Ashvathha – Chapter 1: Dust and Sparks
The world had already ended.
It just hadn't stopped breathing yet.
Cities didn't fall in a day, and neither did civilizations. They rotted from within—first through silence, then fear, and finally, surrender. Now, all that remained of humanity's greatness were cracked roads, silent machines, and iron towers swallowed by moss and ash.
The skies had forgotten how to be blue. The sun—when it dared show—burned red and sickly, choked by clouds that rumbled with strange whispers. The ground bore scars of endless raids, trenches dug by monsters not of this Earth. Humanity was no longer the ruling species. They were hunted, broken, traded.
And faith? That died before the first city burned.
No one talked about gods anymore. No one remembered which ones they used to believe in. Religion was dust—irrelevant in a world where prayers went unanswered for too long.
But in the middle of this ruin, among the filth and fire, three boys had survived. Together.
We met five years ago. Enslaved. Starved. Caged.
They had stripped us of names, dignity, even language. But they couldn't erase hunger. Not just the kind that gnaws at your belly—but the hunger to live.
That's where we became friends.
That's where we became brothers.
Now, we live in the slums outside what was once Lucknow, now renamed Sector 3-A by the demons who run the territory. It's a patchwork of fallen buildings and scrap-sheet homes, a breathing landfill where the weak barter for survival.
Tonight, we're not bartering. We're stealing.
Again.
Gaurav crouched behind the collapsed remains of a parking structure, whispering to me.
"You sure they've stocked the lower crates?"
"Three guards," I said, peering through cracked glass. "Same rotation. No one checks the left stack during switch-over."
Behind us, Rachit stood silently—too still for someone so tall. At seventeen, he was already six-foot-two, body sculpted like it was made to take hits and keep walking. His black hair was windswept, his reddish-brown eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight like they were keeping secrets.
"I can vibrate the bolts off the crate," he said, voice calm. "No noise. Just give me cover for ten seconds."
Gaurav grinned. "Make it five, and I'll buy you fake milk."
He was the loud one—nineteen, five-foot-nine, with dark brown hair and the eyes of a brawler. Not bulky, but every muscle on him was earned through punches, not protein. His fists were calloused with intent.
And me? I'm Swayam. Twenty. Six feet tall. Built not to impress, but to endure. Dark grey hair I barely keep clean, black eyes with a flicker of blue most people mistake for a trick of light. It's not. Something woke up in me months ago, and I haven't figured out what.
We don't have parents. We don't have homes. But we have each other.
The ration stockpile was beneath a fallen overpass, guarded by demons shaped like men—until they moved. Then, their unnatural gait and twisted bone armour made it clear they weren't born of Earth.
We struck at midnight. Rachit slipped through the shadows; fingers pressed to metal crates. The bolts trembled—then burst, soundlessly, like shivering leaves. Gaurav was already moving, swinging a loose pipe like a short club, clearing the way of loose junk and noise traps.
I held the perimeter, eyes crackling with soft arcs of lightning I still didn't understand. The moment felt familiar, like we'd done this exact move in a dream I forgot every time I woke.
The crates were filled. Real food. Clean water. Dried meat.
For the people we used to share a cage with five years ago, this was salvation.
But beneath one crate, something else lay hidden—wrapped in cloth, stuffed in a compartment too small for food.
A scripture.
Rachit opened it first, hands trembling not with effort, but emotion. His eyes scanned the markings, his expression unreadable.
"What is it?" Gaurav asked.
Rachit didn't answer immediately. He only said, "Old stuff. Useless."
But I caught the way his fingers clung to the corner of the page. The way his eyes lingered on a certain symbol—some kind of puzzle hidden in the verses, referring to a being of immense strength.
None of us understood it.
None of us were raised with words like faith or God.
Except maybe Rachit. He never spoke about it. Never even hinted.
But sometimes, when he thought we weren't looking, he stared at the sky like he expected someone to answer.
We left with the food. We didn't talk about the scripture again.
But that night, as the fire crackled and the stolen bread warmed the hands of children we'd once cried with in cages…
…I watched Rachit. His eyes were on the scripture, hidden in his jacket, and he was whispering something I couldn't hear.
A language I didn't know.
Something ancient.
End of Chapter 1.