India was the land Silas found himself reborn into.
Clara, his adoptive mother, had immigrated from overseas years before settling down in Haryana, yet this vast subcontinent suited his ambitions well enough.
It offered space, population, and an ideal anchor point for establishing his first foothold.
Silas cast his nascent sensory net across the plains and river valleys, sifting through the background noise of millions until his awareness settled on the Prime Minister.
While his mind could brush against distant borders using his connection with Earth, physical projection remained tethered by mortal constraints.
Until Earth’s nascent World Spirit finished forming in the planet’s core, direct intervention required his actual physical presence.
He waited for morning.
Clara kissed his forehead and rushed out the door for her caretaking shift, followed shortly by Alice heading down the road toward the vegetable stalls.
Once the latch clicked and the house settled into silence, Silas walked out to the sunlit road and held up a small hand.
An old yellow-and-black cab rattled to the curb, idling with a rough cough.
Silas took in the dented steel and exhaust fumes with quiet amusement.
Mortal machines in this era ran on combustion and grease, crude contraptions completely divorced from spiritual energy.
The driver rolled down his window, leaning over the passenger seat to squint at the small boy standing by the curb.
“Hey, little brother. Where are your parents?”
“I am traveling alone,” Silas said, stepping up to the door.
“Take me to Prime Minister Vijay’s campaign rally.”
Through his earlier scan, Silas knew Vijay was scheduled to deliver an election address in a nearby district before midday.
The driver scoffed, waving a hand in dismissal.
“Go home, kid. A political rally is no place for a child wandering around by himself.”
The man reached for the floor shifter to pull away, but Silas let a thin ribbon of Will Fog slip from his brow.
The driver’s right leg locked solid against the floorboard.
The cabbie sucked in a ragged breath, eyes bulging as his body broke connections with his brain.
He strained to force his foot down, yet his tendons refused to budge.
Before panic could form into a scream, his own hands seized the steering wheel, turning it in clean, deliberate arcs that he had never ordered.
A cold sheen of sweat broke across the man’s forehead.
He tried wrenching his arms back, but his nervous system was no longer his own.
He was trapped behind his own eyes, a terrified passenger in his own skull.
Silas had taken over motor command.
This level of bodily manipulation was why he had waited for his foundation to settle before approaching state leaders.
A ten-year-old orphan preaching about cosmic ascension would be laughed out of any government office; undeniable physical dominance was the only currency mortals respected.
If anything went sideways, his abilities ensured he could vanish into thin air before anyone could react.
Still, there was a minor practical hiccup.
Silas had spent a million years reading cosmic scrolls, but he had never bothered learning how to operate a mortal automobile.
Looking at the hyperventilating driver, Silas eased his grip, leaving just a sliver of golden pressure coiled around the man’s windpipe.
“Listen to me,” Silas said, his voice quiet and even.
“Your limbs belong to you again. Drive me to Prime Minister Vijay. Attempt any clever detours, and you will not get a warning.”
The driver swallowed hard, his throat clicking against the invisible weight.
“Y-yes, sir.”
The three-hour drive played out in suffocating silence.
When the cab finally rolled to a stop near the outer security barricades of the rally grounds, the driver cut the ignition and collapsed back into the worn upholstery, his shirt soaked through with sweat.
Silas opened the rear door.
“Out. Walk with me.”
The man scrambled out onto the pavement, knees knocking together.
“Sir, please… let me go home. I have a family. A young child.”
Silas turned back, his expression flat.
“Spare me the theatrics. I have no use for your life. Clear a path through this crowd or suffer the alternative.”
The driver clamped his mouth shut and dipped his head.
“Yes, sir.”
They pushed into the dense throng surrounding the pavilion.
The cabbie threw himself into the task with desperate energy, shoving past spectators, shouting excuses, and elbowing through the heat until they reached the elevated wooden stairs reserved for dignitaries.
At the base of the stairs, Silas paused.
“You may go.”
The driver glanced back at the sea of irate rally-goers who were glaring at him for the rough treatment.
For a split second, fear rooted his feet to the dust.
Then he looked at the quiet boy beside him.
An angry crowd was nothing compared to the unnatural cold radiating from the child.
“Thank you, sir,” the driver gasped, plunging headlong back into the crowd to flee.
Silas stepped toward the VIP stairs.
A half-dozen state security guards flanked the risers.
An unattended boy walking toward an active political podium drew immediate attention, though none of them treated him as an active threat.
The senior guard moved forward, reaching out a broad hand to block Silas’s path.
The guard froze mid-stride.
The man’s pupils dilated to pinpricks, the blood draining from his cheeks as paralysis slammed into his joints.
One by one, the rest of the protection detail stiffened into rigid statues.
Silas strolled past the frozen line without a second glance, ascending the steps toward the podium.
Vijay broke off in the middle of a sentence, his microphone hand dropping slightly.
He stared in mounting bewilderment at the small figure cresting the stairs.
How had an unaccompanied child walked through three rings of military-grade security?
Instinct took over.
Vijay took a half-step back, his free hand subtly twitching toward his waistband to trigger his personal alarm.
In politics, children were frequently used as unwitting carriers for concealed explosives; innocence was the oldest cover in the trade.
Before his fingers could complete the gesture, an invisible vice clamped down on his chest.
The air left his lungs in a wheeze.
His limbs locked tight.
Past the boy’s shoulder, Vijay saw his elite bodyguards standing completely motionless, baking in the midday sun like stone carvings.
A chill ran down Vijay’s spine.
The boy is doing this.
Vijay’s breath turned shallow.
In forty years of political survival, he had navigated party betrayals, border wars, and sniper threats, but nothing in modern intelligence reports accounted for a child who could halt a man’s heart with a look.
Silas scanned the stage.
The front rows of the audience were beginning to stir, murmuring at the sudden silence from the stage.
Silas had no desire to trigger a stampede.
Releasing the pressure on Vijay’s throat, Silas spoke in a low, measured voice.
“Conclude this rally immediately and escort me to your car.”
Vijay’s eyes darted toward him.
Decades of public appearances helped him mask the worst of his panic, though a muscle in his jaw twitched violently.
“I am returning control of your legs,” Silas added.
“Ensure that you and your guards behave appropriately.”
Vijay caught the warning.
His men knew how to read subtle hand signals, requiring no spoken orders.
With a discreet twitch of his fingers, Vijay signaled the perimeter guards to fall back and initiate an orderly withdrawal.
Not one officer dared look Silas in the eye.
Turning back to the podium, Vijay delivered a smooth, two-sentence apology citing an urgent security briefing, then stepped briskly off the platform toward his armored limousine.
Silas walked at his flank, surrounded by a nervous cordon of security personnel shielding the strange pair from the dispersing crowd.
At the limousine, Vijay stopped beside the heavy rear door.
He tried to maintain a dignified posture, but his right hand shook so violently that he fumbled the chrome handle twice.
Silas watched the performance with mild disappointment.
For the leader of a sovereign nation, Vijay’s mental fortitude was remarkably thin.
By this point, an intelligent ruler should have realized that Silas had no immediate desire to kill him.
Reaching past the trembling politician, Silas opened the door himself and slid into the deep leather seat.
Vijay swallowed his pride and followed.
Silas wanted to wrap things up quickly.
If he failed to make it home before dusk, Clara and Alice would panic.
He wandered the city often enough, but he always made it back before dark.
As soon as the heavy doors clicked shut, Silas turned to the Prime Minister.
“You will contact the leaders of every major world power, declare an unprecedented global emergency on Indian soil, and summon them here.”
Vijay parted his lips to protest, but Silas spoke over him without raising his voice.
“I am not negotiating with you. You have seven days to ensure that every prominent head of state lands on this continent. Most importantly, the leaders of every nation possessing nuclear weapons.”
Vijay stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Until they arrive,” Silas finished, “you will stay with me.”
The weight of the demand hit Vijay like a boulder.
Silas had no intention of leaving him unsupervised, knowing full well that distance would allow the Indian military apparatus to mobilize.
The only thing preventing Vijay from deploying fighter jets and mechanized divisions was the lethal proximity of the boy sitting six inches away.
Vijay drew a slow breath, raw curiosity cutting through his fear.
What kind of creature is this?
The question sat on his tongue, but he forced himself to swallow it.
A single careless word could get him killed.
Silas reached forward, rapping his knuckles against the driver’s glass partition.
“Murthal Road, Sonipat. Take us there.”
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