Title: Aryan Malik – Reborn in the Shadow
Chapter 1: The End and the Beginning
~3000 words
The winter air in Mussoorie hung still that morning, weighed down by clouds that threatened snow. At a quiet cottage near Landour, the curtains fluttered gently as the early sun crept into the room. The world outside stirred lazily, unaware that one of India's most decorated and secretive heroes had taken his last breath in the night.
Aryan Malik, 63, ex-soldier, former RAW Director, legend to the few who truly knew him—was gone.
There was no gasp, no drama. Death came to him as silently as he had lived most of his life. The framed medals above his desk—Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra, and dozens of campaign ribbons—remained untouched. The thick files on his shelf, marked "Declassified," "Strategic," "Top Secret," remained sealed.
No TV anchor knew the weight of decisions he'd made, the enemies he'd stopped from ever reaching India's borders, the lives he'd chosen to save—and sometimes end.
They cremated him with honour, wrapped in the tricolour. A few former agents from his RAW years stood silently, their faces blank masks. A small group of army officers saluted as the final flames flickered.
And then, Aryan Malik was no more.
Or so the world believed.
I didn't expect peace.
Not after everything I've done. Not after the things I've seen. I expected judgment. Or maybe… just silence.
But instead, there was light. Warm. Gentle. Endless.
I couldn't feel my body, but I felt… aware. Aware that something wasn't done. That my death was just a pause.
And then… I was falling. Or rising? No sense of time, no sense of gravity—just motion. And a whisper.
"Aryan Malik. You believed your story ended. But it was only the first act."
March 3rd, 2008.
Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
In a brightly lit room at Max Hospital, the cries of a newborn broke through the early spring air. It was a healthy boy—weighing 3.4 kilograms, lungs loud, eyes strangely calm. The doctor handed him to the mother with a smile.
"Congratulations, Mrs. Malik. You have a warrior in your arms."
Anita Malik, dressed in a sky-blue hospital gown, cradled her son, brushing a gentle kiss against his forehead. Her tired eyes sparkled behind the fog of fatigue. Sitting beside her was her husband, Dr. Raghav Malik, still wearing his white coat after a 36-hour shift. His fingers trembled as they stroked his newborn's soft cheek.
They named him Aryan Malik.
It was the name Anita had always liked—a strong name, noble, bold.
They didn't know, of course, that it wasn't the first time the soul behind those eyes had heard it.
I couldn't cry at first. Not from pain. But from confusion. Because I remembered.
I remembered dying.
I remembered Mussoorie. My cottage. The fireplace. The last tea I made with my own hands. The smell of Darjeeling mixed with winter wind.
And now—this.
A new body. A new voice. A new mother.
Except this mother… worked for the Intelligence Bureau.
And the father… he wasn't just any doctor. He treated high-level officers, military men, and sometimes even people from the world I used to command.
Fate hadn't just given me another life.
It had dropped me into a family of doors—every one of them leading to power, secrets, or both.
The Silver Oak Colony was nestled on the quieter, greener edge of Rajpur Road—one of Dehradun's most desirable neighborhoods. Lined with trees and filled with the sounds of kids cycling and dogs barking, it was the perfect upper-middle-class haven.
The Malik household stood apart. Their home was warm but secure. Surveillance cameras. An extra lock on every window. A reinforced office in the basement—supposedly for Dr. Malik's "records," but no one really believed that.
Inside, Aryan grew—not just in body, but in intellect.
By the age of three, he rarely cried. He could already read letters and mimic sounds from the news channels his mother left on at low volume. By five, he had taught himself the order of military ranks and could name every Indian Prime Minister and Defense Minister.
He would lie awake at night, replaying memories from his first life.
The first gunshot.
The first mission.
The first betrayal.
The first time he saw a friend die in front of him.
But he buried it all—deep.
This world didn't need a soldier yet. Not outwardly. Not visibly.
Not until the time was right.
My classmates memorized the alphabet. I memorized encrypted radio frequencies my mother accidentally left visible on her work file.
They played games in the schoolyard. I practiced walking in silence, avoiding detection.
No one taught me. I already knew.
Sometimes I caught my mother staring at me too long. She was watching—trying to understand what made me so different.
She had instincts, after all.
And sometimes, I let her see. A half-smile when I decoded her "private" laptop. A perfectly timed answer to her offhand remarks about threats in Jammu or northeast.
She didn't ask.
And I didn't tell.
Dr. Raghav Malik was immensely proud of his son. But even he admitted, in quiet moments with Anita, that Aryan was "different."
"He doesn't react like other kids. No tantrums. No fear of needles. He asked me yesterday if 'democracy is truly democratic in a country with institutional corruption.' He's six, Anita."
Anita only smiled.
Because she'd already begun to suspect the truth—not that Aryan was reincarnated—but that he was more than a genius. A natural-born observer. A future analyst. A threat… or an asset, depending on which side he chose.
She started watching him like she did targets.
And she began preparing.
One evening, I saw a black Scorpio parked outside our colony gate for the third time in a week.
Same number plate. No stickers. Driver pretending to sleep.
It wasn't a parent or staff car.
I noted the angle of the rear-view mirror—it was tilted toward the school's direction.
Someone was watching.
I hacked into the colony's public Wi-Fi camera logs.
I found patterns. The same car parked outside three other neighborhoods near government staff homes.
I left a note on my mother's desk:
"He's not IB. He's observing us. Plate: DL09 BK 2731."
The car was gone the next day.
My mother didn't speak of it.
But that night, she left a small black box outside my door.
Inside: a real tactical compass, a tactical torch, and a note.
"Good instincts. But next time, tell me first."
From 13 onward, Aryan balanced two lives.
To the world: a top student, polite, involved in sports, a boy everyone respected.
In reality: Aryan was building a digital vault. Tracking threats. Studying enemies. Decoding government briefings on live TV for real-time analysis.
He secretly infiltrated a public darknet chatroom where potential low-level insurgent recruits were being groomed. He passed the information to his mother—anonymously.
When he turned 16, he rejected a full scholarship to IIT Delhi.
"Too slow," he said.
His mother didn't argue.
I didn't ask for this life.
But maybe that's the point.
Fate didn't ask me. It chose me. Twice.
The first time, I served through blood and silence.
The second time?
I'll serve smarter. Deeper. Better.
The battlefield isn't just jungles and borders anymore.
It's in code. In perception. In manipulation.
And I was made for it.
End of Chapter 1