### **Chapter: Rebirth**
"Oh… one second… what's happening… where am I?"
Kaal's breathing was heavy—like every breath was dissolving a small fragment of the universe. His chest rose and fell as if an invisible weight was pressing down on it. Behind his eyelids was darkness—not a color, not a shape, just a depth that seemed to consume both body and soul. But amidst this darkness, the sharpest sensation was—pain. A pain that rose from within his bones, traveled through his nerves, and rattled his consciousness.
He tried to turn sideways, but his muscles felt numb. A groan escaped his lips—faint, broken, but real.
"Did I... teleport safely?" he asked himself. But the question echoed more in his wounds than his mind. Each word slipped from his throat as if his chest were bleeding out. His body was burning—it felt like space hadn't just relocated him, it had dragged him, torn him apart, and skinned him raw.
A faint buzzing echoed in his ears, and then slowly, a voice emerged. It was soft, hesitant, but strangely familiar—like a mother finding her lost child after years.
"Thank God you're okay! Your mother was so worried about you…"
That voice felt like a drowning ship suddenly sighting land. Kaal's eyelids fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes. A face hovered above him—a woman's face. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but behind them hid a trembling smile—shaky, afraid, yet full of hope.
She was beautiful, but her beauty carried a silent sorrow, as if life had carved her features with the blade of time. Her lips trembled into a smile that looked like a boat barely escaping a storm.
"Child, you worried your mother so much," she whispered, and suddenly her voice broke. She could no longer hold back the flood of tears. She sat there, sobbing uncontrollably.
Kaal stared at her for a few moments. His eyes held a blankness, a void filled with endless questions.
"Mom?" he said slowly, his voice almost unfamiliar. The word was his, but it lacked warmth—like a forgotten song whose tune remained, but lyrics faded.
"Oh, my child… you don't recognize me?" the woman's face turned pale. Fear filled her eyes—the fear of a bitter truth she had already sensed.
Just then, an old man entered the room. His steps were slow, but his eyes sparkled with wisdom and experience.
"Vishakha," he said gravely, "Kaal has suffered a severe injury to the back of his head. His memory may be impaired for a while. I've administered medicine. Don't worry, it will all come back in time."
The woman—Vishakha—looked at Kaal again. Now her eyes showed more dread than motherly love. She stood up and quietly left the room.
The old man followed her out.
Now only Kaal remained in the room—Kaal, and the battle within his very existence.
He took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. It was plain white, ordinary—but beneath that ordinary ceiling, his life had become anything but normal. His mind, his heart, his very soul—were being pulled in different directions.
"Was my experiment a success?" he asked himself. Memories flickered before his eyes like shadows.
"My body is shattered… but my soul? My consciousness? That's still with me… Am I still the same me? Or someone else?"
He slowly tried to touch his head. There was a strange emptiness there—as if someone had stolen a piece of his memory. His hair was gone. His fingers felt the scattered patches on his scalp, like he'd been dragged across an unknown, merciless terrain.
"Whoever did this to me," he whispered, "I won't spare them."
But then… another jolt. This one wasn't physical—it was internal. Memories surged—but not of one life. Of two.
One Kaal—was a worshipper of science, who lost track of time in labs. Who spoke to machines, not people. A stubborn, self-absorbed technician—who saw himself above the world.
And the other Kaal—was the original owner of this body. A boy whom the neighborhood mocked as "trash." A neglected, unwanted child, with dreams in his eyes but nothing in his hands.
"Who am I?" The question echoed inside him.
Was he the one who had designed the time travel experiment? Or the one whose mother couldn't even afford medicine?
His memories were cloaked in fog. Two consciousnesses were now inhabiting the same body, but clashing—like two rivers trying to merge into one sea, yet unwilling to surrender their flow.
Then came a decision. Kaal steadied the storm within and took a deep breath.
"I don't care anymore," he said slowly, but there was firmness in his voice. "Whoever I was… now, I'm just 'Kaal'."
He closed his eyes and delved within. There was no darkness there—only experiences. Of two lives, two perspectives, two kinds of pain.
His mind whispered—**You are not the child of one life. You carry the experience of two. You are not broken—you are rare.**
He was no longer an ordinary human. Now he carried the intellect of machines, and the fire of poverty. Now he possessed the power of science, and the pain of social rejection.
"I will carve my own destiny," Kaal told himself.
And then he made a vow—**I am not trash. I am Kaal—the one who will shape time itself.**
A faint smile appeared on his lips. A smile born from resolve.
**"Even if I was born in humiliation, my story will now be written in honor."**
**"My soul has been tempered in the dust of space. Now I can endure anything. This time, I didn't come to lose."**
Outside the room, a light breeze passed. Beyond the hospital walls, the rays of a new dawn silently spread across the sky. But within that room, another sun had already risen—
**The sun named Kaal.**