The rain fell hard enough to make the city sound hollow. Not the playful monsoon rain that drummed on rooftops and cooled the air, but a heavy, punishing downpour that felt as if the sky wanted to wash something away. Thunder rolled above the apartment blocks like distant machinery, and every shadow in the hall stretched just a little too far. It was the kind of night that felt wrong without knowing why.
I was six years old. My world was very small then—my red toy car whose wheels wobbled, the old tube light that flickered whenever the fan turned too fast, the comforting clatter of my mother cooking dinner. My father sat on the sofa listening to cricket commentary, mumbling predictions under his breath. Everything felt normal in the way only childhood can make it.
Then the door opened.
There was no knock. No warning. The latch clicked once, and the door pushed inward as though carried by the rain itself. My mother stiffened. The ladle she'd been holding paused mid-air, dripping dal back into the pot in a slow, trembling ribbon.
She turned her head slightly, and the smile she forced toward me was thin and brittle. "Tejas," she whispered, "come here."
I obeyed without question. Her hands smelled of turmeric and lemon when she cupped my face. "If I tell you to run," she said softly, "you grab Papa and run. Don't look back. Do you understand?"
I did not, but I nodded anyway.
A tall man stepped inside, shutting the door behind him with deliberate calm. The wet fabric of his shirt clung to a lean, powerful frame. He said nothing at first; he simply observed the room, the walls, the shadows—as if measuring the space before deciding what part of it to break.
My father stood up uncertainly. "Excuse me? Can we help you?"
The man's gaze slid off him like water off metal. His eyes were on my mother—sharp, assessing, unblinking.
"Agnivansh," he said quietly, almost reverently.
The word froze the air.
My mother inhaled sharply. "You shouldn't be here."
The man took another step forward, his expression still calm, his voice carrying a chill that didn't belong in a warm apartment.
"यातनायाः सिद्धिः जायते," he intoned. Perfection is forged in pain.
My mother straightened, and something ancient stirred in her eyes. "अग्निः प्रतिज्ञा, अग्निः मूल्यं," she answered. Fire is a promise, and a price.
My father moved protectively between us. Fear made his voice crack. "Who are you? What do you want? Stay away from my family—"
He never finished.
The stranger—Dhruv—moved with terrifying precision. He reached out, caught my father's right arm in an iron grip, and without raising his voice or his pulse, he swung him around and slammed him chest-first into the wall.
The crack that followed wasn't only plaster.
My father fell to the floor, choking on his own breath, his face twisted in agony. Blood flecked his lips when he coughed.
Dhruv looked down at him without emotion. "He is already broken. Step aside."
Then something impossible began to happen.
Dhruv's skin shifted. A dull metallic sheen crawled out from beneath his sleeves, spreading across his arms, chest, throat. The transformation made a faint grinding sound, like metal plates being forged directly onto flesh. When his eyes blinked, the lids clicked like steel shutters.
My mother stepped forward. Her breath steadied. Her fingers curled. Heat wavered in the air around her.
I crawled under the bed, my small body trembling as the room seemed to distort around them.
Dhruv advanced with the heavy certainty of a man who had never failed in his purpose.
And my mother unleashed fire.
It burst from her palms in a sharp, violent arc—red first, then orange. The air screamed as heat surged through it. Dhruv walked through the flame as though it were mist, but his metal armor began to glow.
My mother gritted her teeth and pushed harder, her breaths ragged, her shoulders shaking as the flames brightened into yellow, then white at the core.
The heat warped the bed frame above me. My skin prickled. Something inside my chest throbbed like a small sun trying to escape.
The third floor shuddered. The building moaned under the expanding air. Cracks spread across the ceiling.
And then her fire turned completely white.
The world dissolved into blinding light.
Dhruv staggered as his armor began to melt. Metal plates sagged, softened, then broke apart like wax drowning in its own heat. His arm, stretched toward my mother, crumbled in jagged shards.
He tried to take another step. He failed.
His body collapsed into a heap of cooling slag.
My mother stood trembling, her whole form shimmering with heat. She turned once, her eyes finding mine under the broken bedframe.
Then she began to fall apart.
Not collapse. Dissolve.
Ash rose from her skin like dust lifted by wind, drifting upward into the collapsing room. Her silhouette flickered once—like a flame losing strength—and vanished into a storm of grey.
The floor caved in. The third floor crashed into the second with a roaring crack. Wood splintered. Tiles shattered. Smoke flooded the corridor. I screamed but the sound was swallowed by fire and falling concrete.
Something in my chest burst free. A flicker of pale light escaped my lips, thin and unstable, glowing only for a moment before dying.
My father lay gasping in the rubble, his right arm twisted at an unnatural angle, his ribs crushed inward, blood spilling from his mouth. He could not stand. He could barely breathe.
And yet he looked toward where my mother had stood—as though trying to see her one more time.
Vahni appeared then, stepping through smoke and flame like a figure cut from determination itself. She moved straight to me, lifted the debris, and pulled me into her arms.
She did not introduce herself. She did not explain. She did not grieve.
She acted.
She knelt where my mother's ash still floated in the air and gathered a handful with trembling fingers, folding it into the corner of her dupatta with reverent care. A relic. A promise.
Sirens echoed from below. Heavy boots pounded the stairs.
A cold voice rang out: "Division Cinder. Protocol engaged."
Another followed: "Contain. Control. Cleanse."
Vahni's jaw tightened. She dragged my father up by his uninjured arm, supporting his collapsing weight, and guided us toward the broken balcony.
Before we slipped into the rain, she pressed her hand to my chest.
"Remember the ash," she whispered.
That was the night everything burned.
And the night something in me began to wake.