It all began in a time when peace was a forgotten luxury.
The kingdoms lay in ruin. The soil was dry with drought, and the rivers no longer sang to the trees. Warlords feasted while the common folk starved. Even the gods had grown silent—watching, perhaps, or abandoning the world altogether.
Amid this chaos lived a nameless boy.
He wandered from village to village, not seeking food, but answers. His eyes were unlike those of a child. They held questions older than his bones. The elders whispered that he had no past—no memories, no family. Only strange dreams of celestial wars, voices in languages older than Sanskrit, and a name that echoed through his soul:
"Will."
One day, while walking through a blood-soaked battlefield long after the war had passed, he came upon a man—half-dead, body pierced by weapons that should've killed him a hundred times.
The man lay against a broken statue of a forgotten deity. His skin was pale, veins dark, eyes glowing faintly gold.
The boy approached him cautiously.
"You still breathe," the boy said.
The man opened one eye.
"I do more than that," he rasped. "I remember."
The boy sat beside him.
"What's your name?"
The man chuckled, then coughed blood.
"Ashwathama," he said. "Cursed to never die. Blessed to witness the fall of ages."
The boy blinked.
That name rang through the deepest parts of his soul. A name from ancient scriptures. A warrior who fought in the Mahabharata. One who defied fate.
And yet… he was real.
Ashwathama looked at the boy and narrowed his gaze. "You're not just a child, are you? I've seen your face before… in prophecies. In fire. In fear."
The wind shifted. The sky above grew darker.
Ashwathama gritted his teeth, placing a hand on the ground. "The world does not remember you. But the gods do."
The earth trembled slightly as if something beneath stirred.
"Who am I?" the boy whispered.
Ashwathama's eyes glowed.
"You are the one who was erased from time. The one born from the Will of Creation itself. You are the Forgotten One."