May 26th, 2025, India, City V
Rain.
Fucking relentless rain.
It soaked Aarav's dark hair, plastered it to his forehead, and sneaked icy fingers down his jacket collar.
Downtown was a smeared watercolor mess, neon signs bleeding into wet streets, headlights carving fuzzy tunnels through the gloom.
He hunched deeper into his coat, his backpack strap carving a familiar rut into his shoulder.
Sunday.
Finally Sunday.
Six hours shelving books at SRM library had left his back screaming and his eyes gritty, the stink of old paper and cheap coffee glued to his nose. But weirdly? He felt… okay.
Exhausted, sure, bone-deep tired. But it was the good kind of tired. The kind you earn. College was a grind endless assignments, that damn trust fund paperwork reminding him he was an orphan but it was his grind.
Uncle Silas's cramped apartment above the dusty bookshop wasn't much, but it was home.
Warm.
Safe.
After losing his parents young, predictable was a goddamn treasure.
Last night, he'd even scribbled some writing a dumb fantasy idea that wouldn't leave him alone.
A guy waking up in a magical world, fighting fate. Silly, maybe, but it felt good to create something that wasn't for a grade.
He grinned, rain dripping into his eyes. Maybe he'd show Uncle Silas the synopsis. Get his take. The old man loved myths; he'd probably go wild with ideas.
His phone buzzed, MJ's "Billie Jean" cutting through the rain's drone.
He fumbled it out, water smearing the screen.
Uncle Silas. Aarav's grin widened as he swiped to answer, trudging toward the bus stop.
"Yo, Uncle S," he said, voice rough from the cold. "Just off the bus. Home in, like, ten minutes."
"Aarav! Thank God," Silas's voice crackled, warm but laced with his usual worry.
"Steak's on, with Coke and your precious Roshogolla. You in that proper coat? Not that ratty hoodie?"
Aarav snorted, wiping rain from his face. "Yeah, the decent coat. Promise.
I can practically smell the steak from here." He stepped out. The rain hammering him like it had a personal grudge.
The bus stop was across Elm Street, a four-lane beast that never slept. "Just gotta cross Elm."
"Elm? In this weather?" Silas's voice spiked. "Aarav, be careful! That road's a death trap when it's wet. Truck drivers act like they own it. Look both ways. Both."
Aarav rolled his eyes, leaning against a soggy bus stop pole.
"Chill, Uncle. Light's red. I'm not dumb. Standing right here, waiting." A warmth spread in his chest, despite the cold.
'Someone who worries.' For a second, he was eight again, shivering in a hospital hallway under a scratchy police blanket. Silas's face, pale and drawn, had cut through the fog of loss.
"I've got you, lad," he'd said, pulling Aarav into a hug that smelled of pipe tobacco and old books. The only anchor when his world had crumbled.
"Good. Wait. Take your time. Steak's simmering, and we'll watch that space junk documentary you love," Silas rambled, his voice a lifeline in the dreary night.
Aarav's smile softened. Maybe he'd share that novel idea tonight. Silas would probably love the magical world bit.
The light flipped. The green walking man blinked on the signal.
"Okay, walk signal. Gotta go, hands full." Aarav tucked the phone against his shoulder, adjusting his backpack.
He scanned the road clear left, clear right and stepped off the curb, aiming for the pedestrian area.
'Home was close. Steak. Silas's bad jokes. A hot shower. Maybe a few more lines of that story. Bliss.'
Two steps into the second lane, it hit.
No screech.
No warning.
Just a roar too close, too fast.
From his left. He twisted, eyes catching the blur of a grimy delivery truck, its headlights blinding.
Truck-kun.
The thought flashed, absurd, a bitter nod to his own stupid story.
WHAM.
BOOM.
Impact.
Not pain first just force. Like a sledgehammer to his side. His phone ripped free, Silas's voice cut off with a crunch of plastic. The backpack tore away. He was airborne, weightless for a sickening second.
Grey sky, headlights, wet pavement rushing up. Then pain, white-hot, exploding in his ribs, his leg, his skull cracking against the road.
'Uncle… ' The thought flickered, faint, fading.
Silas's face, that hospital hug, the smell of the bookshop it surged, then dissolved into cold.
'One chance…' A raw, desperate plea clawed through the shock.
'One more chance… to live…' Not to a god, just a scream against the unfairness of it ending now, when he'd finally carved out something good.
Darkness swallowed him.
The rain, the pain, the streetlights - gone.
His body was nothing, just falling.
Endless black.
Then heat.
Right in his chest, where that silver raven pendant always hung. His parents' only keepsake. It burned, like it was melting into his skin. A blinding light punched through the dark, fierce, furious, like the pendant was fighting the void itself.
The darkness shifted. Not just black ,empty. A hum vibrated in his bones, not sound but feeling.
The city's roar, the rain, the exhaust,gone. Replaced by a sharp, electric, like lightning-struck stone.
Cold, dry, ancient.
He wasn't on pavement. Not falling. Not… anything. Floating? Suspended? His mind clung to scraps his own words, from that half-written story.
"Fate denies me… Heaven hates me…" A bitter laugh echoed in his head. His own damn line, mocking him as the void tightened its grip.
The heat flared again, searing.
The raven pendant felt like it was branding him, a final defiant spark. Light surged, then died, like a snuffed match. Silas's voice, the smell of steak, the warmth of home it all faded.
Only nothingness. Absolute. Eternal.
He died.
End of story.
.
.
The end of a story barely begun.