Chapter 7: The Sins of the Father

One Day Before

The full moon was a cold, indifferent eye in the light-starved sky. By its ethereal, silvery glow, the figure perched atop the broken, skeletal remains of the city building was clearly visible, yet almost unbelievable: the Fake Krrish.

Mohit, paralyzed with a terror so absolute his body had seized up, could only stare. The fear was a physical chokehold—the instinctive, rigid bracing of a man who sees death standing directly before him.

A hand clamped roughly over his mouth from behind. A voice, low and urgent, hissed into his ear, barely audible above the ringing silence: "Don't scream! If you want to escape this with your life, listen to me and come now."

Mohit had no choice. His legs, though trembling violently, carried him away with the unknown stranger.

The stranger’s name was Ramu.

Ramu led Mohit far from the Fake Krrish’s line of sight, deep into the murky, debris-filled basement of a destroyed house.

“We can be safe here, for now,” Ramu whispered, his eyes wide with fear. “But make no sound.”

Mohit's hands still shook uncontrollably. “What is this place? Why is the entire town devastated? Who are you? And who is that wearing the Krrish mask? What in the world is happening?”

The answer lay a long journey away, a day after this moment, and the question itself was already being echoed in a far darker place—a prison cell—by a man named Prakash.

One Day After

Inside the sterile, concrete confines of the high-security jail, Inspector Prakash leaned forward, his face etched with strain.

“Who is that man on the news? Why is he wearing your mask? What is his connection to you?”

Krrish, a shadow in the corner, sat hunched against the damp wall, his eyes bloodshot from exhaustion. He watched Prakash with a look of profound resignation.

“So, he has finally come,” Krrish murmured, the words heavy with tragic finality.

Prakash slammed a fist on the table. “Tell me! Who is he?”

Krrish lifted his head, a single, agonizing word tearing from his throat.

“He is my son.”

Krrish's Backstory

“After the struggles had passed, we were blessed with a beautiful boy. His name is Rohan. We thought he had inherited all of my father's traits. He was intelligent, sharp. Seeing him, we thought no happiness could ever surpass this. We cherished him, Priya and I. He was our whole world.”

Prakash was stunned. “You… you have children?”

Krrish offered a sad, weary smile. “Behind this mask, Officer, there is also a father with family responsibilities.”

“I considered taking care of him my greatest blessing, a gift. Being with him was all I ever wanted. I should have told him everything.”

Krrish paused, his eyes drifting to some painful, unseen past. “Officer, do you have children?”

“Yes, two daughters.”

“Wow! That must be an amazing feeling.” Krrish’s voice cracked. “I often felt how lucky I was to have a daughter. But it's not that I didn't love my son. I loved Rohan with my life. And I should have told him that, too.”

“What happened?”

Krrish looked past Prakash, seeing the mistakes he could never undo. “As a father, I failed him.”

“Protecting the people was my duty, my dharma. Day in and day out, I answered the call whenever danger struck. I fulfilled my duty, but I could not fulfill my responsibility to my son.”

“Priya was often left to care for him alone, but even she couldn’t always be there. He was too young to understand. He failed to comprehend her absence. We never truly saw the suffering he was enduring. As he grew, the complaints escalated. He began using his abilities to hurt his classmates. We couldn’t understand why. By the time we discovered the truth, it was too late. He had burned the car of a classmate’s parents.”

“The school couldn't handle him anymore and asked us to take him away. Priya insisted we send him to her old boarding school—the one place she was truly happy. She was convinced the joy she found there would be passed on to Rohan. And I, fearing he would grow up isolated and alone, like me, couldn’t say no to her. Our deepest wish was for him to become a greater man than I.”

“We stayed with him for two weeks after we dropped him off. He was happy. He cried when we left. When we saw him two months later, he was a changed person. No matter how much affection we showed him, he couldn’t return it. He never asked us to take him back. Because of our duties, we left him there. That was our mistake. And that was the last time we saw our child as a normal boy.”

“Two months later, we returned as usual. But the sight we witnessed… we couldn’t have imagined it even in a nightmare. The entire village was gone. Vanished. The cause? Our son, Rohan. Darkness had consumed him. He was no longer our little boy. He had become a demon who destroyed an entire settlement. There was only a murderous rage in his eyes—a lust to destroy the world. He became a monster that no one could stop. For years, I have tried to contain him. Now, there is nothing left in my hands.”

Prakash’s voice was sharp. “But why the Krrish mask?”

“He isn't just wearing the Krrish mask,” Krrish stated, the final, painful truth. “He is trying to destroy the Krrish identity.”

Beneath the Rubble

Back in the basement beneath the ruined house, Mohit and Ramu were discussing the Fake Krrish.

“I was an attendant at the collapsed school nearby,” Ramu explained. “I knew everything about him. At first, I thought he was just a normal boy, like any other. Always outside, always getting punished. He was silent, even when everyone teased him. They mistook his silence for weakness and tormented him more. He never complained to the teachers, who didn’t like him either. To everyone, he was a bad kid, a brat. Unruly. A brute.”

Ramu shuddered. “But who could have guessed? Who could have imagined the kind of monster that was hidden inside that silent boy? Everything was destroyed in the blink of an eye. There is no trace that a village ever existed here. The cause? Simply that boy’s arrival.”

Mohit stood up, exasperated. “It doesn’t make any sense! Why would a boy destroy a whole village, not just a school? You’re hiding something. Something else happened, and you’re not telling me.”

Ramu’s eyes hardened. “No. He is the one who did wrong. He is responsible for all the deaths.”

The conversation was being closely listened to by the Fake Krrish from his perch. He descended slowly, landing softly, his ruined eyes fixed on Ramu.

Fake Krrish: “Have you forgotten? You used to take out the anger you had for your wife on me. When you got into trouble and were cursed, you used to take it out on me.”

With a casual flick of his wrist, the Fake Krrish hurled Ramu out of the basement and onto the debris-strewn road.

Fake Krrish: "I cried on this very road—for hunger, for help. You all looked at me like I was untouchable. All you ever saw was my powers, never the little boy inside me. Did anyone? I cried every day for my mother and father. They kept my identity a secret so they wouldn't know. What wrong did I do?”

His voice rose to a terrifying crescendo, laced with years of suppressed sorrow. “I wanted to play with my father like everyone else, I craved my mother’s love. Even when they were here, it was as if they weren’t. The pain of being alone—eating alone, sleeping alone, going to school alone—never left me. But I had one friend, one best friend.”

His voice softened for a moment, thick with tragic memory. “She took care of me. She would play with me, feed me, and ask me how I was. With her, I forgot everything. I wanted her to be with me forever. But because of you—because of your mistake—her medicine was adulterated, her food was poisoned. She got cancer and died.”

“Before she died, she cried and cried for her parents, begging to see her mom and dad. They never came. By the time they did, it was all over. I wanted to show my mom at least a photo of her, hoping it would make her happy. But my mom and dad broke their promise, too. She is gone. And I will not forgive anyone who caused this.”

The Fake Krrish raised his hands, the air vibrating with dark energy. “Even far away from the world, selfishness reigns supreme. Everyone cares only about their own lives, their own existence, to the point where they will kill others. Krrish says he stands for peace, but where is this peace? No one deserves this peace! Everyone must die!”

He turned to Ramu, who was crawling away, and delivered a single, furious punch that atomized the man into pieces.

What happened next?