Eleventh Gate

 I was there.

Not as a hero, not as a prince, not as a name you’d find written in the shining scrolls of destiny. Just a soldier. Just Varun. Son of nobody, friend of Abhimanyu.

And that day, on the red plains of Kurukshetra, I followed him into the chakravyuh—the spinning, spiraling fortress of death.

We were both barely men. He, seventeen—royalty, born of Arjuna, taught by Krishna himself in the games of war. I was his friend from the dusty backyards of Upaplavya, where we fought with sticks and made each other laugh until we couldn’t breathe.

But this wasn’t sticks. This was war. Real, roaring war.

I remember the look in his eyes when he volunteered to breach the chakravyuh. Determined, sharp, the way sunlight breaks through a storm. He knew only the way in—not the way out. We all knew.

Still, he smiled at me before charging in.

“You stay close, Varun,” he’d said, gripping my shoulder like a brother. “We’ll find the way together.”

The first ring of the vyuh broke under his bow like dry twigs under a wheel. I kept close, arrows flicking past my ear, the cries of warriors spinning into the air like dust storms.

The second ring was harder. Kaurava princes surrounded us like circling vultures, but Abhimanyu danced with his sword and bow like Shiva’s storm. I tried—I swear I tried—to keep pace. But their formation was alive, folding around us, cutting paths, creating illusions of open spaces that only led to deeper traps.

And then—

The third ring spun shut behind him.

I lost him.

I lost him.

I screamed his name. I tried to force my way through, hacking, slashing, slipping on the mud slicked with blood—his blood, perhaps, by the end.

But I was just Varun. No chariots. No celestial weapons. Just calloused palms, sweat, and the cracking sound of my own ribs under enemy boots.

I remember the laughter of the Kauravas. I remember hearing Drona’s orders barked like cold hammers striking iron.

And then I remember silence.

Later—much later—I crawled back to the Pandava lines, broken, bleeding, not even worthy to kneel beside mother Subhadra, not even brave enough to look into the eyes of rajmata Draupadi, who stared into the darkness like someone waiting for a storm that would never stop.

When they carried Abhimanyu’s body back—limbs twisted, armor shattered, face still somehow beautiful—I stood at the very back of the gathered soldiers.

I couldn’t cry. I didn’t deserve to.

I had followed him into the labyrinth of war and left him there, alone among wolves dressed as kings.

They say heroes die gloriously in stories.

But in truth?

Heroes die alone.

And their friends live on, broken, with nothing but the echoes of their names in the hollow chambers of memory.

I was Varun, his friend.

The one who couldn’t keep up.

The one who survived when he shouldn’t have.

And I’ve carried that grief every morning since.

I will until the last dawn.

And perhaps—when the next war comes—I’ll finally stop running, and meet him there, beyond the Eleventh Gate.

Where friends don’t get left behind.