🌚
PROLOGUE
“Some truths are written not in ink, but in blood and silence.”
In the heart of Maharashtra, far from the reach of light and reason, lies a manuscript shrouded in secrecy and silence. Those who speak its name do so in whispers.
It is known as Nilavanti.
Legends say it was written in a forgotten serpent tongue — the language of Nagas, ancient guardians of sacred wisdom.
This book does not merely contain knowledge. It breathes, watches, and waits.
Over the centuries, tantrics, seekers, and madmen have tried to read it.
But every one of them met a fate darker than death — madness, disappearance, or destruction.
Nilavanti is not meant to be read. It is meant to choose.
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🐍 Chapter 1: The Whisper
🔱 Mantra:
ॐ नागदेवतायै नमः ॥
(Om Nāga-devatāyai Namaḥ — Salutations to the Serpent Deity)
Shivi had always been drawn to things others feared.
While her classmates laughed and planned city lives, she spent hours reading about spirits, rituals, and ancient mantras carved into the stones of forgotten temples.
She lived with her mother and grandparents in a quiet village near Gorakhpur. Life there moved slowly — but her mind was always racing.
And every year on her birthday, July 27, a dream would return:
a forest filled with whispering snakes, a glowing book, and a hiss that echoed her name.
One dusty afternoon, while rummaging through her late father’s belongings in the attic, she found something strange:
a piece of old parchment wrapped in red cloth. The writing was broken, but one line stood out:
> “Nilavanti exists. But she speaks only to those who dare bleed for the truth.”
There were snake scales pressed into the page.
That night, she dreamt of the forest again.Chapter 2: The Unseen Path
“The path of truth is not found, it is remembered.”
She tried to forget the parchment. But something inside her had shifted.
Snakes began to appear in her path — small ones at first, watching her, unblinking.
The villagers whispered of a mad sadhu who once came asking about Nilavanti.
They found him days later, muttering nonsense, his tongue bitten off.
One evening, while walking past the banyan grove, she met a blind man who hadn’t spoken in years.
He stepped forward and said, “You have her eyes… the girl the serpents chose.”
He gave her a copper pendant shaped like a coiled cobra.
She wore it without question.
From that day, she began to hear hissing in the night — soft, rhythmic, like chanting.
Calling her name.
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🌕Chapter 3: The Book Of Serpent
🔱 Mantra:
ॐ क्षिप्रं नाग रक्षा करोति स्वाहा ॥
(Om Kṣipraṁ Nāga Rakṣā Karoti Svāhā — May the serpents protect swiftly)
The blind man returned in a dream.
“Follow the banyan roots,” he whispered.
At dawn, she did.
Behind the twisted roots of the old banyan, a hidden path opened — leading into a narrow cave beneath the earth. The air smelled of incense and age.
There, surrounded by shadows, lay a book.
It was bound in cracked, leathery skin and pulsed faintly, as if it were alive.
Shivi stepped closer. Her breath slowed.
The moment she touched the book, the ground trembled.
Dozens of snakes emerged from the stones — not to strike… but to watch.
The script inside shimmered and moved. It wasn’t written — it was alive.
She read the first line aloud.
A flash of pain behind her eyes.
Then — silence.
And outside the cave…
the snakes bowed.
🐍 Chapter 4 – Blood and Ink
🔱 Mantra:
ॐ विषदं नागमयी विद्यां प्रकाशय स्वाहा ॥
(Om Viṣadaṁ Nāgamayī Vidyām Prakāśaya Svāhā – O serpent wisdom, reveal thy venomous knowledge)
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Shivi sat alone in her room. The pendant around her neck throbbed like a second heartbeat. The wind outside hissed through the trees, carrying with it a sound — like chanting, but in a language no one human had spoken in centuries.
Her mother had grown quiet lately, glancing at her with fear behind her eyes. Even the animals avoided her now. Shivi didn’t blame them.
She didn’t feel human anymore.
That night, she lit a candle to read the parchment again. But instead, her eyes were drawn to her hand. Something was wrong.
There, on her palm — a symbol was glowing.
It wasn’t ink. It was alive.
A serpent devouring its own tail, surrounded by three curling marks that pulsed gently like veins. The moment she focused on it, her ears filled with whispering.
> “She has returned…”
She blinked. The symbol shifted — it rearranged itself like liquid metal under skin.
A sudden wave of dizziness struck her. She fell backward, gasping.
Her vision darkened — and then opened again, not to the room — but to fire.
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She stood inside a burning circle.
All around her, snakes hissed, forming patterns with their bodies. An ancient temple loomed ahead. And at the center stood a woman in red — identical to Shivi — except her eyes burned gold, and her forehead dripped blood.
The woman stared at her, lips moving in silence.
Then Shivi heard it — the voice of Nilavanti — not from the woman, but from inside her own skull.
> “Blood remembers what the mind forgets.”
The woman raised her hand… and the flames surged forward.
Shivi screamed—
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And woke up on the cold floor.
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The cave. She had to see the book.
She ran barefoot to the banyan roots. Past the fields. Through the fog. Into the silence.
But when she reached the hidden chamber…
The Nilavanti book was gone.
Only a blackened circle remained, and the snakes that once watched her now bowed — and slithered into the shadows.
She stood alone. The pendant on her chest turned warm, almost hot.
> “You opened it,” a voice whispered from nowhere.
> “Now it will open you.”
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That night, a man arrived in the village.
He had no eyes, only stitched skin. He walked barefoot, and his cloak smelled of smoke and death. Dozens of snakes followed him like dogs.
He knelt beside the old well and placed something on the earth — a bone carved with markings.
> “The girl has spoken the first line,” he said.
> “Begin the hunt.”
He turned toward Shivi’s house, a stitched smile on his face.
To Be Continued in Part 2
The Serpent Trials.....
