The city was breaking.
Pravash staggered back as the Heart of the Forgotten convulsed violently, its black veins unraveling, its flesh splitting apart. A deafening howl erupted from within it—not a voice, not a scream—but the sound of something ancient coming undone.
And then—the world cracked.
Not just the chamber.
Not just the temple.
All of Kathmandu.
A wave of black energy surged outward, rippling through the ground, slamming into the stone walls, bursting through the streets above.
Pravash fell to his knees as the air itself split.
Two worlds. One moment.
The city fractured—the real and the forgotten bleeding into each other.
And when Pravash lifted his head—he saw them.
Spirits.
Not the empty, nameless things from Naraka.
These had faces. These had form. These had purpose.
And they were angry.
The first one emerged from the cracks in the temple floor, its body wrapped in the rags of an old warrior, its mouth stretched into a silent scream.
Another crawled from the temple walls, its limbs twisting unnaturally, its skin peeling away like burned parchment.
More of them, rising, stepping from the places where they had been forgotten.
And outside—
The city was waking up.
Kathmandu, but Wrong.
The streets were not as they should be.
As Pravash stumbled up from the underground chamber, blinking against the harsh light, he saw the city had shifted.
Some streets were normal. The same narrow alleys, the same crowded temples, the same neon flickering against rain-slick stone.
But others—
Others were not real anymore.
Buildings stretched too high, too thin. Some streets ended in black voids, opening into nothingness.
The sky—
There was no sky.
Just a vast, churning mass of black clouds, twisting with unseen movement.
The boundary was gone.
And the dead walked Kathmandu once more.
They Were Looking for Him.
Pravash’s pulse pounded in his ears.
The spirits moved through the streets with purpose. Some barely noticed the living, drifting between cars and temples like ghosts caught between moments.
But others—they were hunting.
They moved toward him.
Because they knew what he had done.
He had torn open the veil.
He had unleashed them.
And now—they wanted justice.
Or vengeance.
Or both.
The woman—his wife, though he still couldn’t remember her name—grabbed his arm, pulling him back.
“Pravash, we need to run.”
His breath was ragged.
He turned his head toward her.
And in the reflection of her eyes—
He saw his own shadow move.
Not like a normal shadow.
Not like something that should be attached to him.
It was moving on its own.
Like it had its own thoughts.
Like it was waiting for him to notice.
Waiting for him to understand.
That he was not the same anymore.
That something inside him had changed.
And that Kathmandu was no longer the only thing falling apart.
Kathmandu was not alone anymore.
Pravash ran through the ruined streets, his breath sharp, his pulse hammering in his skull. The city had changed—the boundary between the living and the forgotten had shattered.
And now, they were everywhere.
Some spirits were harmless.
They wandered the streets in a daze, their faded, translucent forms flickering as they drifted through temples, homes, places they had once known. Some of them murmured names no one remembered anymore. Some of them reached out, touching the walls of buildings that no longer bore their existence.
They weren’t here to hurt anyone.
They were simply lost.
But others—
They were hunting.
The Dead Seek Justice.
A man in royal Newar armor, his face twisted in rage, marched down Freak Street, his sword dragging against the stone, leaving deep gashes in the ground. His eyes burned with unfulfilled vengeance.
A group of spectral children huddled near Durbar Square, their eyes wide, whispering prayers to gods who no longer knew them. When a shopkeeper ran past them, his gaze briefly met theirs—
And he screamed.
His body convulsed, collapsing to the ground. His hands clutched his face, his breath coming in frantic, panicked sobs.
“I don’t remember—” he gasped.
“I don’t remember my name!”
The children watched in silence.
They hadn’t touched him.
They hadn’t needed to.
Some ghosts killed with violence.
Others killed with forgetting.
And above them all—the sky churned.
A massive, endless void, rippling, stretching, growing.
Because the Heart of the Forgotten was breaking.
And the past was trying to take the present with it.
Pravash Is Hunted.
He knew he was being followed.
Not just by the spirits. By something else.
His own shadow.
It moved wrong.
Not like the others. Not like the spirits roaming the streets.
This thing was his.
And it was watching.
The woman—his wife, though he still could not remember her name—ran beside him, her face pale, her breath coming fast.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Pravash didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know.
He only knew one thing.
The ghosts weren’t here to destroy Kathmandu.
They were here to claim him.
Because he had no name anymore.
He was one of them.
And now, they wanted him back.
The ground trembled.
Not from the ghosts. Not from the sky, which churned like a massive black wound, tearing the boundary between the living and the forgotten.
No—this was something else.
Something older.
Something angry.
Pravash and the woman—his wife, though the name still refused to come—had barely made it out of the temple ruins when the first one emerged.
It stepped from the broken remains of an ancient shrine, its body shifting between stone, mist, and something in between.
A Yaksha.
Not like the spirits. Not a ghost. A guardian.
Pravash had seen their carvings in temples, read their names in forgotten manuscripts. The Yakshas were the old protectors—beings that once walked among men, before time itself swallowed them.
But they were supposed to be gone.
Extinct.
And yet, this one stood before him, its massive frame shifting, its deep-set eyes burning with something unreadable.
It was watching him.
No.
Judging him.
Then it spoke.
Its voice wasn’t like the others.
It didn’t whisper. It didn’t stretch and slither like Guru Kaalo’s voice.
It was thunder and stone, the weight of mountains in a single breath.
“You have become what you swore to destroy.”
Pravash froze.
The Yaksha took a step forward, and the earth cracked beneath its weight.
“You have unraveled the veil.”
The woman gripped Pravash’s wrist. Tightly.
“Pravash, run.”
But he didn’t move.
Because deep in his bones—he already knew.
This wasn’t a warning.
It was a sentence.
The Yaksha raised its hand. The sky above them split.
And Pravash realized, too late—
The guardians had returned.
But they weren’t here to help.
They were here to purge him.
The first blow shattered the street.
Pravash barely moved in time—one second too slow, and he would have been crushed.
The Yaksha’s fist slammed into the earth, splitting the ground open, sending cracks snaking through the stone. Ancient power rippled through the air, a force not meant for mortals.
Pravash rolled, landing in a crouch. His breath was sharp, his pulse hammering. His body ached—but it was still his.
For now.
The Yaksha turned toward him, slow and deliberate. Its eyes were carved from something older than time, gleaming in the broken light.
“You have no name,” it rumbled.
“You have no past.”
Pravash’s jaw clenched. He could feel the weight in those words—not an accusation. A fact.
The Yakshas had always been guardians of the cycle. The balance. The unseen threads that held reality in place.
And now—he was outside that balance.
A man without a name. Without a history.
Something not meant to exist.
“You should not be.”
Pravash moved.
The Fight Against the Guardians
He surged forward, the air shifting around him. The mask—it wasn’t fully on, but its power still pulsed beneath his skin.
He reached for his gun, fired.
The bullet vanished before it even touched the Yaksha. Erased.
Pravash expected that.
But he wasn’t fighting like a man anymore.
His body melted into shadow.
He twisted through the air, shifting, reappearing behind the Yaksha, his movements faster than they should have been. He wasn’t human anymore.
And neither was his anger.
His clawed fingers scraped against the Yaksha’s form, sinking into its shape—not flesh, not stone, something in between.
The guardian grunted.
It felt that.
It turned—too slow.
Pravash’s body blurred, reappearing above it, striking downward.
His fist collided with the Yaksha’s skull.
The impact sent a shockwave through the temple grounds, the very air distorting from the force. The guardian staggered.
For a brief, fleeting second—Pravash thought he could win.
Then—the others arrived.
The Weight of Judgment
They stepped from the shadows.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
More.
Yakshas.
Not ghosts. Not spirits. Real.
They had been watching. Waiting.
And now, they moved as one.
The first struck. Pravash dodged—but the second caught him.
A fist like a mountain slammed into his ribs, sending him crashing through a stone pillar. His breath was knocked from his lungs, his vision darkening at the edges.
The third was already on him.
Pravash barely had time to shift—his body flickering into shadow—before the next blow sent him sprawling across the ground.
The woman screamed his name.
He didn’t answer.
Because he knew—this wasn’t a fight.
It was a sentence.
He had broken the cycle. He had let the forgotten rise.
And the Yakshas had come to erase him.
One of them stepped forward, staring down at him.
“You are not of this world anymore, Yami.”
The name struck like a curse.
Not Pravash.
Not a man.
Yami.
Something that shouldn’t exist.
Something that wouldn’t.
Not for long.
The Yaksha raised its hand for the final blow.
And for the first time, Pravash didn’t move.
Because what if they were right?
What if this was his fate?
What if this was how it ended?
The Yaksha’s strike fell.
And then—
A new shadow moved.
Something old.
Something Guru Kaalo had feared.
Something that wasn’t ready to let him go.
The Yaksha’s fist came down like judgment itself.
Pravash braced for the impact, his body too weak, too broken to move.
And then—
The world shifted.
The shadows pulled.
Something old, something unseen grabbed him and yanked him backward, away from the killing blow.
The Yaksha’s strike shattered the ground where he had just been, sending a shockwave through the ruins.
But Pravash was no longer there.
The Yakshas turned, their massive forms shifting, searching—but he was already gone.
The Forgotten Place
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Not Naraka. Not the living world.
Something in between.
Pravash landed on his knees, his breath ragged, his body shaking from exhaustion.
The ground beneath him was not solid, not stone. It was like standing on a memory.
He lifted his head—and saw them.
Not the Yakshas.
Not the cult.
Not Guru Kaalo.
The forgotten.
Hundreds of them.
Some with faces, some without. Some barely more than flickering outlines of who they once were.
And they were all staring at him.
Pravash swallowed hard, pushing himself to his feet.
“What is this?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
One of the figures stepped forward.
A warrior, dressed in ancient Newar armor, his face weathered, his eyes burning with something deep and unreadable.
“You have not finished.”
Pravash’s jaw tightened. He already knew what they meant.
He had broken the veil.
But Guru Kaalo still remained.
And now, with the Heart of the Forgotten weakening, there was only one thing left to do.
“End him.”
The words came from all of them.
A whisper. A command.
A plea.
Pravash closed his eyes.
He could feel it—the pull, the choice, the final path laid before him.
Kathmandu was still crumbling. The balance was still breaking.
And it wouldn’t stop until Guru Kaalo was erased.
He opened his eyes.
His shadow moved first.
Then his body followed.
And without another word, Pravash stepped forward.
Back toward the real world.
Back toward the end.
Back toward Guru Kaalo.