Chapter 2: The Price of Redemption

The Man in the Kitchen

The man they knew as Krrish was named Krishna. And within the sanctuary of his small, middle-class apartment, he was simply a husband.

He finished stirring a bowl of piping hot dal-rice, the fragrant steam filling the small kitchen. He carried the bowl carefully into the bedroom. His wife, Priya, lay beneath the sheets, pale and sweating from a stubborn fever.

“Priya, wake up,” he murmured, his touch gentle. “You must eat something. You need the strength to fight this.”

Priya coughed, weakly turning her face toward the wall. “I don’t have the strength, Krishna.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, his deep concern overriding his exhaustion. “Just a little, my love. For me. One bite.”

She finally gave in, pulling herself up with a sigh. Krishna carefully fed her, his gaze unwavering, devoted entirely to her well-being. Priya watched him, a faint, contented smile touching her lips. “Will you still take care of me like this tomorrow? When everything changes?” she asked, a shadow of worry in her voice.

He chuckled, wiping her mouth with the back of his hand. “Eat. Don't worry about tomorrow.”

“That’s truly enough,” she insisted, leaning back.

Priya’s hand shot out, catching his wrist as he prepared to take the bowl. “Don’t,” she commanded softly. “Leave it and sit with me.”

Krishna settled beside her. Priya immediately leaned against him, resting her head comfortably on his shoulder. “Just stay here. Your presence is better than any medicine.”

Priya’s face was bright with this simple, domestic joy. Krishna’s, however, was shadowed. His smile was strained, his eyes distant—lost in a dark, crushing internal debate about the monumental sacrifice he was preparing to make.

The Theorist and the Outcasts

Far across the city, in a quiet college lecture hall, Vikram, a physics professor, lectured to an almost empty room. The whiteboard was a dense map of formulas. Vikram’s knowledge was encyclopedic, his passion genuine, yet only five students sat before him. The apathy was a slow poison to his soul.

Decades of study, ignored, he thought bitterly. All this truth, and no one cares.

“Any doubts?” he asked, forcing a tone of inquiry.

“No, sir,” the students mumbled in unison.

A girl named Gayatri finally broke the monotone. “Sir, you promised to tell us about aliens today.”

“That subject is beyond the curriculum,” he replied, attempting a professional deflection. The students’ collective groan of disappointment was the final straw. “Fine. We’ll talk about it now.”

He rallied, fire returning to his voice. "In the cosmic scale, there are billions of galaxies, each with countless stars. Why should our tiny world be unique? Life, intelligent or otherwise, exists somewhere else. It must."

“Then why haven’t they ever come to Earth?”

Vikram paused, a curious, almost manic glint in his eye. “Who says they haven’t?”

The bell rang, cutting off the discussion, leaving the students—and Vikram—in a tantalizing state of suspended curiosity.

Meanwhile, the acrid scent of burning wood and collective sorrow hung heavy over the crematorium. The little girl, Sharmila, stood quietly with Mouni, watching her mother’s funeral pyre. She was an orphan now, alone.

“Why are they burning Mommy?” Sharmila asked Mouni innocently.

Mouni, whose own trauma had stunted her understanding of human ritual, answered with brutal simplicity. “Your mother is dead. She won’t come back.”

The blunt truth made Sharmila burst into tears. Mouni felt a sharp, unfamiliar pang of protective pain. She knelt down. “Where is your daddy?”

“He left,” Sharmila whimpered, clutching Mouni’s heavy coat.

“He went on a very long trip,” Mouni offered, searching for a gentler explanation.

Mouni led Sharmila far from the pyres, deep into the city’s unpopulated outskirts, to a vast, abandoned shed. Inside, five large, glass chambers stood intact—figures dimly visible inside, sustained by barely functioning oxygen tubes. Mouni whispered to them, a profound hallucination where they were her preserved family.

"Who are you talking to?" Sharmila asked.

“The people in here. My parents,” Mouni replied softly. “They chose to be. They prefer being inside to being outside.”

“What is your name?”

“Ugly,” Mouni answered automatically, the world’s cruel label her only accepted truth.

Sharmila, with a child’s cutting honesty, declared, “That’s a very bad name.”

Mouni flinched, faltering. “B-bad? What is your name, then?”

“Sharmila. Is it good?”

“It’s beautiful,” Mouni admitted.

Sharmila’s face lit up. “Then I will give you a beautiful name, too. Mouni. How does that sound?”

Mouni repeated the name, the sound soft and strange on her tongue. “Mouni…” A genuine smile—one of pure, unguarded delight—spread across her face. “It’s beautiful.”

She stood, repeating her new name, spinning slowly with her arms outstretched, embracing the promise of an identity finally chosen for her, not forced upon her.

The Slap of Truth

The news channels blared Mouni’s praises. A reporter’s voice declared: "The public has a new protector, hailed as stronger than the fallen hero, Krrish. The public demands justice for Krrish’s crime, concluding his chapter is definitively closed.”

In their apartment, Krishna sat alone in the dark living room, listening. The condemnation, the public fury, the total annihilation of the myth he created—the guilt was a physical weight.

Priya, feeling better, watched him from the doorway. She saw the profound self-hatred on his face. She pushed past her hesitation, announcing her presence with a soft cough.

Krishna shot up. “Priya! What are you doing? Get back to bed!” He rushed her back to the mattress, gently massaging her temples.

“Are you worried, Krishna?” she asked softly.

He forced a small, brittle smile. “Worried? I have nothing to worry about.”

Priya took his hand, pulling him closer. She cradled his face and kissed him tenderly. “Everything will be alright. Don’t worry. Let’s go out tomorrow, somewhere quiet and peaceful.”

The next morning, they were at a cozy coffee shop. On the television, Mohit’s interview played—the vlogger was now a minor celebrity for filming Krrish’s murder. Krishna and Priya ignored the screen, savoring their moment of stolen peace.

But the darkness returned to Krishna’s face. Priya noticed instantly. “Why are you thinking so hard again? Can’t you just forget it for an hour and spend this time with me?”

“I’m not thinking about that,” Krishna replied, shaking his head. “It’s something else.”

“What is it?” she insisted.

The confession burst out of him, a torrent of self-loathing. “Sometimes… I feel like I am the cause of all your suffering. If you hadn’t met me, you would have lived a happy, normal life. I feel like I ruin everyone's life. That all this destruction is the price of my selfishness.” He looked at her, his eyes begging for confirmation.

S P L A T !

Priya slapped him, hard.

The entire shop fell silent. Krishna touched his stinging cheek, looking at Priya. Her eyes held a desperate mix of pain, betrayal, and white-hot anger.

“Are you a martyr, Krishna? Is that your identity?” she hissed, her voice trembling. “Was meeting me a mistake? Does everything I chose to do for you mean nothing?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Don’t you dare talk such nonsense again! I chose you. I chose this life, knowing it wasn’t normal. I never once blamed you! I thought we could have one moment of joy, away from the misery. But you… you drag it right back here! I’m leaving.”

Krishna stood, scrambling to calm her. “Priya, wait, I didn’t mean—”

She snatched her bag and stormed out. Krishna threw cash onto the table and rushed after her.

Just as he burst onto the sidewalk, that chilling, primal intuition—the hero’s warning—screamed in his mind. Get down!

BOOM!

A massive, deafening explosion ripped through the street, tearing the air apart. The shockwave threw Krishna backward.

Doga’s Challenge

A suffocating blanket of smoke and the raw, animal sounds of screaming filled the void left by the blast. When the smoke partially cleared, the air tasted of burning oil and pulverized concrete. The street was a scene of horror: scattered bodies, survivors running with horrific burns, and the unbearable wails of the newly bereaved.

Tears streamed down Krishna’s face. He stumbled to his knees, utterly broken. “Priya! Priya, where are you?”

He forced himself to crawl forward, his hands pushing debris aside. He saw her.

Priya lay motionless in a pool of blood. Krishna sprinted, scooping her lifeless body into his arms, his heart tearing.

“Priya, wake up! We have to go home, Priya! Please!” he sobbed, rocking her gently. “Don’t leave me angry. Yell at me, hit me, do anything you want, but please don’t leave me! I have no one but you!”

Later, Priya was stabilized and loaded into an ambulance. Krishna stood on the curb, watching the vehicle carry his entire world away. When it was gone, a crushing, debilitating helplessness enveloped him. He pushed his way into the ongoing rescue efforts, ferrying the wounded into waiting vans.

As the ambulance Krishna was helping to fill began to move away, there was a sharp, second blast. The vehicle’s tire exploded, sending the van into a violent roll.

Crash… Blast… Fire.

Krishna crawled from the burning wreck, bruised but protected by his innate resilience. He pulled the remaining injured from the flames.

Then, from the heart of the fire, a figure emerged, striding out of the heat haze as if the flames were a stage curtain. It was the villain: Doga.

“Where is your great hero, Krrish?” Doga roared, his voice booming over the chaos. “He doesn’t care! He abandoned you!”

The remaining injured citizens bowed their heads in shame and despair.

Doga grinned, lifting a gun. “Perhaps the body count isn’t high enough.” He casually shot a wounded man nearby. “Let’s see how many I have to kill before he shows his face.”

The screams renewed. Doga spotted an old woman crawling desperately on the road and raised his gun toward her.

“HEY!”

A cry of pure, unadulterated fury tore through the air. Doga paused, turning to the ordinary man who had yelled.

“Did you cause all this destruction?” Krishna yelled, his face a mask of rage, his fists clenched tight.

Doga laughed, a harsh, dismissive sound. “Guilty.” He then abruptly shot the old woman crawling at his feet.

Krishna roared in grief and blinding fury, his body trembling. Doga found the man’s defiance intriguing. “A normal person with such courage. Interesting.” He leveled his gun at Krishna’s head. Krishna did not flinch. He stood perfectly still, his eyes burning with defiance and profound despair.

“Fine,” Doga sneered, pulling the trigger.

The bullet left the barrel, aimed at Krishna’s chest.

But before it could strike, a colossal, violet fist of energy smashed Doga in the face.

The force sent Doga hurtling sideways through the air and crashing into a nearby building. The bullet, however, continued its trajectory, grazing Krishna’s shoulder.

Dazed, Krishna looked up, trying to make out the hooded figure who had saved him. Mouni stood there, already in a defensive stance.

From the shattered ruins of the building Doga had crashed into, two bloody, crimson eyes began to glow, watching Mouni with fierce, predatory intent.

And a short distance away, the little girl Sharmila was already working, unseen, guiding the wounded to safety—a small, quiet protector in the making.