Child of prophecy
Chapter 1
"Come quickly, brother! Old Grandpa is going to begin the story—we're going to miss it!" a little girl shouted, calling upward toward a tree. She had short brown eyes and hair tied into two braids. Her feet were barefoot and covered in mud and her skirt was a patchwork of different fabrics, sewn and resewn too many times to count.
"How many times are you going to hear that same old story? I don't wanna hear it again. You can go by yourself, Tejasvi." A voice came from one of the branches of the Banyan tree at the entry of a jungle.
"Haan, I don't wanna go alone. Brother, please come na, I'm afraid to go alone," Tejasvi requested, closing her eyes, trying to force her soft voice to reach the tree.
"Alright, alright, I'm coming." Aksh jumped from the branch of the tree and landed on his feet. His clothes were torn and filthy, barely hanging onto his frail body. With a single glance, anyone could tell that this kid had never had a complete meal. He was like any other slum kid trying to survive in the cruel world, but there was one thing different about him.
His hair—like his eyes—was unnaturally crimson red. Not a common appearance for a child of the slum.
"Yaeeee, let's go quickly, otherwise, we are going to miss it!" Tejasvi grabbed his hand and began running toward the slums beside the jungle.
"Slow down, Tejasvi, you're gonna hurt yourself," Aksh spoke, running along with her.
As they ran, they passed through various old wooden houses, some of them with roofs covered in spread straw, while others barely hung on with various wooden poles. There were all kinds of people sitting beside the houses and walking on the street—some were malnourished like Aksh, or missing some body parts, while others were elderly or children.
But there was one thing common in all of them: no one had life in their eyes. They were all broken or lost, people who had given up on life.
After running for a while, they reached the square of the slums. There were various kids like Aksh and Tejasvi gathered together, sitting on the dirt floor. At the center was an old man sitting on an old wooden chair with a stick in his hand. He had long grey hair, and his face was covered with hair—his eyebrow hairs reached all the way to his beard, clearly never groomed. His eyes were only half open.
"Oh, Tejasvi, you are here. We were waiting for you," the old man said in his cracked voice.
"Thank you, Grandpa, for waiting for me," Tejasvi replied with a smile and sat down, holding Aksh's hand.
The old man cleared his throat and began, as he did every Sunday. All the kids became attentive, and Tejasvi's eyes gleamed with excitement.
"It has been five millennia since the fall of the legendary heroes—The Emperor Agnivardhana and The sword God Divyajit—and we are still waiting for the prophecy to be fulfilled.
Humanity has lost so much—countless heroes died, families were destroyed, and empires fell in this desperate war. And all these years, the situation has only gotten worse.
Eighty percent of the world is already under the control of the Divinity Reaper. Nobody knows what happened to the people who lived in that part.
It's not just a coincidence that this 20% of land hasn't fallen into the Divinity Reaper's hands. We would have already lost this war 500 years ago if not for the miracle that happened back then.
If the Divine Dragon Vyraant hadn't awakened from his slumber at that time, we can't even imagine what would have happened.
His presence alone shifted the course of the war, and hope finally emerged in humanity after all those defeats. Thus, the empire of Sapta Sindhu became humanity's final stronghold.
It is whispered that the only reason the god-slaying army has not advanced further is because they fear Vyraant. Not even the beasts of Divinity Reaper dare speak his name.
But the prophecy is only half fulfilled. The child of prophecy—the one destined to rise when all hope is lost—has not appeared. There are neither signs nor omens of him.
Some say he will never come. That the darkness has already won. That the prophecy was just fake hope created by the higher-ups so humanity wouldn't fall into fear and chaos.
Even the Divine Dragon Vyraant, who awakened 500 years ago and turned the tides of war, has not been seen in centuries."
"What do you think about the prophecy, Aksh?" the old man asked, pointing his stick toward Aksh.
"I don't care either way. Whether the prophecy is fulfilled or not does not concern me," Aksh replied. His expressions were unreadable. He got up and walked out.
"You shouldn't talk to adults like that, brother," Tejasvi said, following him from behind.
Aksh didn't reply. He knew that whether the prophecy was fulfilled or not wouldn't improve their condition either way. It didn't matter to him who controlled the power—whether it was the Divinity Reaper or the humans—so long as he could fill his and his family's stomachs.
The little land left for humanity was already under the control of the higher-ups—those blessed with power, bloodlines, or Tejas.
Tejas was not merely energy. It was the divine essence that flowed through all living beings. To wield Tejas was to command the laws of nature: to walk through fire, to tear mountains, or to control the wind or water.
But the awakening of tejas is complicated in itself. It stirred in the heart of a person only in moments of extreme emotional surge—grief, rage, desperation, love. In that single, blinding instant, a spark ignited within the soul.
Yet that spark was both a blessing and a curse.
If the body was not strong enough to contain the awakened power, the Tejas Core within would collapse, and that person would never be able to use Tejas again.
But Aksh didn't care about that. He had neither power nor bloodline, and there were more pressing concerns for him to worry about.
He turned the corner of the street toward his house. And there it was—the usual scenery of his everyday home: his mother sitting on the ground, trying to protect her face, and a man standing over her, shirtless, with a belt in one hand and a half-filled bottle of alcohol in the other.
There was no time for Aksh to think about prophecies. The only thing he was thinking about was how to protect his mother from his father's abuse—again.