Reborn in the White Room: Akash Chaturvedi's Ascent

Chapter 4: Reflections Among Shadows

The White Room, in all its cold perfection, was a place where individuality was stripped away, and all that remained was the raw, burning desire to survive. For most of my peers, the relentless trials were designed to mold us into something greater, something beyond the ordinary. But for me, they were a mirror—a way to see how far I had progressed and how far I had yet to go.

I stood in the center of the training room, surrounded by the others in the Fourth Generation of the White Room. They were all like me—children brought into this sterile environment to be shaped, tested, and pushed beyond the limits of human capacity. The instructors had no names, no faces, just cold, analytical eyes that judged us at every step.

And yet, despite the harsh conditions, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of detachment from it all.

These peers of mine, these so-called ‘equals,’ were nothing more than stepping stones in my path. Their struggles, their failures, even their occasional successes, were all part of the background noise of the White Room.

Every time one of them faltered, every time one dropped out, I found myself watching, observing how they crumbled under the pressure. What did they think as they left the White Room? What did they feel as they were cast aside as failures?

I was curious but not empathetic. Empathy was something that could break me, and I had long since discarded it.

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I remember when the first of my peers dropped out.

We were undergoing a physical endurance test—a trial that would push even the most determined child to the brink of collapse. The room was stifling, the air heavy with tension. Our breaths came in sharp, ragged gasps as we pushed our bodies past their limits, knowing that failure was not an option.

One of the boys—his name was Riku—was struggling. He had always been one of the weaker ones, never quite able to keep up with the pace set by the rest of us. I could hear him gasping for air, his footsteps faltering as he tried to keep going.

And then, just as the test was nearing its end, Riku collapsed. His body hit the floor with a sickening thud, and the room fell silent.

The instructors moved quickly, dragging him out of the room without a word. There were no words of comfort, no reassurances that he would be fine. In the White Room, failure was final.

The rest of us stood there, watching as they took him away. There was no sadness, no pity. Riku had failed, and that was all that mattered. His weakness had been exposed, and now he was gone.

As the others whispered among themselves, I found myself lost in thought. What did it mean to fail here? Was Riku simply not strong enough, or was there something more? Was the White Room weeding out those who couldn’t adapt, or was it designed to crush even those who might have had potential in a different environment?

I thought about the Mahabharat—about the warriors who had fallen not because they were weak, but because they had been placed in impossible situations. Was Riku like that? A warrior doomed to fall because the White Room demanded perfection?

No. The Mahabharat taught me more than just the inevitability of fate. It taught me that strength alone wasn’t enough. It was the ability to adapt, to outthink your opponent, that determined victory.

And Riku had failed not because he was weak, but because he couldn’t adapt.

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As more of my peers dropped out over the weeks and months, I started to see patterns. Some of them broke under the physical strain. Others couldn’t handle the mental stress. And still, others simply gave up, their willpower eroded by the endless cycle of tests and evaluations.