The Mirror
Sunday, June 6
9:30 A.M.
New Delhi Railway Station, India
The morning rush at New Delhi Railway Station surged with its familiar disorder.
The shrill screech of steel wheels echoed through the station as trains arrived and departed. Platform announcements crackled endlessly over the loudspeakers, struggling to rise above the calls of porters weaving through the crowd with overloaded carts. Conversations overlapped, footsteps thundered across the platforms, and the station pulsed with the restless energy of thousands of lives moving at once.
It felt as though an entire city had awakened in a single breath.
Amid the relentless noise, a long-distance express train slowly rolled into the platform before coming to a smooth halt.
The doors opened.
Within moments, passengers flooded onto the platform like a river breaking through a dam. Families rushed into emotional reunions, businessmen hurried toward the station exit with briefcases in hand, while exhausted travelers wrestled bulky luggage through the dense crowd. Every face reflected purpose. Every hurried step belonged to someone chasing a destination.
Yet among the countless travelers was one man whose journey seemed to lead toward something far greater than a destination.
It was as though he had spent a lifetime racing toward an invisible finish line—one hidden somewhere beyond the boundaries of time itself.
He appeared to be around sixty years old. His simple white kurta and dhoti gave him the appearance of an ordinary village elder, someone who could easily disappear into the crowd without attracting the slightest attention. His hair had turned completely silver, neatly combed despite the long journey, while the fine lines etched across his face spoke of decades shaped by hardship and endurance.
But it was his eyes that refused to belong to an ordinary man.
Behind them rested the quiet weight of experience, the burden of memories too dangerous to share, and secrets that had remained buried for years. They were the eyes of someone who had witnessed extraordinary events—and survived them.
Anyone who spared him only a passing glance would see nothing more than another elderly traveler arriving in the capital.
But anyone who looked twice would notice something impossible to ignore.
Beneath his calm expression lingered an unmistakable tension.
It was subtle.
Silent.
Yet powerful enough to suggest that every passing second mattered.
Clutched firmly in his right hand was an old iron briefcase.
Time had shown it no mercy.
Rust had spread across its weathered surface. Layers of dust had settled into every corner. The metal edges were chipped, scarred, and worn from decades of use, while the leather handle had grown smooth with age. To anyone else, it looked like nothing more than a worthless piece of scrap—an object destined to be forgotten in a junkyard.
No one would have imagined that it held anything of value.
And that was precisely what made it so dangerous.
For the old man, the battered briefcase was worth far more than money.
It was worth more than his possessions.
More than his future.
Perhaps...
...more than his life itself.
His fingers gripped the worn handle with such unwavering strength that the veins beneath his skin stood out sharply. It was as if he feared that loosening his grip—even for a single heartbeat—would not merely cost him the briefcase.
It would cost him everything.
Because hidden inside that rusted box was a secret capable of changing far more than one man's destiny.
It was a secret that had survived the passage of time itself.
His gaze kept drifting back to the briefcase.
Once.
Then again.
And then a third time.
It was almost as though he couldn't believe it was still there—still safe in his grasp.
Tiny beads of perspiration shimmered across his forehead despite the cool morning air. His breathing had grown noticeably heavier, and his eyes swept constantly across the crowd, studying one unfamiliar face after another.
Not with curiosity.
With suspicion.
Every stranger seemed like a potential threat.
He avoided eye contact.
He spoke to no one.
Most importantly, he never allowed the briefcase to leave his side—not even for a single moment.
It remained pressed tightly against him, as though the fragile-looking piece of rusted metal contained something far more precious than wealth.
Something worth dying for.
The fear etched across the old man's face was not the fear of being robbed.
Nor was it the fear of losing a valuable possession.
It was something far deeper.
Far older.
It was the fear that if the object inside the briefcase ever fell into the wrong hands, the consequences would reach far beyond the fate of a single man.
An ancient secret—one that had remained hidden from the world for centuries—would finally be exposed.
Slowly, he lifted his eyes toward the enormous station clock suspended high above the platform.
9:31 A.M.
For a fleeting instant, the anxiety in his eyes deepened.
He had already lost a minute.
Without another thought, he tightened his grip on the briefcase and quickened his pace, disappearing into the endless stream of passengers.
He had to reach a particular place.
No matter the cost.
Because he understood a truth that very few ever did.
Some secrets cannot survive beyond their appointed time.
And some objects...
Choose their true owner only when time itself decides. the old man tightened his grip around the briefcase until his knuckles turned pale.
Without slowing down, he headed toward the station's main exit, his pace growing quicker with every step. His eyes moved constantly, scanning the crowd with quiet precision, as though he could already sense an unseen danger closing in.
Moments later, he emerged through the massive entrance of New Delhi Railway Station.
Outside, the city was alive.
Long queues of yellow-and-black taxis stretched along the curb. Auto-rickshaw drivers called out to arriving passengers, each competing for attention. Car horns blared without pause as buses, motorcycles, and pedestrians fought for every inch of the crowded streets. Warm winds carried dust through the air, wrapping the capital in its familiar haze.
It was a city that never truly slowed down.
Among the chaos, near a modest roadside tea stall, stood a young man watching the crowd with remarkable patience.
His name was Nandu.
In the backstreets of Delhi, his name was well known.
Pickpocketing.
Chain snatching.
Bag theft.
Street robberies.
His criminal record stretched across numerous police stations throughout the city. More than once, he had slipped through the hands of the police just when they believed they had finally cornered him.
He survived because he possessed a talent few criminals ever mastered.
Nandu didn't study people's clothes.
He studied people.
He could recognize fear before a word was spoken.
He noticed who was waiting for someone...
Who kept glancing over their shoulder...
Who guarded their belongings a little too carefully...
And who carried something so valuable that the fear of losing it was written plainly across their face.
Then he saw the old man.
His eyes followed him for a moment.
Then another.
A faint smile slowly appeared on his lips.
No one guards an ordinary briefcase like that, he thought.
Either it's filled with a fortune...
...or it contains something far more valuable than money.
A spark of greed flickered in his eyes.
Without drawing the slightest attention to himself, Nandu melted effortlessly into the crowd.
Maintaining a careful distance, he began following the old man.
Like a predator stalking unsuspecting prey.
Neither of them realized...
That this silent pursuit had already set into motion a chain of events from which there would be no turning back.
The old man had no idea that every step he took was now being watched.
One street.
Then another.
Gradually, the dense crowd outside the station began to thin.
This was the moment Nandu had been waiting for.
His pace quickened.
Within seconds, he had closed the distance between them.
The old man never heard him coming.
Then—
In one swift, lightning-fast movement, Nandu snatched the iron briefcase from the old man's hand.
It happened so quickly that the old man didn't even have time to react.
His fingers instinctively tightened around the handle...
But they closed on nothing but empty air.
The briefcase was gone.
"No...!"
The cry that burst from the old man's throat was raw with desperation.
the color drained from his face.
His eyes widened in absolute horror, as though he had just witnessed the worst catastrophe of his life.
Summoning every ounce of strength left in his aging body, he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Thief! Stop him! Somebody stop that thief!"
His desperate cries echoed through the busy street.
Pedestrians turned instinctively toward the commotion, startled by the urgency in his voice. Heads turned. Conversations stopped. For a brief moment, the world seemed to pause.
But Nandu was already running.
He cut through the crowd with practiced ease, slipping between pedestrians, weaving past street vendors, and vaulting around parked vehicles with the confidence of someone who had escaped this way many times before.
Ignoring his age, his exhaustion, and the burning pain in his legs, the old man ran after him.
He had no choice.
To everyone else, the rusted briefcase was nothing more than a worthless piece of scrap metal.
But to him...
It carried the weight of decades.
It was the final safeguard of a solemn promise.
The last shield protecting a secret so extraordinary that, if it ever fell into the wrong hands, it might alter the course of history itself.
As the old man's desperate shouts echoed behind him, Nandu risked a quick glance over his shoulder.
What he saw wasn't merely an old man chasing a stolen briefcase.
It was a man chasing the only thing that stood between the world...
...and a secret never meant to be uncovered.
The old man was still chasing him.
Nandu cursed under his breath.
If the old fool keeps following me, he thought, people will start paying attention. Once a crowd gathers, getting away will become impossible.
His expression hardened.
He pushed himself even faster.
But another thought had already taken root in his mind.
One way or another...
He had to get rid of the old man.
Without losing a second, Nandu clutched the iron briefcase tightly against his chest and sprinted toward the main road.
Ahead of him lay one of Delhi's busiest streets.
Traffic surged relentlessly in every direction.
Cars sped past bumper to bumper. Buses thundered through the lanes. Auto-rickshaws darted unpredictably between vehicles while motorcycles squeezed through impossibly narrow gaps. Massive trucks rumbled forward like steel giants, shaking the asphalt beneath their weight.
The road had become a raging river of metal.
For most people, crossing it at that moment would have been unthinkable.
For Nandu...
It was just another escape route.
Years of outrunning police officers, angry mobs, and rival thieves had taught him how to gamble with death.
Without slowing down—or even looking for an opening—he launched himself into the traffic.
A sedan screeched to a violent halt barely inches from him.
Its tires screamed against the asphalt.
An instant later, a speeding motorcycle shot past so close that its handlebar nearly clipped his shoulder.
Behind him, the deafening blast of a bus horn shook the air as the furious driver slammed on the brakes.
Chaos erupted across the road.
Drivers shouted from their windows.
Pedestrians froze in disbelief.
"What are you doing?"
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Has he lost his mind?"
The city erupted in a chorus of anger and panic.
But Nandu heard none of it.
His entire world had narrowed to a single objective.
He twisted between moving vehicles with astonishing agility, slipping through impossibly narrow gaps like a snake weaving through tall grass.
Every stride brought death within inches of him.
Every heartbeat was another gamble.
Yet he never hesitated.
He never looked back.
There was only one thing on his mind—
Escape.
He had only one objective.
To get away.
At any cost.
A few moments later, Nandu reached the opposite side of the road.
A wave of relief swept through him.
He drew a deep breath—but he didn't slow down.
Without hesitation, he veered toward a maze of narrow alleyways, determined to disappear before anyone could catch him.
Then—
A chorus of frantic voices erupted behind him.
"Call an ambulance!"
"Hurry! Someone, hurry!"
"Call the police!"
"Move back! Is he still breathing?"
The panic in their voices was impossible to ignore.
Almost instinctively, Nandu glanced over his shoulder while still running.
His eyes fixed on the middle of the road.
A large crowd had already begun to gather.
Traffic was grinding to a halt.
Cars stood motionless, their drivers stepping out to see what had happened. Some people struggled to push the crowd back, while others craned their necks, desperate for a glimpse of whatever lay at its center.
Within moments, the entire road had begun to clog with vehicles.
From where he stood, Nandu couldn't see through the wall of people.
But he didn't need to.
The answer came to him instantly.
The old man...
He must have been hit while trying to follow me.
For the first time since the chase had begun, something tightened inside his chest.
An unfamiliar feeling.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
Something dangerously close to guilt.
The old man's desperate cries echoed once more in his mind.
"Thief...! Stop him! Somebody stop that thief!"
The voice refused to leave him.
For a brief moment, Nandu's feet almost stopped moving.
Almost.
Then years of surviving on the streets buried that feeling as quickly as it had appeared.
Emotion was a luxury.
Getting caught meant prison.
Or worse.
He tightened his grip around the iron briefcase until his fingers ached.
If I go back now...
I'll be walking straight into the hands of the police.
And Nandu had survived for far too many years to make a mistake like that.
If I go back now, he told himself, I'll be arrested.
The decision was made.
Without another thought, Nandu turned his face away from the growing commotion.
He never looked back.
Holding the iron briefcase tightly against his chest, he disappeared into the maze of Delhi's narrow backstreets, vanishing into the city as though he had never been there at all.
He had no idea...
That the briefcase he believed contained nothing more than unimaginable wealth...
Was not the greatest theft of his life.
It was the first door to his destiny.
Behind him, the old man continued the chase with every ounce of strength left in his aging body.
His breathing had become ragged.
Each breath burned deep inside his lungs, and every heartbeat echoed painfully through his chest.
Yet he refused to stop.
Recovering the briefcase was no longer merely a necessity.
It had become the final purpose of his life.
He pushed through the crowd, his eyes fixed on only one thing—
Nandu...
And the weathered iron briefcase clutched beneath his arm.
Nothing else existed.
Nothing else mattered.
Consumed by desperation, he stepped onto the road without noticing the speeding truck bearing down on him.
The driver saw him at the last possible second.
His foot slammed onto the brakes.
The truck's tires shrieked violently across the asphalt, filling the air with the smell of burning rubber.
But fate had already made its choice.
It was too late.
CRASH!
The impact thundered through the street.
The old man's frail body was hurled several feet into the air before crashing onto the unforgiving pavement.
For a fleeting instant, his arms reached desperately toward the empty space before him—
As though, even in that final moment, he was still trying to reclaim the briefcase.
Then...
He fell.
Silence swept across the street.
Traffic came to a standstill.
Pedestrians froze in shock.
Within seconds, people rushed toward the motionless old man.
Someone dropped to their knees beside him.
Another reached for a phone with trembling hands.
"Call an ambulance!"
"Hurry!"
The ordinary rhythm of the city had been shattered in an instant.
No one present could have imagined...
That the man lying broken on the road had just sacrificed everything to protect a secret older than memory itself.
And no one knew...
That the briefcase disappearing into the streets of Delhi had already begun to change the fate of everyone it would touch.
Someone called the police.
Another dialed for an ambulance.
Several people knelt beside the old man, desperately searching for a pulse, hoping for even the faintest sign of life.
But fate had already delivered its verdict.
His eyes remained open...
Yet the light within them had faded forever.
His lips were parted ever so slightly, as though a final word had been left unfinished.
Perhaps he had been trying to warn someone.
Or perhaps, even in his final breath, he had been protecting a secret that was never meant to survive beyond him.
No one standing in that crowd realized what had truly been lost.
It was not merely the death of an elderly man.
The last guardian of a centuries-old secret had just taken his final breath.
Meanwhile...
Nandu continued running.
He crossed crowded marketplaces, slipped through bustling intersections, and vanished into an endless maze of narrow lanes until he reached a part of Delhi untouched by the city's glittering skyline.
This was a different world.
The roads were cracked and uneven.
Dilapidated houses leaned precariously against one another, their walls scarred by time. Open drains lined the streets, carrying stagnant water beneath tangled webs of electric cables that hung dangerously overhead.
Poverty was not merely visible here.
It had become part of the landscape.
This was the neighborhood where Nandu had been born.
Where he had learned to survive long before he had learned to dream.
At the very end of one of the narrow lanes, he finally stopped in front of a small house built from exposed bricks and covered with a rusted tin roof.
It wasn't much.
But it was home.
He cast one final, cautious glance over his shoulder.
The lane was empty.
No police.
No witnesses.
No one had followed him.
Satisfied, he pushed open the old wooden door, stepped inside, and slid the heavy bolt firmly into place.
Only then did he allow himself to breathe.
The room was dimly lit.
A broken wooden cot occupied one corner.
An old metal cupboard stood silently against the wall, its faded paint peeling away with age.
The air was still.
For the first time since the chase had begun...
Nandu was finally alone.
Alone...
With the mysterious iron briefcase that had already claimed one life—
And was about to change his forever.
In one corner stood a clay water pot.
The walls bore deep scars left behind by years of neglect, their cracked surfaces silently telling stories of hardship and survival.
Without wasting another second, Nandu placed the iron briefcase in the center of the room.
The fear that had driven him through the streets was gone.
Only greed remained.
His imagination raced wildly.
Gold bars...
Diamonds...
Smuggled treasures worth millions...
The possibilities seemed endless.
A greedy smile slowly spread across his face.
He pulled the battered briefcase closer and rested it on the floor before him.
His fingers trembled—not with fear, but with impatience.
He was moments away from uncovering the mystery for which an old man had willingly sacrificed his life.
Wrapping both hands around the rusted metal latches, Nandu pulled with all his strength, struggling against years of corrosion.
He had no idea...
That he was not opening an ordinary briefcase.
He was about to unlock the entrance to an ancient mystery—
One whose echoes had survived history...
Outlived legends...
And waited patiently beyond the reach of fate itself.
Silence settled over the room.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, children laughed as they played in the narrow lanes. Through the cracked window, shafts of afternoon sunlight filtered into the room, illuminating countless specks of dust drifting lazily through the still air.
Inside, however...
Everything felt unnaturally quiet.
Nandu's entire attention remained fixed on the weathered iron briefcase before him.
His heartbeat grew louder with every passing second.
He was convinced that a fortune beyond imagination lay hidden inside.
After all...
No man would surrender his life for an empty box.
Taking a slow breath, Nandu gripped the two rusted latches once more.
His fingers tightened.
With impatient determination...
He forced them open.
Creak...
The sharp groan of aged metal echoed through the silent room.
The lid of the iron briefcase rose slowly.
Nandu leaned forward, his pulse pounding with anticipation.
Then...
His expression froze.
The excitement vanished from his face as though it had never existed.
There was no gleam of gold.
No glittering diamonds.
No bundles of cash.
Nothing.
Inside the briefcase lay only a few old pieces of cloth, neatly folded and coated with years of dust.
Nandu stared at them in disbelief.
"That's it...?"
The words escaped his lips almost involuntarily.
His face twisted with frustration.
He grabbed the first cloth and flung it across the room.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Within moments, the floor was littered with faded, dust-covered fabric.
"No..."
He refused to believe it.
Dropping to his knees, he searched every inch of the briefcase with growing desperation.
He tore at the worn inner lining.
Pressed against the corners.
Tapped the metal base, listening for the hollow sound of a hidden compartment.
Nothing.
He searched again.
And then again.
His movements became increasingly frantic.
It simply made no sense.
No one would sacrifice his life...
For a handful of worthless old cloth.
"There has to be money..."
"There has to be something."
He muttered the words to himself as though repeating them might somehow make them true.
With mounting frustration, he turned the entire briefcase upside down.
Nothing fell out.
No secret compartment revealed itself.
No hidden treasure appeared.
Only the hollow shell of an old iron briefcase remained before him...
Accompanied by the stale, musty scent of time itself.
For the first time since stealing it...
Doubt crept into Nandu's mind.
Had he risked everything...
For nothing at all?
Disappointment quickly gave way to anger.
Nandu clenched his jaw.
"That old man got me chased across half the city..." he muttered bitterly.
"I risked my life... for this?"
Frustration boiled over.
With a furious shout, he grabbed the iron briefcase with both hands, lifted it above his shoulders, and hurled it across the room.
BANG!
The battered case slammed violently into the wall.
The impact echoed through the small house before the briefcase rebounded, spinning across the floor with a harsh metallic scrape.
Then—
Something slipped free.
A small object slid silently from a hidden gap inside the broken briefcase and came to rest on the floor.
Nandu's eyes locked onto it instantly.
It was wrapped carefully in a piece of deep crimson silk.
The fabric looked impossibly old.
Not merely years old...
Centuries.
Whoever had hidden it had done so with extraordinary care.
The spark of greed returned to Nandu's eyes.
A slow smile crept across his face.
"So..."
He stepped forward.
"This is where the real treasure was hidden."
He quickly picked up the crimson bundle.
It was surprisingly small.
Yet the moment he held it in his hands, he frowned.
It was far heavier than its size suggested.
He turned it over thoughtfully, feeling its unexpected weight.
For several silent moments, he simply stared at it.
Then, with growing anticipation, he began untying the ancient knot.
The silk unfolded slowly.
One careful layer after another.
Each fold seemed to carry the weight of forgotten centuries.
At last...
The final piece of crimson cloth slipped away.
Resting in his hands was an ancient mirror.
It looked less like an ordinary household object and more like an artifact that belonged in the treasury of a forgotten king...
Or behind the glass of a world-famous museum.
Its frame was unlike anything Nandu had ever seen.
It was certainly not carved from ordinary wood.
The frame had not been carved from ordinary wood.
It appeared to be fashioned from the dark heartwood of an exceptionally rare tree, its surface almost black with age. Every inch of it was covered in breathtakingly intricate carvings—work so delicate and precise that it seemed beyond the skill of any ordinary craftsman.
Twisting vines and curling leaves wound their way around the frame in elegant patterns.
Hidden among them were tiny engraved symbols.
At first glance, they appeared to be nothing more than decorative designs.
But the longer one looked...
The more they resembled the forgotten script of a civilization long erased from history.
The wood bore countless scars left by the passage of time.
Yet its craftsmanship had endured untouched, as though the hands that had carved it had only just laid down their tools.
Then there was the mirror itself.
It was... wrong.
Its surface was dull and clouded, veiled beneath countless hairline fractures that stretched across the glass like the web of an ancient spider.
It was almost as though time itself had devoured its reflection.
No light shimmered upon its surface.
No image appeared within it.
No reflection at all.
Nandu frowned.
"So much protection..."
"And all this for a broken mirror?"
A mocking laugh escaped his lips.
Holding it with both hands, he raised the mirror before his face.
He waited for his reflection to appear.
Nothing.
No eyes stared back at him.
No face.
No silhouette.
Only a dense, shadowy darkness seemed to exist beyond the cracked surface—as if the mirror contained not glass...
But an endless abyss.
A chill crept across his spine.
His smile faded.
Confused, Nandu tilted the mirror to the right.
Then to the left.
He lifted it toward the sunlight streaming through the broken window, hoping the light would reveal something hidden.
Nothing changed.
The darkness remained.
Silent.
Bottomless.
Watching.
To Nandu, it looked like nothing more than a worthless relic.
An old, damaged mirror that had somehow convinced an elderly man to sacrifice his life.
What he did not know...
Was that the mirror was not broken.
It had never been broken.
It revealed its true reflection only to those whom it willingly accepted.
And for centuries...
It had accepted no one.
For several long moments, Nandu turned the ancient mirror over in his hands, examining every inch of it.
His curiosity was rapidly giving way to disappointment.
"So much trouble..."
He scoffed.
"...for a piece of broken junk."
With a dismissive laugh, he lifted the mirror before his face once more.
He searched the clouded surface for his reflection.
Nothing.
The glass remained exactly as it had before—
Lifeless.
Opaque.
Its depths consumed by an endless darkness that refused to return even the faintest image.
He angled it toward the sunlight pouring through the cracked window.
Then tilted it again.
And again.
Different angles.
Different light.
The result never changed.
Not even the outline of his own face appeared upon its surface.
"There must be years of dirt on it..."
The thought seemed perfectly reasonable.
Without giving it another moment's consideration, Nandu brushed his fingertips gently across the ancient glass, attempting to wipe away the layer of grime.
The surface felt strangely cold.
Colder than stone.
Colder than metal.
Then—
"Ah!"
A sharp sting shot through his finger.
He jerked his hand back instinctively.
A tiny bead of crimson blood welled up from the tip of his finger.
He stared at it in confusion.
He could have sworn...
The glass had no sharp edges at all.
Nandu instinctively jerked his hand away.
He stared at his index finger.
A deep cut had opened across its tip.
It wasn't large.
But it was clean enough for blood to flow immediately.
A dark crimson drop slid from his fingertip...
And landed squarely upon the mirror's clouded surface.
Then another.
And another.
Within moments, tiny beads of blood lay scattered across the ancient glass like crimson pearls against faded silver.
Nandu paid them no attention.
His entire focus was on his injured finger.
"Damn it..."
He muttered through clenched teeth.
Carefully, he lowered the mirror onto the floor before looking around the room for something to stop the bleeding.
His eyes fell upon the old pieces of cloth he had angrily thrown from the briefcase only moments earlier.
He grabbed one without hesitation and wrapped it tightly around his wounded finger.
Gradually...
The bleeding slowed.
Then stopped.
Letting out a quiet sigh of relief, he tightened the makeshift bandage.
Only then did his gaze drift back toward the mirror.
The crimson droplets still shimmered upon its dull, lifeless surface.
Yet something about them felt...
Different.
Something had changed.
Something Nandu had failed to notice.
His only concern was practical.
If the blood dries, he thought, it'll stain the glass permanently.
Still holding the cloth, he bent down once more and lifted the ancient mirror carefully into both hands.
Slowly...
He reached toward the blood-stained surface, intending to wipe it clean.
Completely unaware...
That the seemingly ordinary drops of blood which had touched the ancient glass only moments before...
Had already awakened something that had slept for centuries.
The ancient ritual was complete.
The seemingly insignificant drops of blood had accomplished what centuries of waiting could not.
A mystery that had lain dormant for generations had awakened.
And now...
For the first time in centuries, the mirror was no longer waiting for the touch of a living hand.
It had recognized its new master.
Holding the cloth between his fingers, Nandu carefully reached toward the mirror, intending to wipe away the blood.
Then...
His hand froze.
His brows knitted together.
"What...?"
Only moments earlier, the crimson droplets had been plainly visible upon the glass.
Now...
They were gone.
Completely.
There was no trace of blood.
No crimson stain.
No smear.
It was as though the mirror had absorbed every single drop.
Nandu blinked in disbelief.
His confusion deepened.
Then he noticed something even stranger.
The thick, cloudy haze that had concealed the mirror's surface only moments before...
Had vanished.
Entirely.
The ancient mirror was still the same object resting in his hands.
Yet it no longer looked ancient.
Its surface had become as clear and still as the waters of a mountain lake.
For the first time, it reflected the room with astonishing clarity.
The broken wooden cot.
The cracked walls.
The shafts of golden sunlight pouring through the shattered window.
Everything appeared impossibly sharp.
Even his own face stared back at him.
For a long moment, Nandu simply stood there, turning the mirror slowly from side to side.
The reflection remained flawless.
His heartbeat quickened.
"...That's impossible."
His voice was barely more than a whisper.
"Just a moment ago...
...it wasn't reflecting anything at all."
A strange silence settled over the room.
The mirror had changed.
Or perhaps...
It had simply been waiting for the right person to look into it.
The thought lingered in his mind for only a moment.
Then Nandu simply shrugged.
His practical instincts were quick to offer a far simpler explanation.
"Probably just years of dust..."
"Or maybe I imagined it."
The mystery ended there—
At least, in his mind.
He had no idea that what he had witnessed was no ordinary change.
The ancient mirror had just accepted his blood.
And in that silent moment, an invisible bond had been forged between them.
A bond too subtle to be seen...
Too ancient to be understood...
And far too powerful to reveal itself so soon.
Unaware of any of it, Nandu lifted the mirror with both hands.
His eyes wandered across the room until they settled on an old iron nail driven into the opposite wall.
It would do.
He carefully hung the mirror upon it.
The ancient artifact now rested in perfect stillness, suspended against the cracked wall.
Its polished surface reflected every corner of the room with unsettling clarity.
The broken cot.
The fractured walls.
The fading afternoon light.
It watched everything in absolute silence.
Like a patient sentinel...
Beginning the first watch of a duty that had waited centuries to resume.
Meanwhile, Nandu had already lost interest in the mysterious object.
His thoughts had returned to the only thing that truly mattered to him.
Money.
He knelt beside the scattered pieces of old cloth and gathered them one by one.
They looked worn, faded, and practically worthless.
Still, he reasoned that an antique dealer—or even a scrap merchant—might pay something for them.
A few rupees were better than nothing.
He stuffed the old cloths back into the iron briefcase, snapped the rusted latches shut, and picked it up.
Without sparing the mirror another glance, he walked toward the door.
The old wooden door creaked softly as it closed behind him.
His footsteps faded slowly into the maze of narrow alleyways outside.
Silence reclaimed the room.
A deep...
Unbroken...
Almost unnatural silence.
Now only one object remained inside the tiny house.
The ancient mirror.
It hung motionless upon the wall.
Waiting.
As though it knew...
That its true story had only just begun.
The ancient mirror hung motionless upon the wall.
Still.
Silent.
Yet far from lifeless.
As a single ray of sunlight slipped through the cracked window and fell upon its flawless surface, a faint ripple of golden light stirred deep within the glass.
It lasted no more than a heartbeat.
Then it vanished.
As though something beyond the mirror had opened its eyes...
Only to close them again.
The mirror had awakened.
And with its awakening...
Something far older had stirred from its endless slumber.
A power that had hidden itself beneath the layers of time for centuries...
Was no longer asleep.
By the time the sun disappeared beneath Delhi's skyline, the city had transformed.
The relentless noise of the day gave way to the quiet pulse of the night.
The narrow streets lay beneath the dim glow of aging streetlights. Somewhere in the distance, stray dogs barked into the darkness. An occasional vehicle passed by, its engine fading quickly into the
silence, while warm evening winds carried dust through the deserted lanes.
The city seemed to hold its breath.
Meanwhile, Nandu had already reached one of Old Delhi's crowded street markets.
The bundle of ancient cloth had found a buyer far more quickly than he had expected.
What surprised him even more...
Was the price.
The merchant had paid him far more than those faded pieces of cloth appeared to be worth.
For a brief moment, doubt flickered across his mind.
"Who would pay this much... for a few worn-out old cloths?"
The question lingered for only an instant.
Then greed buried it beneath the comforting weight of money.
As the cash disappeared into his pocket, his confidence returned.
His walk became lighter.
His smile wider.
He already knew exactly where he was going.
The gambling den.
It was an old habit.
One he had never managed to escape.
Every time he entered, he told himself the same lie.
"Tonight...
...fortune will finally choose my side."
He had no way of knowing...
That fortune had already chosen him.
It simply had nothing to do with money.
And every time...
Fortune rejected him with the same merciless indifference.
That night was no different.
One card after another was revealed.
The stakes grew higher.
With every losing hand, another handful of money vanished across the table.
It didn't take long before his pockets were almost empty.
Frustration hardened Nandu's face.
He slammed his fist against the table, drawing irritated glances from the other gamblers.
But anger changed nothing.
A loss was a loss.
And there was nothing left to do except accept it.
The few notes he still had...
He wasted them at a nearby roadside liquor shop.
Before long, the cheap country liquor began taking hold.
Its warmth spread through his body.
His steps grew unsteady.
His eyes turned bloodshot.
And whatever little judgment remained inside him slowly dissolved beneath the haze of alcohol.
11:45 P.M.
Thin clouds drifted across the night sky, swallowing the moon before releasing it again.
The deserted street stretched into darkness.
Not a soul was in sight.
Pools of pale yellow light spilled from aging streetlamps, casting long, distorted shadows that seemed almost alive against the empty road.
Nandu staggered forward alone.
Sometimes he leaned against a wall to keep his balance.
Sometimes he stumbled over nothing at all, barely catching himself before falling.
At other moments, he muttered drunken curses to no one in particular.
The sharp smell of cheap liquor clung to his clothes and hands.
Minute after minute, he wandered through the sleeping city until the familiar maze of narrow lanes finally appeared before him.
Home.
At last.
He stopped outside the small brick house at the end of the alley.
For a moment, he simply stood there, swaying gently in the silence.
Then he reached into his pocket...
And pulled out his key.
Unaware...
That beyond the locked door, someone—or something—
Had been waiting for his return.
After fumbling with the lock several times, Nandu finally managed to slide the key into place.
Click.
The old lock gave way.
He pushed the weathered wooden door open...
And the instant he stepped inside—
He froze.
A brilliant golden radiance flooded the room.
It was unlike any light he had ever seen.
It wasn't the harsh glow of an electric bulb.
Nor the warm flicker of a lantern.
This light seemed alive.
Its brilliance was so overwhelming that Nandu instinctively threw an arm across his eyes, shielding them from the blinding glow.
The entire room had been transformed.
The cracked walls shimmered beneath the golden radiance.
The broken wooden cot seemed almost untouched by time.
Even the old clay water pot reflected the light with an otherworldly brilliance, as though every ordinary object had been transported into a realm beyond the human world.
Despite the alcohol clouding his senses...
The intoxication vanished almost instantly.
His heartbeat quickened.
A strange chill crept through him.
Slowly...
Very slowly...
He lowered his hand, allowing his eyes to adjust to the impossible light.
Then, with trembling uncertainty, he looked toward its source.
He still had no idea...
That the object he had dismissed only hours earlier as a worthless, broken mirror...
Was no longer merely a mirror.
Deep within its silent depths...
A power imprisoned for countless centuries had awakened completely.
The golden radiance continued to fill the room.
Silent.
Steady.
Yet immeasurably powerful.
Nandu remained standing in the doorway, unable to move.
Fear.
Wonder.
Curiosity.
All three emotions battled across his face at once.
The light did not flicker.
It did not spread.
It simply waited.
As though it had known...
That sooner or later...
He would return.
And the moment he crossed that threshold...
The true beginning of his destiny would finally unfold.
Only a few hours earlier...
The room had been nothing more than a forgotten corner of the city, swallowed by darkness and silence.
Now...
It was as though an invisible sun had taken residence within its walls.
Nandu drew a slow, unsteady breath.
His heart hammered harder than ever before.
The haze of alcohol had almost completely vanished.
Whatever stood before him was far too real to be dismissed as drunken imagination.
Cautiously, he took a single step forward.
Then another.
Slowly...
Almost unwillingly...
He began walking toward the source of the mysterious light.
With every step he took, the golden radiance intensified.
Waves of shimmering light drifted across the cracked walls, moving with such graceful rhythm that they seemed almost alive.
It was as if an invisible consciousness flowed through every beam of light.
A few moments later, Nandu stopped.
He slowly raised his eyes.
The breath caught in his throat.
The light...
Was coming from the ancient mirror.
The same dark wooden frame.
The same intricate carvings.
The same forgotten symbols etched into its surface.
Yet the mirror itself had become something entirely different.
The dull, lifeless glass was gone.
In its place shimmered a radiant golden surface that glowed with impossible brilliance.
Deep within its depths, countless streams of light spiraled endlessly around one another, resembling stars trapped inside an unknown galaxy.
The mirror no longer reflected light.
It seemed to create it.
Spellbound, Nandu raised a trembling hand.
He stepped closer until he stood directly before the ancient artifact.
He peered into it.
Then shifted to the right.
To the left.
He bent down to study it from below.
Then rose onto the tips of his toes, searching from above.
Every angle revealed the same impossible sight.
The mirror's depths stretched far beyond the limits of glass.
As though what hung before him was not a mirror at all...
But a doorway into a universe that had remained sealed since the beginning of time.
For a fleeting moment, Nandu convinced himself that there had to be a simple explanation.
Perhaps someone had hidden a light behind the mirror.
He reached behind it, running his hand along the wall.
His knuckles tapped against the aged bricks.
Solid.
Nothing hollow.
He tried lifting the frame from its nail.
He examined the back of the mirror.
His fingertips traced the intricate carvings that covered the dark wooden frame, searching for a hidden switch, a concealed compartment, or any mechanism that could explain the impossible glow.
He searched every angle.
Every inch.
Every possibility.
But...
There was no lamp.
No wiring.
No hidden machinery.
No natural source of light.
Only the mirror.
Radiating its golden brilliance as though light itself had been born within it.
Slowly...
His eyes drifted back to the glass.
For the briefest instant—
He thought something moved.
A faint ripple disturbed the endless golden depths.
It was subtle.
Almost imperceptible.
Yet it carried an unsettling certainty.
It felt...
As though something inside the mirror had looked back at him.
His breath caught.
He didn't move.
Neither did the mirror.
The ripple vanished.
The golden surface became perfectly still once more.
Silence reclaimed the room.
Nandu swallowed hard.
"Maybe..."
He forced a nervous smile.
"...I've had too much to drink."
His own voice sounded strangely unconvincing.
"When you're drunk..."
"You start seeing things."
He let out a quiet laugh.
It died almost as soon as it escaped his lips.
There was no confidence in it.
Only unease.
He stared at the mirror one last time.
The golden light remained unchanged.
Beautiful.
Silent.
Impenetrable.
Whatever secret it guarded refused to reveal itself.
At last, frustration outweighed curiosity.
With an irritated sigh, Nandu lowered his hands.
"Tomorrow..."
He murmured, turning away from the mirror.
"I'll figure it out tomorrow."
Behind him...
The golden surface remained perfectly still.
Waiting.
As though it already knew...
Tomorrow would come far sooner than Nandu imagined.
"Tomorrow..."
The word escaped his lips in a weary murmur.
Turning away from the mirror, Nandu staggered across the room toward the old wooden cot.
The moment he sat down, exhaustion overwhelmed him.
His body surrendered.
Without bothering to change his clothes, he stretched out across the worn mattress.
Within moments, sleep began to claim him.
His eyelids grew heavy.
His breathing slowed.
And before long...
He was lost to the night.
He had no idea...
That as he drifted into sleep, the ancient mirror hanging silently upon the wall remained awake.
It watched every breath he drew.
Every beat of his heart.
Every dream that passed through his unconscious mind.
Patiently.
Silently.
As though it had waited centuries for this single night.
As though it knew...
That the final barrier separating two worlds was growing weaker with every passing moment.
The night slipped away.
The first rays of dawn filtered through the broken window, spilling across the floor in pale ribbons of light.
Outside, the neighborhood slowly came to life.
Smoke curled upward from kitchen fires.
Children's voices echoed through the narrow lanes.
The squeaking wheels of passing cycle-rickshaws announced the beginning of another ordinary morning.
Inside the room...
Everything appeared perfectly normal.
The golden radiance was gone.
The supernatural glow had vanished without a trace.
The mirror hung quietly upon the wall, looking no different from any forgotten antique.
It was almost impossible to believe that only hours earlier, the room had been filled with impossible light.
As if the entire night had been nothing more than a dream.
Nandu slept on, completely unaware.
Then—
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The sharp sound shattered the silence.
Someone was pounding on the wooden door.
After the first series of knocks came a brief, unsettling silence.
Then—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The second round struck harder than before, echoing through the tiny house.
Nandu stirred in his sleep.
The new day...
Had arrived.
And with it...
The first visitor drawn to the awakened mirror.
