The temple incense still clung to your clothes when the universe tore open before you—a gaping maw of luminous white splitting the air with a sound like shattering glass. Your prayers for salvation, for your parents' healing, still hung half-formed on your lips as the void swallowed you whole. There was no time to scream, no moment to resist—only the sensation of falling through endless, featureless light until the ground rose up to meet you with brutal indifference.

You landed hard on your knees, the impact sending shocks of pain through your bones as damp earth stained your clothes. The white hole snapped shut behind you with a finality that echoed in your chest, leaving you gasping in the sudden silence of an alien forest. Towering trees loomed overhead, their gnarled branches weaving a canopy so thick it seemed to strangle the very sky. The air here tasted different—thick with the perfume of unknown flowers and something older, something that prickled against your skin like static before a storm.

Panic clawed at your throat as you stumbled to your feet, your fingers digging into the soft moss beneath you. Every instinct screamed to run, to find shelter, to escape this place that hummed with unseen power. But where could you go? The trees stood sentinel in every direction, their roots coiled like sleeping serpents in the undergrowth.

Then—music.

It began as a whisper, a thread of sound winding through the trees with impossible clarity. The flute's melody curled around your senses like smoke, at once mournful and joyous, ancient and alive. You found yourself moving without thought, drawn forward by some primal longing as the song wove its spell through the twilight woods.

The forest parted reluctantly before you, vines snagging at your ankles as if to warn you back. But still you pressed on, following the haunting notes until the trees gave way to a clearing bathed in golden light.

And there, beneath the boughs of an ancient banyan tree, he waited.

The flute player sat upon a rock smoothed by centuries of flowing water, his dark skin gilded by the fading sun. Yellow silk draped his form like liquid sunlight, the fabric whispering secrets with every breath of wind. Upon his brow rested a crown of peacock feathers—each iridescent eye a captured galaxy, swirling with colors no mortal loom could replicate. Around him, the very air shimmered with latent power, distorting the light like heat rising from desert sands.

A river curved at his feet, its waters clear as polished glass, reflecting not the trees nor the sky but something deeper—something that looked back at you with knowing eyes. A deer lay curled beside him, its flanks rising and falling in time with the music, while a white cow lowed softly nearby, its horns adorned with garlands of night-blooming flowers. The blossoms themselves seemed to lean toward the flute player, their petals trembling with each perfect note.

You stood frozen at the clearing's edge, your pulse roaring in your ears. This was no mere man—the realization struck you with the force of a lightning bolt. The way the shadows bent to avoid him, the way the very ground seemed to sigh beneath his feet, the impossible depth in his eyes when they met yours—

The flute fell silent.

"You've traveled far, little one," he said, his voice the echo of every river's song, every storm's fury. The deer lifted its head at the sound, its dark eyes reflecting your own stunned face. "But then, they always do."

A peacock feather drifted from his crown, landing soundlessly at your feet. When you looked up again, he was smiling—a smile that held both the promise of dawn and the weight of endless night.

"Tell me," the god said, setting aside his flute, "what is it you seek?"

And for the first time since the white hole stole you from your world, you remembered how to breathe.