Thuta was broke again.
Not just "need-to-cut-back-on-lattes" broke, but "boiled-rice-three-times-a-day-and-steal-WiFi" broke. Rent overdue. Wallet full of loyalty cards and crumpled receipts. Bank account: a graveyard of zeros.
But this time, it wasn't just another month of poverty — it was life or death.
The orphanage that raised him had long shut its doors. His caretaker had died the previous year, and Thuta was left alone with nothing but his debts. He owed money to loan sharks — real ones, the kind who didn't threaten you with court but with concrete shoes. He was running out of time, options, and excuses.
The only thing keeping him alive was his sharp tongue, good luck, and an uncanny ability to talk his way out of danger. But even that was wearing thin.
The good news? He had nowhere to go, so he spent most of his days in the cool, shadowy corners of the university's old library — a labyrinth of dust, whispering pages, and forgotten scrolls. The kind of place people only visited when they were desperate, bored, or on the run from exam results. For Thuta, it was all three.
He didn't look like the type to poke around ancient knowledge. Baggy hoodie. Uncombed hair. Headphones around his neck, even though they hadn't worked since Thingyan. But there was something sharp behind his lazy eyes, a spark that flickered only when something curious passed his way — something unusual, mysterious, or dangerous.
That day, he was flipping through stacks no one had touched since colonization. He wasn't looking for anything. He never did. He was just killing time between his long afternoon nap and his post-nap snack. But the scroll found him anyway.
It was thin, brittle, and wedged behind a set of damaged palm-leaf manuscripts. The moment he touched it, a strange shiver crawled up his arm — like dipping your hand into cold water that had memory.
The title, written in faded ink:
"Notes on the Last Seal: Tomb of the Crimson Flame"
Thuta blinked. Crimson flame?
He opened it.
It wasn't a story, not really. More like a scattered collection of thoughts — scribbled symbols, strange diagrams, lines in dead Pali and ancient Burmese. But here and there, he caught a word.
"Zawgyi." "Htamanthi." "Sealed by fire, watched by smoke."
He frowned. Zawgyi? As in the Zawgyi? The red-robed sorcerers of myth? He thought they were just bedtime tales. Walking furnaces with spells in their blood and immortality in their bones.
The scroll ended in a sketch — a rough drawing of a jungle shrine, crumbled and half-swallowed by roots. There was a circle beneath it, lined with alchemical glyphs.
And coordinates.
Real ones.
He cross-checked the numbers. They pointed toward somewhere deep in the Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary — a place known more for elephants and tigers than ancient tombs. But he'd heard rumors from travelers and bootleg explorers: stories of unnatural fog, flickering lights in the trees, and strange songs humming through the canopy at night.
Most people avoided that place. That was reason enough for Thuta to want to go.
No — he needed to go.
A sealed Zawgyi tomb might be myth, but if there was any chance that what lay inside could be sold, traded, or used to escape the hellhole his life had become, he had to take it. It was either this… or be buried under the Irrawaddy by someone he owed money to.
He leaned back in his chair. "A sealed Zawgyi tomb," he whispered. "Yeah, that sounds like the kind of mistake I'd make."
---
Three weeks later, after pawning a borrowed motorbike and sweet-talking a border ranger, Thuta found himself knee-deep in the jungles of northern Myanmar. Mosquitoes danced around him like cursed spirits. Every leaf whispered secrets he couldn't understand.
He followed the coordinates like a gambler chasing luck. Through vine-covered paths. Across half-collapsed rope bridges. Past old shrines overtaken by the forest. Until finally — he saw it.
It was exactly as in the drawing. A shattered stone shrine, crumbled into a yawning hole in the earth. Trees leaned over it like curious watchers.
He slid down the incline, boots crunching on moss and bone-dry leaves. Inside, the air was heavy. The smell of old incense and something metallic clung to the walls. Symbols glowed faintly under the moss — ancient alchemy circles that pulsed as he passed.
At the center was a pedestal. And on it, floating slightly above the stone, was a sphere.
It burned.
Not with fire, but with heat and memory. Red light spiraled within, like smoke trapped in crystal. It was beautiful and terrifying and completely unguarded.
He didn't think. He reached out.
The moment his fingers touched the orb, the ground trembled. Glyphs ignited in sequence around the chamber, flaring like veins of lightning. A gust of heat exploded from the pedestal, knocking him back.
Then silence.
He sat up, coughing. The orb was gone. In its place, something glowed on his palm — a sigil, branded into his skin.
He swallowed. "What the hell did I just do?"
Far above him, unnoticed in the jungle canopy, something stirred. Birds fled. Leaves shook. And in the deepest part of the forest, where maps ended and legends began, an old seal cracked.
The Zawgyi were gone.
But now, one had been touched.
And someone — or something — had noticed.