Bloodline

The morning mist tasted like cold iron, sharp and bitter, as though the gods themselves had wept blood into the air. Kavya’s bare feet slapped against the damp earth, her breaths coming in shallow gasps, each exhalation clouding like smoke from a sacrificial pyre. The path near Laxman Jhula twisted like a serpent’s spine, its stones slick with dew and centuries of secrets. She ran, clutching the worn tabeez her grandmother had pressed into her hand with trembling fingers just before her death.

“Do not go to the river after dark,” her grandmother had whispered that night, her voice a frayed thread unraveling in the dim lamplight. “The Ganga remembers the promises our bloodline made. It does not forgive forgotten oaths.”

But Kavya hadn’t believed her. Not then.

Now, the whispers surrounded her like a hundred unseen mouths, each word laced with venom and sorrow. She could feel them—the pretas, the restless souls who lingered near the holy waters, caught between worlds, feeding on despair. Their voices coiled around her ears, muttering in the forgotten tongue of her ancestors, the syllables heavy with the weight of something ancient and cursed.

“Kavya…”

The voice came again, soft and sweet, laced with a familiarity that made her knees buckle. It was her mother’s voice—no, her shadow’s voice. Her mother, who had disappeared into the Ganga three monsoons ago, swallowed by the very waters she had worshipped.

Ahead, the suspension bridge of Laxman Jhula loomed like a cage of iron and shadow. The chains swayed in the night breeze, groaning like the cries of forgotten souls. The mist, thick and viscous, clung to the bridge, refusing to let the moonlight through.

The whispers grew louder. Behind her, she heard footsteps—soft, deliberate, too measured to belong to anything living. She dared a glance back, her heart a drumbeat in her chest. A figure stood in the mist, clad in robes the colour of ash, his face obscured by the hood of an ancient angavastram. In his hand, he held a trishul, its iron tips glinting dully in the dim light.

“Why do you run, child of the Ganga?” the man asked, his voice low, resonant, and older than the river itself. “Your blood is bound to the waters. You cannot escape what flows in your veins.”

Kavya stumbled backward, clutching the tabeez to her chest. “Who are you?” she whispered, her voice cracking like dry earth.

“I am no one,” the figure replied, stepping closer. “A keeper of promises, a guardian of debts. And your family owes the river a great one.”

Kavya’s mind spun, her grandmother’s stories crashing into her like waves. Stories of a distant ancestor, a young widow who had sought the help of a tantrik to save her son from death. The tantrik had promised to appease the river spirits, but the price had been steep—a bloodline cursed to serve the Ganga’s will for eternity.

“You lie,” Kavya hissed, but her voice faltered.

“Do I?” The figure tilted his head, and from the folds of his robes, he drew out a string of blackened beads. They pulsed faintly, as though alive, as though filled with the screams of the women who had come before her.

Kavya turned and bolted for the bridge. The chains rattled beneath her feet as she ran, each step a prayer, each breath a plea. Ahead, the ashram’s shrine flickered faintly in the distance, its light a fragile ember in the suffocating dark.

But the whispers followed her, growing louder, sharper. The mist thickened, and the air turned heavy, pressing against her chest like a shroud.

“You cannot run from the river,” the voice said, closer now, its tone almost tender. “It is your destiny. It is your death.”

Kavya reached the other side of the bridge, collapsing before the ashram’s weathered doors. The oil lamp above the shrine flickered, its flame dancing in the cold wind. She pounded on the door until her fists bled, crying out for Baba Tej.

The door opened slowly, and the old man emerged, his face gaunt, his eyes sunken hollows that held the weight of a thousand lifetimes.

“You should not have come here, child,” he said, his voice a low murmur, as though speaking to the wind.

“Help me,” Kavya begged, tears streaming down her face. “The river… it’s coming for me.”

Baba Tej’s gaze drifted past her to the bridge, where the mist writhed like a living thing, tendrils of shadow stretching toward her. “The Ganga does not forget,” he said softly. “And neither should you.”

“What are you saying?” Kavya whispered, a cold dread pooling in her stomach.

He stepped aside, revealing the shrine’s inner sanctum. On the walls were carvings—painful, beautiful depictions of women, their faces contorted in agony as they plunged into the river, their hands clutching prayer beads, their mouths open in silent screams.

“You were marked at birth, Kavya,” Baba Tej said, his voice tinged with pity. “You carry the curse of your foremothers. The river demands its due.”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “There has to be another way.”

But even as she spoke, the whispers surged, and the mist poured into the ashram, snuffing out the light of the shrine. Kavya turned to run, but the shadows seized her, cold and unyielding.

As she was dragged toward the river, her screams echoed through the valley, mingling with the eternal roar of the Ganga. The water welcomed her, its dark currents wrapping around her like arms, pulling her into its depths.

The water surged around Kavya, cold as death yet strangely tender, like the hands of a mother bathing her child for the first time. She flailed at first, her instincts screaming against the inevitability of the river’s pull. The current gripped her ankles, her waist, her chest—until it cradled her completely. The whispers, once sharp and terrifying, softened, turning into an ancient lullaby, one her soul seemed to recognise but had long forgotten.

She opened her eyes beneath the surface, expecting darkness, expecting pain. Instead, she saw light—not the harsh, judgmental glare of fire or sun, but a soft, golden radiance that seemed to emanate from the water itself. It painted the currents in hues of liquid amber, its movement slow and deliberate, as if time here obeyed a different rhythm.

And then, she saw them—faces, hundreds of them, floating in the currents like fallen petals. Her mother smiled at her, her features no longer gaunt from years of grief but full of life, as if the river had stripped her of all burdens. Her grandmother was there too, her presence as solid and comforting as it had been in childhood The generations of women who had feared this fate now seemed to dance in the water, their hair streaming like threads of night, their laughter echoing in the currents.

A weight lifted from Kavya’s chest, one she hadn’t even known she carried. The fear, the running, the dread of something she could never fully understand—it had been for nothing. She realised, in that moment, that the river was not her dushman, enemy. It was her home, her origin, her end.

She stretched her arms out, no longer fighting, and let the current take her deeper. The water wrapped around her like a lover’s embrace, filling her with a warmth that felt otherworldly. Her breath slowed, her pulse steadied, and she felt her fears dissolve into the river, their sharp edges eroded into nothingness.

The Ganga spoke to her—not in words, but in sensations. It whispered of mountains where it was born, of valleys it had nourished, of lives it had carried and reclaimed. Kavya understood now; the river was no curse, no punishment. It was a keeper of promises, a collector of stories.

She thought of all the years she had spent worrying, running, questioning. All the times she had imagined the worst. And yet, here she was, unburdened, unafraid, submerged in something far greater than herself. She smiled, the taste of iron gone, replaced by something sweet and timeless.

Above her, the surface shimmered, rippling like molten gold in the moonlight. She felt no need to rise, no desire to return to the world above. The river was her truth, her sanctuary, her absolution.

For the first time in her life, Kavya understood that the things we fear most are often the things we need most. And as the Ganga carried her gently onward, she closed her eyes and surrendered to its song—a song of endings that were beginnings, of pain that became beauty, and of life that flowed eternally, like the river itself.

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