In 1235 BCE, before rivers had borders and kings had names, the land of Bharat was wild with whispers. Forests hummed with forgotten gods. Temples held secrets carved in stone. No one questioned the old stories—except a boy named Potato.
He wasn’t a vegetable. That was just his name—odd, snicker-worthy, and unforgettable. Seventeen, fast-talking, and so thin even monkeys ignored him. He lived in the trade town of Ashvalaya, near a river shaped like a silver serpent.
By day, Potato delivered messages. But his true calling was asking questions: Why did temples lock their inner sanctums? Why did stars shift, but the sun always returns? And above all, why did no one talk about the Serpent Stone?
The elders called it cursed. A relic hidden deep in the Forbidden Forest. Said to control life, death, and the silence between.
Potato, of course, wanted to find it.
When Raji, the merchant’s daughter, vanished during a caravan trip near the forest, the town panicked. Soldiers searched. Priests prayed. But no one entered the forest.
Potato did.
He packed jaggery, dried rice cakes, a flint, and an old copper knife. Before dawn, he slipped past the eastern gate and followed the serpent-shaped river upstream. The trees grew taller. Stranger. The leaves shimmered purple under moonlight. The air hummed with something that wasn’t quite sound.
Three hours in, he saw the first sign: a stone pillar split in half, engraved with a snake swallowing its tail—the ancient mark of the old cults.
He touched the symbol.
The forest went still.
By midday, he found a clearing where no birds sang. In the centre was a stone circle—seven rocks with serpent eyes carved deep. In the middle sat a girl.
Raji.
Still. Eyes open. Lips moving. No sound.
He stepped closer—and heard it.
Not her voice. Something else.
“You touched the seal.”
He spun. No one.
“You are not chosen. You are… curious.”
He asked the forest, “Where’s the Serpent Stone?”
“Beneath. Beyond. Within.”
He knelt near Raji, brushed away dirt, and found a slab etched with the same coiled snake.
He pressed it.
The ground melted.
He fell ten feet down into a chamber pulsing with green light. The air smelled like copper and incense. In the centre: the Serpent Stone.
Not a gem. Not a statue. It looked alive. Scaled and coiled tightly like a sleeping python.
It opened one eye.
“You are not meant to be here.”
Potato didn’t scream. He couldn’t. The eye spoke in thoughts.
“Can you bring her back?”
“She is paused. Like a breath held too long.”
“Let her breathe.”
“Why would I listen to you, child of coin and clay?”
“Because I found you. Because I’m not afraid. And if you kill me, I’ll haunt you in every story. I talk too much to be forgotten.”
The eye blinked.
“You offer words as tribute?”
“I offer a deal.”
“Speak.”
“You return her. I leave in peace. No more digging.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I’ll tell everyone where you are. Priests. Hunters. Kings.”
A slow hiss.
“Very well. But everything has a cost.”
“What do you want?”
“A name.”
He hesitated. His name was ridiculous. But it was his. The only thing his mother gave him before she died of fever. Her last joke.
“Take it,” he whispered.
The chamber pulsed.
The eye closed.
Above, Raji gasped.
She remembered nothing. Just dreams. He walked her home in silence.
The town called it a miracle. The priests claimed credit. No one asked about the boy with no name.
He noticed something strange—people forgot him instantly. “Hey uh, you,” they’d say. Not even the merchant could thank him properly.
He tried to write his name. The wind erased it. He whispered it to a dog. The dog barked at nothing and avoided him for days.
But something had replaced the name.
He could hear thoughts if he stood close. Feel time stretching thin around people. See the cracks in their words.
Sometimes, in still water, he saw a serpent blink.
He left Ashvalaya and wandered west, to the Ghurna Hills, where silence spoke louder than people. In a buried shrine, he found a blind woman named Vasuni.
“You gave it your name,” she said before he spoke.
“What is it?”
“Not a god. Not a demon. A memory. Left behind by something older than gods. The Serpent Stone was once part of a web—a balance. But we outgrew it. Or thought we did.”
“Why is it waking now?”
“Because you asked a question. And now it wants to answer all of them.”
He returned months later.
Ashvalaya had changed.
People spoke in riddles. Children dreamed of things not yet real. The river curled tighter, like remembering an older path.
Snakes slithered into homes and curled up beside infants. The priests panicked. Merchants hired guards. But it wasn’t fear in the air.
It was awakening.
He climbed the town well and called everyone to listen.
“I have no name,” he said. “Because I gave mine to something we forgot. And now it remembers us.”
“You brought this!” someone shouted.
He nodded. “Yes. I did.”
“Then fix it!”
He looked at the stars.
“I don’t think it can be fixed. But maybe that’s not the point.”
In the years that followed, Ashvalaya became a legend.
A town where people spoke like prophets and snakes coiled without fear. Where children asked questions the world couldn’t answer.
They called themselves the Sarpaja—Children of the Coil.
Their founder was a nameless boy who once asked too many questions.
Some say he still wanders the hills, whispering riddles to trees.
Some say he became the next relic.
And if you ever see a trail of serpent prints in the forest that lead nowhere—
That means he’s watching.
Waiting to see what you are curious about.
Far away, in a quiet village, a child asked her grandmother:
“Why don’t we say that name?”
“Which name?”
“The one that sounds like food. The one no one remembers.”
The old woman stared into the fire, then smiled.
“Because it isn’t a name anymore,” she said.
“It’s a question.”
