## Chapter 1: Awakening
Gunshots cracked through the dense jungle, echoing like thunder. Karan Shergill ran, each step clumsy from blood streaming down his leg. The forest pressed in around him, wild and unfamiliar. Branches whipped his face, stinging. Thorns tore at his arm. The air was thick—humid, heavy—every breath sharp with the scent of earth, wet leaves, and decay. Leaves tangled in his sweaty hair, a sar of dirt and blood streaking his cheek. He barely felt it. Pain was a distant drumbeat, a reminder he was still alive—for a few more heartbeats.
Heavy boots crashed behind him. Shouts—guttural, urgent, and sohow hollow—rose and fell. The soldiers were closing in. Bullets thudded into trees, spat up earth near his feet, the dirt biting his shins. He dove behind the thick trunk of an ancient fig tree, the bark rough and cool against his burning back. His breath burned in his lungs, each inhale ragged and tallic.
He pressed a shaking hand to his side. Blood pulsed between his fingers, warm and sticky. Five bullets—he'd felt each one turn his flesh to fire. His vision blurred, edges darkening and pulsing with each heartbeat.
Don't stop. Not yet.
Everything he'd done—years spent molding himself into the perfect shadow. He rembered dry heat, army barracks in 2013, the biting iron taste of sweat and dust, the sting of his father's words echoing in vast, sleepless nights. He rembered the mont the call ca in 2017: "You're in. RAW." The welco was a silence that never left, a burden heavier than any pack. Four years undercover in Pakistan. Seventeen attacks that almost happened. Seventeen thousand lives, maybe more, which he had saved. Had it been worth it? Did anyone at ho know his na? Did his sacrifice an anything outside silent files and unnad dals?
Sothing ticked inside his jacket. The block of RDX, strapped to his chest, cold and impossibly heavy. His final contingency. He thumbed the tir—set it to two minutes with numb, trembling fingers. Last gambit.
He staggered forward into the narrowing valley. The chase beca a blur of noise—gunfire, shouted orders, the hacking breath in his throat, flashes of light through the underbrush.
"There he is!" A Pakistani soldier's shout pierced the chaos.
Bullets scythed through the air. Agony burst through Karan as impacts spun him down. The world shrank to a pinpoint of noise and pain. He hit the ground; boots pounded around him, shouts splitting the dusk, foreign syllables mixing with the copper tang of blood in his mouth.
"Allahu Akbar!" Soone cheered. His body was kicked, rolled over.
Their faces blurred, shadowed by the failing light. The noise faded. In those final monts, sothing like relief—unexpected and almost sweet—blood in his chest.
3... 2... 1—
BOOM.
A shockwave of light, white-hot and searing, then roaring silence.
But—suddenly—he was gasping for air.
Karan jolted upright, drenched in sweat. No blood, no pain. He lay on a soft, musty bed. The room reeked of old wood, mothballs, a hint of kerosene. Sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains, painting shifting rectangles on the dusty floor. The tick of a chanical clock was sharp, tallic, insistent—strangely loud in the hush.
His heart slamd against his ribs. He listened—birds chattered outside, a distant rattle of a bicycle, sowhere the soft call of an old radio drifting an Urdu ghazal. The air was dense, heavy with the lingering cool of dawn, and layered with an unfamiliar blend of spices and dust.
"What the...?" His voice was hoarse, unfamiliar, throat raw as if he'd been screaming all night.
He scanned the room, hands trembling. The unfamiliarity of the place gnawed at his gut. An antique calendar on the wall—crisp, not yellowed, numbers neat and severe. He blinked, twice, blinking away the pounding of his pulse.
July 15, 1970—Pakistan.
His mind spun. Was he dreaming? Dying? Had he been captured? A cold sweat slid down his spine as, for a mont, the room's shadow seed to pulse, the air to thicken.
And then—like a dam breaking—mories flooded in. A whole life, not his own but eerily similar, crashed through his mind. This body—also Karan Shergill. Also RAW. Also on a mission.
But this wasn't his ti.
His breaths ca short, sharp with warning. He tried to steady himself, to make sense of the chaos.
A low, chanical voice resounded in his skull, emotionless and precise:
> [System Booting...]
> Host: Karan Shergill | Age: 19 | Occupation: RAW Agent
> Skills Unlocked:
> Combat: Level 2
> Weapons Mastery: Level 3
> Cold Weapons: Level 2
> Perks Activated:
> Gar Body (Enhanced Learning)
> Adaptive Mind
> Face Morph (Initial Level)
>
He froze. Impossible. He'd read about these "systems"—in fiction, not life. A system is... real?
Testing a wild impulse, he pictured the movie star Tom Cruise. A prickling heat shimred across his skin, face tingling with unfamiliar energy. Heart pounding, he stumbled to the antique mirror propped against the dresser—its glass speckled and warped. The man staring back was impossibly altered. Cheekbones sharper, jaw firr, brows arched with that sa Hollywood poise. He looked—no, was—Tom Cruise. Nearly exact. Every detail, from the dip of his collarbone to the way his hair caught the light, was jarringly familiar and yet alien in this dusty, sunlit room.
He willed his face back, mind trembling at the thrill and terror of it. Features slid and morphed. The original returned—sweat-slicked, gaunt, haunted—and he sagged, exhaling slowly. Half-disbelieving, half-thrilled. "Golden finger, huh?"
The system details flickered again—limited, but potent. Not all-powerful. Skills to be discovered, not gifted outright.
His heart hamred. If this was real—if he was truly back in 1970, ard with knowledge and these powers—what could he do? Was this a chance at redemption, or a trap from which he couldn't escape?
Already, the unspoken challenge lood in the heavy air: What now? Would he
change history, or be erased by it?
User Comments
0 comments from readers