She never asked for it.
But every time they passed that distant street—far from their small, weathered home—her steps would slow. Just a little.
The sweets there glimmered like a life meant for someone else. She never reached out. Never smiled. She only looked once, then lowered her eyes and moved on, as if desire were something she had no right to carry.
He noticed.
From that day, he worked without complaint. He carried loads meant to break men, stood through nights that stole warmth and sleep, skipped meals so coins could gather in his palms. His body paid the price, but his heart stayed stubborn. Every ache was for her. Every breath was borrowed from hope.
And when he finally bought the sweet, his hands trembled—not from exhaustion, but from joy. He wrapped it carefully, smiling to himself like a fool afraid of waking from a dream.
But on the way home, He didn't see anything. Just his wife's face.
He was already home in his mind.
And when she saw the sweet in his hands, she froze.
It was from that far street. From a place they had never belonged to. Her eyes filled, then softened into a smile so pure it undid him.
"For me…?" she whispered.
He gave her the sweet with a wide smile.
She slowly opened it, her hands trembling. Then—
The sky screamed.
The Agni Chakra shattered the heavens.
A fireball fell.
Heat swallowed sound and breath. The sweet burned in her fingers, blackening, crumbling—destroyed before it could reach her lips.
He pulled her into his chest.
She smiled—calm, complete.
Because she had no regret.
She had seen his love.
Felt it in his broken hands, his quiet sacrifices, his foolish smile on the way home.
That love was sweeter than any sugar.
And even as the flames took them,
she held onto the sweetness—
untouched,
unburned,
forever.
—
The first thing people noticed wasn't the fire.
It was the waiting.
The Agni Chakra hovered above the Blacknote Land, unmoving—watching. Long enough for hope to rise... and then rot.
When the fireballs finally began to fall, they did not descend with mercy. They came one by one, slowly—slow enough for eyes to follow.
Slow enough to understand.
People ran.
Not toward safety—there was no safety—but away from what they had already seen. Feet slipped on ash. Bodies collided. Names were screamed again and again until voices broke, and throats bled.
Children cried.
They cried for hands that were suddenly gone. For mothers who were screaming somewhere else, for a world that no longer made sense. Some were taken instantly—light swallowed them whole. Others burned slowly, their cries dimming, fading, leaving behind a silence that hurt worse.
Parents watched.
And something inside them died before their bodies did.
A mother held her child so tightly it hurt, rocking back and forth, whispering apologies she didn't know how to finish. When the fire crept close enough to burn her skin, she closed her child's eyes herself.
A father knelt in the street, shaking—staring at his son's face—trying to memorize it before pain reached him. He did what the fire had not yet done.
Love broke its own hands.
The ground began to melt.
Stone softened. Buildings leaned like tired men and sank into glowing red depths. Roads disappeared beneath rivers of lava. The Blacknote Land did not collapse—it gave up. Slowly, drowning in heat.
People stopped running.
Some hugged each other, faces buried, breathing the last seconds they were allowed. Some stood frozen, eyes quietly quitting. Some reached for the sky—not to pray, but to ask why.
No answer came.
The Agni Chakra burned brighter.
It did not rage.
It did not hurry.
It simply watched a land turn into an ocean of fire—
and people into memories that ended mid-sentence.
And above it all…
Commander Bhairava stood unmoving, stone-faced.
His face held no emotion.
Not even hatred.
Just a stillness that felt more terrifying than rage.
Behind him stood Shaan and Devlal.
Shaan's eyes turned away. He couldn't watch anymore. His jaw trembled. His fists clenched.
Devlal stared a moment longer—eyes burning. He looked down, just trembled, then over at Shaan.
His voice was calm. Too calm. But his eyes…
They were filled with an unspeakable fire.
"Shaan…" he said slowly, "Can you tell me that poem now?"
Shaan didn't answer right away. He looked down—at the sea of fire where homes used to be. He swallowed something stuck in his throat.
Then softly—almost too soft to hear—he began.
"The sky grew dim, yet no stars fell...
And silence rang like warning bells..."
Below, a mother sat cradling her charred child, humming something to herself, even though the child was long gone.
"The hearths stayed warm, but hearts grew cold…
With smiles too still, and hands too old..."
A man with half his body burned dragged his wife's lifeless form toward nothing.
Toward anything.
He didn't know where—he just couldn't let go.
"Morning came, the streets the same—
Only humans crossed the line they couldn't name."
Shaan's voice cracked on the last word.
Silence followed.
Bhairava said nothing. His eyes never left the fire.
Shaan looked down again—at the Blacknote Land turning to ash.
Devlal's lips pressed into a line. His knuckles turned white as he stared at the smoke rising from Blacknote Land.
Then…
He turned his head. Looked behind them.
At the Evergrove Kingdom's people.
Crowds of nobles. Soldiers. Citizens.
They had gathered to witness the fall.
And what he saw—
was not pity.
Not grief.
Not even discomfort.
Eyes cold. Arms crossed. Whispers passed like rumours through the crowd. Some faces wore relief. Others even smirked.
As if the people burning below weren't human.
As if they deserved it.
As if monsters could not suffer.
Devlal's chest tightened.
He looked again—closer this time. Deeper.
And then he realized—it wasn't just a few. Not just some. No... it was half of them. Maybe even more.
Half of the crowd had no sadness in their eyes. No sorrow. No flicker of pain.
No recognition of what they were watching.
Just silence.
Judgment.
Indifference.
A belief, clear in their eyes:
They are not like us.
Devlal turned slowly to Shaan, the weight in his chest too heavy now to carry alone. His voice came low. Quiet. Like it had been dragged across stone.
"…Yes, Shaan sir," he said, eyes still fixed on the crowd that stood around them. "You were right."
He took a breath, but it stuck halfway—sharp and bitter. Then, softer now, like it broke something in him to say it aloud—
"The poem predicted it."
And then, with all the sorrow the world had left to give:
"Humans really did turn into monsters."
To be continue…