Rudra awoke to nothingness. Or perhaps, more accurately, to a chaotic blend of unfamiliar sensations—disjointed, jumbled, like pieces of a shattered mirror. His body ached, every part of him feeling unfamiliar, like an old machine trying to turn over for the first time in years. His head spun as if he were still caught in the aftermath of the crash.
He blinked against the sharp light, the ceiling above him white and sterile. It felt… wrong. His heart hammered in his chest, his breath shallow, as though he were suffocating in a reality he couldn't yet grasp.
Where was he? What happened?
He shifted, trying to sit up, but his body betrayed him, limbs stiff and sluggish. His fingers grazed his face, and he froze. It was his face… but not quite. It felt foreign, as if he were wearing a mask. His features were there, but they were smoother, younger, unfamiliar. His skin felt different, too—tighter, as though it hadn't endured the years he had lived through. He was different. But how?
With effort, Rudra swung his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold beneath his feet, and his balance wavered as he tried to steady himself. His mind was still clouded, but some fragments—disjointed, fleeting—began to surface. He tried to focus on them, but it was like trying to catch smoke with his hands.
Memories… fragments of memories.
The harsh reality of the crash, the fight with his friends, the bar, the heavy frustration—those were the last things he remembered clearly. Then… nothing. A black void.
He stared at the room around him. The furniture was simple, modern—nothing like the world he'd known back home. A foreign space. But… the room seemed familiar. A sense of déjà vu washed over him, a pull in his chest.
What had happened? Why was he here? And why did it feel like the world around him was shifting, like he was being forced into a life that wasn't his own?
His mind began to race. Slowly, the pieces started to fall into place—he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He wasn't in Delhi. He wasn't even in 2025.
He was somewhere else.
Panic bubbled up in his throat, but before it could overwhelm him, a sudden memory came crashing through. Lal Bahadur Shastri—the name echoed in his mind like a distant whisper. Why was that name so important? What did it have to do with him?
His breath hitched. He remembered something else: the photo on the wall, the stories his father told him, the legacy that weighed on his every step. But this was different. This wasn't just a name from the past—it was his grandfather. Or… had been.
He was Lal Bahadur Shastri's adopted grandson. But how? Why? The realization hit him like a tidal wave, leaving him gasping for breath. His whole life felt like a dream, shattered, distorted. His mind fought against it, against the confusion that clouded his senses.
Rudra stumbled to his feet, swaying as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. The room—now that he looked more closely—was undeniably foreign. The smell, the decor, the faint sounds outside—all pointed to one thing: he was no longer in India. He was in the United States, likely on a university campus. The realization struck him with a painful clarity.
His thoughts raced, trying to catch up with the reality of it all. His body was younger, but the weight of his memories still lingered—memories of a life in India, of the crash, of his failed marriage, of the anger that had consumed him.
But now… now he was someone else. He wasn't his previous self anymore. He wasn't even Rudra, not in the way he had been before. He was something—someone—new.
And then the pressure came crashing in. He could feel it, the weight of expectations bearing down on him, even in this strange place. He wasn't just the grandson of a former prime minister; he was expected to do something with that legacy. Return to politics. Carry on the family name.
But how? Why?
He wanted to scream, but the energy to fight was gone. For a moment, he was detached from everything, from his old self, from this new world, floating in a sea of confusion. The disbelief was suffocating. He wasn't ready for this.
But then, slowly, something inside him shifted. There was something about this moment that felt... like an opportunity. His mind, foggy as it was, began to latch onto the possibility of change—change for himself, for the world around him.
The pressure was there, yes. But there was also a strange sense of hope. A possibility to break free from the shackles of his past. To change not just his life, but maybe—just maybe—the world he now found himself in.
But first, he had to make sense of this body, this life, and the memories that were slowly, agonizingly, slipping back into place.