Chapter 1: The Breath Beneath the Bell
"If the gods once walked this world… why did they bury their footsteps beneath ash?"—Unknown Monk of the Lotus Archive
Ravi Kiran had never seen the sky without clouds.
In the temple town of Tiruvalem, the heavens hung like old silk—grey, damp, and weary. The scent of wet stone and oil lamps clung to the air. The bells in the monastery rang at dawn, but no hands pulled their ropes.
Ravi was short, thin, and forgettable. Just another shaven-headed apprentice in saffron cloth, elbowed aside by others stronger in the body and louder in the voice. His skin bore the yellowing tint of long fevers. His knees cracked when he walked. His spine curved slightly from the weight of years spent bowed in mock prayer.
But what made Ravi different—what made the monks fear him—was that he dreamed too much.
It began with the whispers.
First, in sleep: distorted voices calling from beyond the Ghats, somewhere deep in the old-growth forest west of town. Then, while awake—just before rain or just after sunset—he'd hear echoes that didn't belong to the living.
"Tether is fraying. Breath is breaking. Find the root, child of ash."
He dared not tell the monks. They already muttered behind closed doors.
They'd seen it too—the way the sacred copper didn't tarnish near him, the way his feet left no wet print when walking through spilled water. And then there were his eyes—sometimes blue, sometimes black, depending on who saw him.
Ravi didn't understand. All he knew was that he did not belong.
That night—the 13th of Ashva Maas, when the moon was supposed to be full—Ravi collapsed during meditation.
The fever took him in silence. One moment he was watching the flicker of butter lamps before the shrine of Agni-Rudra, the next he was falling inward, like water poured into a well with no bottom.
And then he awoke—
But not in his bed.
He stood in Tiruvalem, yes… but not his Tiruvalem.
The sky overhead was cracked—a dome of obsidian with veins of silver. The temple stones bled black sap from between their joints. The prayer wheels turned of their own accord, whispering mantras in reverse.
Bells tolled, slow and terrible, from the monastery spire. One. Two. Three. A pause. Then nine in total.
Ravi turned, heart hammering in his chest.
A shadow stood beneath the Ashoka Tree, a figure tall and thin, robed in white that shimmered like ghee lit on fire. Its face was wrong—mirrored, like two identical halves joined down the middle.
It raised a hand. Where fingers should have been, there were roots.
"O child of leaking Bindu… dreamer born from delay… shall we begin your Grafting?"
The figure stepped back.
And behind it rose the Jeeva-Vriksha—the Tree That Breathes.
It wasn't like any tree Ravi had seen.
It pulsed.
Its bark expanded and contracted like a lung. Its leaves were not green, but translucent, like ancient skin. From its trunk grew mouths—some open in scream, some silently chanting in tongues Ravi could not comprehend.
A bell hung from its highest branch.
And when it rang—
Ravi felt something inside him snap.
[You have been Scarred by Sap.]The First Dream is now accessible.Beware: Memories are not yours alone.
He screamed, but no sound came.
Instead, the world folded inward—a spiral of color and breath—and Ravi fell through the roots, into the dream beneath all dreams.
⚫
He landed in a cavern of lightless depth.
Dripping above him was a lotus the size of a house, hanging upside-down. From its petals leaked a golden fluid, forming a pool below. Shapes moved inside—limbless children, weeping silently.
A bell tolled once more.
And from the edge of the pool came a voice:
"So… the Tree has chosen again."
Ravi turned to see a figure in chains, buried waist-deep in the stone, with eyes like cracked glass and a bell embedded in its chest. It spoke with the voice of many men, layered atop each other.
"You are Remnant. Like me.You were not born to this Yuga.The Tree remembers what it should not. And so it dreams of you."
Ravi Kiran, forgotten son of a forgotten village, fell to his knees.
Somewhere above, the real Tiruvalem continued to chant its prayers. But down here, the gods had stopped listening.
Only the Tree listened now.
And it was hungry.