The heart monitor flatlined, a sound that echoed the emptiness growing within Kumar. Is this it? he thought, his vision blurring at the edges. A cold dread seeped into his bones, not of death itself, but of leaving things undone, of words unspoken, of love lost.
"Kumar!" a voice, thick with unshed tears, broke through the fading consciousness. He tried to focus, to grasp at the sound, but it was like trying to hold smoke. Meera? Was that her? He wanted to tell her… so many things. But the words wouldn't come, his tongue felt heavy, useless.
Darkness pressed in, a suffocating velvet curtain falling over his senses. He was adrift, a solitary boat on a starless sea, the whispers of his past life swirling around him like phantom waves. Faces flickered before his mind's eye – his mother's gentle smile, his father's firm hand, and then… the accident. The screech of tires, the shattering glass, the blinding pain that had stolen everything.
Then, nothing.
Except… warmth. A soft, enveloping warmth that chased away the chilling dread. A new sensation, unfamiliar and yet… comforting. He was being held, cradled against a gentle rhythm, a steady heartbeat that resonated with a primal familiarity.
A cry escaped his lips, thin and weak, yet undeniably his own. Light, muted and hazy, filtered through his eyelids. He blinked, and the world swam into focus, blurry at first, then sharpening into shapes and colors he didn't recognize.
Roughspun fabric brushed against his skin, the air smelled of woodsmoke and something earthy, something… alive. He was lying in someone's arms, a woman, her face etched with lines of hardship, but her eyes… her eyes were filled with a fierce, unwavering love as she gazed down at him.
"He's here," she murmured, her voice rough but tender, in a language he didn't understand, yet somehow… knew. "My son is born."
Around them, the dim light revealed a small room, walls of mud brick, a thatched roof above. A simple room, utterly unlike the sterile steel and glass world he had known. This was… different. Primitive. Real.
He was no longer Kumar, the man who had lived and lost in the modern world. He was… someone new. Born again. But the echoes of his past, the phantom pains of loss and regret, clung to him still, a heavy shroud in this new, unfamiliar dawn.