CLASSIFIED FOOTAGE VIEWING – BUREAU – NIGHT
Location: Shadowed Observation Room, Sector 7 – Central Hunter Bureau, New Delhi
Characters: Rigved (S-rank Hunter), Reina Vārsha (S-rank, Bureau Intelligence), unnamed Analyst
The room was Heavy and tense,— the kind of room where truths go to scream in silence.
[IN THE OBSERVATION ROOM – NIGHT]
The screen flickers.
Gray, grainy surveillance footage starts to roll. The room is dimly lit, except for the pale blue light bleeding from the large monitor. Rigved stands with arms crossed, gaze fixed. His black gloves creak faintly as his fingers flex.
The footage shows Arvan inside the dungeon—a narrow, ancient corridor drenched in blue bioluminescence, his figure small, shaking.
REINA(quietly)
"That's him. Around the ten-minute mark, the anomaly begins."
Rigved nods, saying nothing.
FOOTAGE
Arvan pauses before a broken statue, breathing ragged. The moment seems mundane. Then…
The screen glitches.
Static ripples, as if the System screen itself can't process what it's seeing.
The visual clarity returns—different now. The boy isn't the boy anymore.
RĀVAṆA.
Head lowered. Hair shadowing the face. Fingers twitching like a puppeteer controlling meat.
And then… he looks up.
Even through the grainy filter, Rigved feels it:
That smile.
That abyss.
That presence.
The footage blurs again. The audio crackles.
FOOTAGE AUDIO (distorted whisper)
"–feel honored. You're witnessing the return of a king."
Then silence… until the image re-stabilizes.
Arvan stands alone again, trembling like he's just woken from a nightmare. No monsters. No bodies. Just a shattered hallway… and blood trailing from the walls as if something had crawled through them in pain.
RIGVED(voice low, careful)
"That… wasn't a skill."
REINA
"Not listed in the system. Not a known ability. And the screen—did you notice the ID?"
Rigved nods.
Of course he noticed.
Arvan's System ID had glitched. For a full two seconds, it had renamed itself.
RĀVAṆA [?????????]
Then reverted.
RIGVED
(smirks, eyes narrowing)
"So… the dungeon wasn't the only one hiding secrets."
He turns away from the screen, his eyes unreadable now. Something old had stirred in that footage. Something wrong.
REINA
"You're taking the case?"
RIGVED
"I'm not doing this for the Bureau."
He looks at her, an edge in his voice.
RIGVED
"I want to know what's inside that boy. And more importantly—"
(a beat)
"—what happens if it wakes up fully."