The heat that day wasn't normal. It wasn't sunlight. It was punishment.
I don't remember crying. I don't remember her face. Just the taste of blood and dust when I crawled out of her.
They say I bit through the cord myself. I believe it. Who was gonna do it for me? God? My father? She didn't even get a funeral. Just a few flies and some gossip.
An old woman found me hours later, wrapped in her torn sari. She looked in my eyes — wild, black, unblinking — and called me Younas.
> "Yeh noor hai," she said. "Pillar of light."
Light? No. I wasn't light. I was fire. And fire doesn't bless — it burns.
But that name stuck for a few days. Until the midwife who'd helped dispose of my mother's body said:
> "Iski paidaaish maut jaisi thi. Naam Bhutta hona chahiye."
Bhutta — a name that meant burnt, ruined, cursed. That was more like it.
And that's what they called me. Not Younas. Not beta. Just Bhutta.
---
I grew up knowing nothing soft. My first toy was a broken blade. My first bed was a pile of grain sacks behind the mosque, where the rats chewed through my toes if I didn't kick.
No one gave me food. So I took it. If someone had two rotis, I'd snatch one — or both. If they resisted, I bit. I still remember the taste of blood from a shopkeeper's finger. That was my first real meal.
By age six, I knew how to steal. Not like the others — sneaking and running. I'd walk in, stare the bastard in the eye, and take what I wanted. If he tried to stop me, I'd smile. That made them hesitate. Always.
By eight, I had a sharpened steel wire around my wrist. By ten, I used it.
---
The memory never leaves.
It was a day like any other — dust storms, goat shit, and silence. But the scream broke everything.
A girl's scream, sharp and choking. Coming from the sugarcane fields.
I was sitting by the well, chewing a piece of tamarind, watching two boys throw stones at a crow. The scream cut through the noise. But no one moved. Not the boys. Not the old men playing cards under the banyan tree. Not the shopkeeper sweeping flies off his counter.
In Bhairavpur, screams were like thunder — loud, but distant. No one expected rain.
But I moved. I didn't run. I walked.
The sugarcane stalks rustled as I stepped in. Green turned to shadow. The air was thick with sweat and panic.
And there he was.
A drunkard. Thick hands, belt hanging from one side, trousers half undone. The girl was barely conscious, her dupatta torn, her mouth bleeding. She couldn't even cry anymore.
I didn't shout. I didn't warn. I just looked at him. He looked back, blinking like a confused bull.
> "Kya dekh raha hai, Bhutta?" he slurred.
Wrong move.
The sickle was lying nearby, half-rusted, used for chopping weeds. I didn't hesitate. I picked it up, walked over, and dragged it across his neck.
Not fast. Not one clean swipe. Slow. Sawing. Like peeling skin off a mango.
His blood sprayed across the sugarcane. Warm. Thick. It hit my lips. I didn't flinch. It tasted like something familiar — something right.
The girl was frozen. I didn't look at her. She wasn't mine.
Yet.
---
I walked back to the village, sickle still in hand. Blood dripping down my fingers.
A man — the chaukidar's brother — blocked my way. "Kya kar ke aaya hai?"
I looked him dead in the eye.
> "Sirf main chhoo sakta hoon. Koi aur nahi."
He stepped aside.
That was law now. My law. One rule. Simple. Universal.
> Touch what's mine, and die.
---
After that day, no one in Bhairavpur dared whisper my birth name.
The name Bhutta wasn't just what they called me anymore — it was what they believed I was. A shadow walking. A curse you couldn't spit out.
I wore black. Always. Black lungi. Black kameez. Barefoot. I wanted the ground to remember me. I wanted my silence to echo.
No one knew where I slept. Some said I lived in the broken dargah outside the village — the one where even snakes didn't crawl. That was true. I liked it there. Quiet. Abandoned. Like me.
The men stopped meeting my eyes. The women looked down — most of them.
But not all.
---
Meher.
Zamindar ki beti. Skin like sandalwood, hair tied in long oily braids, eyes too wide, too innocent for a place like this. She used to walk past the fields humming to herself. No care in the world.
I watched her for months. Not like a boy watches a girl. Like a wolf watches a lamb.
One night, I followed her. Not hiding — just quiet. She was hanging wet clothes behind the house, wind blowing her dupatta off one shoulder.
She didn't hear me. Not until I was two steps away.
"Saala harami…" Meher hissed under her breath, scrubbing a wet kurta harder than necessary.
The fabric slapped against the stone with rage. Her wrists were soaked, blouse damp and clinging to her heaving chest. Stray strands of hair clung to her flushed face. Every slap was a curse.
"That Bhutta… thinks he owns everything. Arrogant bastard. Son of a—"
"Careful," a voice growled behind her.
She froze.
That voice. That shadow. That goddamn presence.
Bhutta.
She turned around slowly, heartbeat doubling. He stood just a few feet away, arms folded, eyes smoldering, shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, sweat glistening across a body forged by violence.
"Didn't know your tongue was that sharp, Meher," he said, stepping forward. "Maybe I should've cut it the day you called me a monster."
Her breath caught. "I—I didn't mean—"
"Oh, you meant it," he said, circling her slowly. "And I think you want me to punish you for it."
She stumbled back a step, the hem of her wet sari trailing in the mud. "Don't come near me."
"Why? You've been dreaming of this."
"Shut up!" she snapped.
But her cheeks were flushed. Her thighs pressed together.
Bhutta noticed.
---
He stepped closer, until her back hit the stone washing ledge.
"You know how I know?" he whispered, eyes locked to hers. "Because even when you curse me… your voice shakes like you're trying not to moan."
"Bhutta—"
He grabbed her waist.
"Say it," he snarled. "Say you don't want me. Say you don't want me to rip that blouse open and show the whole village what a filthy little thing you are beneath the surface."
Meher opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
He leaned in.
His lips brushed her ear.
"You wear white in this heat knowing I'll see everything when it sticks to your skin. You shout my name in anger so I hear it echo. But your body… your body screams a different truth."
"I'm not…" she breathed, voice breaking.
He kissed her neck — slow, deliberate.
"You're not innocent, Meher. You're starving."
She let out a whimper — shameful, raw, involuntary.
---
His hands slid down her waist, gripping her hips.
She pushed against his chest. Weakly.
He smirked. "Don't fake it. You want to be ruined."
And then he kissed her — hard.
Her body went stiff at first — then melted. Her hands that pushed now clung. Her mouth opened to his, desperate and trembling. She tasted the bloodlust on his tongue and moaned.
When his hands pulled her blouse open, she gasped — not in protest, but in sinful relief.
---
Her sari was pulled aside, her breasts exposed to the hot, hungry air.
Bhutta cupped them rough, biting her shoulder. "You wear this innocence like armor. But you're built for filth."
"Bhutta…" she whimpered, closing her eyes.
"What?"
"I'm scared…"
He stopped.
Looked at her.
Her lip trembled, but her hips rolled against his.
"You want me to stop?"
She didn't answer.
He gripped her jaw. "Say it. Say stop, and I will."
"I… can't," she breathed.
And that was all he needed.
---
He spun her around, bent her over the washing stone. Her blouse ripped clean off her back. She gasped — but she didn't scream. Her knuckles clenched the stone as his palm landed on her ass, loud and brutal.
She sobbed.
Not from pain.
From release.
Her thighs were slick now. Her moans no longer hidden. Every slap, every grip, every thrust was punishment for pretending she wasn't already his.
---
When he finally took her — hard, rough, merciless — she cried out like a woman possessed.
The clothes floated in the water behind them. Birds fled. The world turned silent.
And when she came, she bit her own arm to muffle the scream — not from shame.
From addiction.
---
He pulled back, panting, hair wild. "You'll keep cursing me, won't you?"
She looked back, cheeks stained with tears and sweat.
"Only if it brings you back."
Next morning, Meher didn't walk the same. She didn't speak. Bruises bloomed across her neck like mehndi stains. But her eyes — bloom with a secret joy. Like a flame had touched her soul.
The village didn't ask. They never do.
That week, a boy tried to flirt with a girl from the eastern lane. Laughed, joked, touched her scarf.
By nightfall, he was missing.
By morning, he was found. In a grain sack behind the school. Face beaten to pulp. Hands chopped off. Groin gone.
They say his mother went mad. I didn't care. He broke the rule.
> "Bhutta ka rule hai. Sirf woh le sakta hai. Baaki ke liye maut hai."
Damn right.
I didn't grow under gods. I didn't cry for mercy. I didn't kneel to fate.
I was fate. And fate smelled like sweat, rust, and smoke.
They gave me the name Bhutta. But I earned it — in blood, bone, and silence.
And this… this was just the beginning.