theirs. Somehow, it still felt like home.
Anu's eyes lit up the moment she saw the sweet box in his hands. "Jalebi!" she squealed, hugging him before he could even sit down.
That hug, that innocent joy—it erased the dust, the pain, the ache in his hands and shoulders. It reminded him why he kept going.
Their mother was in the kitchen, slowly chopping vegetables. She smiled faintly at the sound of Anu's laughter, but her eyes—once full of life—still looked lost. Since Arjun's father had passed away, she had been a shell of herself. Silent. Heavy-hearted.
Arjun greeted her softly, placing a hand on her shoulder as he passed. She nodded but didn't say anything.
He sat down on the floor next to Anu, watching her devour the jalebi, her feet swinging happily. "Slow down," he chuckled, "you'll get a sugar rush and start jumping on the bed again."
She giggled. "You'll chase me anyway."
Their bond was the anchor that kept the house from collapsing under grief.
---
As night fell and the fan creaked above them, Arjun lay awake on the thin mattress, his hand still aching.
He stared at the ceiling.
He remembered the mirror.
And for some reason, the image he'd seen wouldn't leave his mind. The battlefield, the man, the blood-soaked soil. It felt… real.
Suddenly, his mind wandered further back—to university days. To the large sandstone corridors of Shivaji National University, where he once walked with books in his hand and dreams in his eyes.
He had been one of the top archaeology students. Ever since he was a child, he was drawn to the past—to the stories buried under the earth. His father used to say, "You don't just read history, Arjun—you listen to it."
In Bharat—sorry, Maha Bharat—history wasn't just studied, it was revered. A country that never got divided. A land shaped by the blood of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, and countless others who fought with fire in their hearts and refused to let colonialism tear them apart. Their sacrifices weren't forgotten. In this version of the world, historians were heroes.
That's what Arjun wanted to be. A guardian of memory. A seeker of truth.
But dreams have a cost.
When his father—a postman who worked long hours to support the family—died suddenly of a heart attack, everything collapsed. His mother was struck by grief, barely able to function. His little sister was only 9 then. And Arjun… he was supposed to graduate the next year.
He dropped out.
Not because he wanted to.
But because no one else could step up.
Worse, the university held his documents until the remaining semester fee was paid—money he simply didn't have. And without those certificates, he couldn't apply to proper jobs.
So he took what he could get. And the construction site, risky as it was, paid enough to survive.
He sighed. "Not every story has a happy ending," he whispered to himself.
But deep inside… something stirred.
That mirror. That battlefield. That second of impossible memory.
Was it just a hallucination?
Or… was history calling him back?
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End of Chapter 1
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