It has been 3 years. 3 years after I have returned from the 15th century.

It took me an additional year to complete my graduation since I had gone missing. I was called in sick at the university and they were told it was because of the health issues that I had to miss my classes.

Nevertheless, I graduated and I was now working as the assistant researcher in the national historical firm. The pay was good, but it was more about the work that kept me intrigued.

I was about to be promoted soon, because of my apparent hard work and dedication. Little did they know I sat back in research center, working overtime all through the night because I didn't want to go home. I would find myself only crying pathetically every time I was alone. There were a couple of times in the initial few day when I had returned, that I attempted to physically harm myself, either using blades and knives, or hot water or oil.

Thankfully I identified my deteriorating mental condition, and I started seeking help from a mental health expert. A psychiatrist. Currently surviving due to medicines and counseling.

I wouldn't lie, Neel is always in the back of my mind.

Like Prof. Darsh had assumed, none of it happened.

I did not forget about Neel. Everything about him was intact, as if it was just yesterday that I met him, confessed to him, held him, kissed him.

But I learnt to live with it. Hoping he would be seeing me, somewhere from heaven.

I had hardly seen Prof Darsh; maybe only a couple of times after I got out of the hospital. I asked him not to contact me, or give me any information about Neel, especially if it contained the fact the Neel died.

Even if Neel was dead, I wanted him to stay alive in my head forever.

I had given a testimony in favor of Aakav in his legal procedure. He had begged me an apology a million of times and to be honest I internally thanked him for letting me meet Neel. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have even known Neel the way I do now.

The last time that I and Aakav met, he told me his professor had flown over to the US one year back, and they couldn't get in touch with him. so the further update with the time machine has been halted, and it just won't work until Darsh comes back.

I was 110% sure he has gone back to his time and is not planning to return anytime soon. The old man was smart. Nobody could use the time machine now in his absence.

Well I had anyway given up on the idea of using the machine anymore.

I was going back to my home, the one I had recently moved into. Ever since I had started working I recollected how Neel thought my house was small and not breathable. So I had decided that the first investment I'll make, was to a buy a huge house.

Ofcourse it was difficult given the population and the land, but I managed one 2 storey house to myself.

---

I was getting in my car when my new Q tab buzzed.

It was a message.

From Darsh.

It looked like an address of a hotel

I tried calling him on that 15 digit number, but it was suddenly 'unavailable'

It took me a while to come to a decision, and I decided to be there, on that address.

---

Room 404, that is the room number on the address, and the room I was standing in front of.

I rung the bell to the room and just as quickly the door was opened for me.

It was still sunny outside, but the room was pitch dark, all curtains drawn, leaving a little space for natural light to enter the room.

What the fuck is happening.

Darsh was standing in front of me, in one of the most casual attires I could have seen him into.

"what-"

"sh" Darsh kept a finger on his mouth, indicating me to be quiet, as he made space for me to let me in the room.

I was confused, not thinking straight. But I entered the room anyway.

As soon as I entered the room, I saw him.

Neel.

Lying on the bed, in a white tshirt and trousers, covered with the most comfortable quilt, sleeping peacefully as he laid on his stomach. My eyes started brimming, as soon as I saw him, but I decided to not let my hopes up high.

"He looks like Neel." I turned to the old man, standing behind, allowing me to absorb. "if you think, getting me a replacement, with a man who looks just like him will do the work, then I am sorry, it won't."

"tch!" he made an irritated noise at me. "What's the rush to come to a conclusion? Look at him closely. You're seeing him after years."

As soon as his words left his mouth, my world flipped. I immediately turned to have a better glance at him. The man who looked like Neel , was sleeping holding onto a roll of paper.

I identified it. It was the incomplete letter, the one that I had left in that world before I came back here.

I looked over to Darsh in disbelief.

This man was indeed Neel. I stared at him blankly, not knowing how to react. I had not practiced for a moment like this. I never thought this will come.

"How?" my brain had frozen.

"You.. you said he'll die." I managed to speak somehow. "How is he still alive, he was meant to die." My brain started coming back to its sense as it settled the reality back.

He scoffed in front of me.

"I never said he'll die. You believed that he will die in 1442." He stated. I looked at him, narrowing my eyes in confusion.

"You guys are studying history which says Neel dies in the year 1442. Just because you are studying about it doesn't mean it's the truth."

I stood there in stupefaction, unable to understand anything. As if sensing it, he went ahead explaining it to me.

"You guys are anyway genius when it comes to giving false information. Look at your media for that matter." He commented. "you people search 10% of the truth, assume 90% of the remaining, and then serve all of it confidently as facts, making people believe all your bullshit."

"What does this mean. I have searched all the evidences, all of it says that he was dead in the 1442, because he was killed by his step mother. How come he is here. Does travelling time really challenge death." I argued

"Don't be a fool. Just because humans created a machine that can travel time and spaces, that doesn't mean that humans are greater than Gods. I told you time and nature takes its own course, and no matter what you do, things will happen the way they are meant to.

Neel had never died."

I did not know how I felt about his statement. My world had spinned. Flipped up side down.

"What the fuck happened in the original history, that all the evidences are made to show that Neel was killed?"

Was he kidnapped, tortured. Did the Queen mother attempted to kill him but he somehow survived and escaped because God did not want him to die.

"What the fuck happened to him in reality?" I was finding it hard to keep my voice low to not wake him up.

"Your presence influenced the natural course of events a little here and there, no doubt." Darsh started spilling the beans, "but no matter what you do, the end result will always be the same- what fate has decided."

I hope he gets to the point quickly.

"Your presence made 2 huge differences: firstly, getting Neel's father out of his hibernation and secondly, getting Shravya expelled from the palace. Both of it did not happen in the original 1441."

I was listening intently.

"In the original 1441, the night when Neel returned from his war with the Norths, he stayed back at his father's palace; where his father was locked and Shravya was there too. That night Shravya was mad, raged, because her daughter, Aarini was engaged to Yug, a minister. She was never okay with Yug, but she couldn't do anything after the engagement.

So that night, when Neel was alone with a little few of a his guards in his father's palace, the Queen mother asked Neel for a lifetime of favor- To pay her back"

"Pay her back for what?" I asked, a little loudly this time.

"To pay her back for all these years that she had raised him, in the absence of both of his parents. She asked him to announce his death and give the entire kingdom to Yug so that her daughter gets to be the queen."

My mouth dropped in disbelief.

"She asked Neel to leave the kingdom, and stay in the outskirts like a normal man, doing normal chores-"

"And he did that?" I couldn't believe my ears

"He felt obliged. With his father not being there, he thought it was his responsibility that his sister gets the best lifestyle possible. So he told his best guards to tell everyone that he was dead, that the enemies attacked them while they were returning back alone.

But the guard had already known about the truth, about what the Queen mother had asked from Neel. So the information that passed ahead in the entire kingdom went like Chinese whispers. Stupid rumors. Some said, he was taken by the enemy ,some said Neel hibernated like his father did, but the famous of them all was that- 'Shravya killed Neel in order to make Yug the king'. But Neel stayed like a common man, in the outer part of the nation, while Yug ruled. This is the truth of the original 1441."

My reality had been discarded at this minute. My whole life was a lie.

"Yug did not know about it?" I questioned. I couldn't believe that Yug will know the truth and yet rule while the actual king will suffer in a small house in a corner of the nation.

Darsh nodded his head in a no. "Had he known, he would have brought him back."

"He did not punish Shravya?" I asked.

"Nope. He had no physical evidences. Not even a dead body for that matter."

I stayed silent, and then spoke a while later.

"Yug and Aarini married even in the history I was not a part of?" I was pleased at this. I was pleased that they fought for each other regardless of my presence.

"hmm. But you had just escalated their process." I chuckled at this.

I must have .

"I told you, do what you have to, things will happen the way they are meant to. All you have to work towards, is how to make things in your favor.

After you left, in the year 1442, Neel's condition deteriorated. He did not want to get dethroned like his father, so he stepped down willingly, and just like original history, in the modified history, Yug was made the king. Aarini is still the Queen."

My heart sank at the truth. How hard must it have been for him that he had to give up his throne.

"His health started taking a toll. He started hallucinating you. I was afraid, like the former king who locked himself, Neel will do something like that too. He was only holding onto that Q tab of yours, seeing your picture in it for hours together and that incomplete letter of yours. It was Yug who ordered me, as my king, to take Neel back to you, before his condition gets even worse."

"so Yug knows about your truth?"

"I confessed to him in private."

I looked at Neel who was still fast asleep started weeping. I knew the mental breakdown that came with the departure. I had been self-destructive too, but I was lucky to get help. But Neel, he must have struggled all by himself.

"To be honest." Darsh spoke again. " I was goingto get him to you, I couldn't see myformer king suffer like that. But I was just waiting for you to settle down onyour own so that I can be assured that atleast in this modified history, whenNeel leaves the kingdom, he will be treated like the king that he is."

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