**Chapter 1: Return**
Rain pelts the glass above Los Angeles International Airport, running down in silver veins. Somewhere beyond the security gates, Vivan occupies an anonymous steel bench, his carry-on between his feet, waiting for a boarding call that sounds like destiny.
He's thirty-five, but the years have etched lines deeper than his age allows—a calculus of risks and relentless ambition. His life is a tapestry of rejections and improbable successes. At this moment, as he traces the gold-tinged outline of his boarding pass, he can almost believe the stories he's told himself about fate and timing.
He's going home, he thinks, though the word means a million things. Mumbai. Orphanage. Ma's faded photograph tucked between books. Dreams once scribbled in a battered diary, somewhere between hunger and hope.
Today he's flying business class—a ticket paid by the production company after the Hollywood studio bought his script, an "Indian-origin thriller with heart," they called it in narrow, American voices at the wrap party. But even in that flush of success, he felt an itching emptiness. They clapped for his story but missed its soul. He always thought he'd reveal India to the world, but now it feels more like he left himself behind.
He thinks of his mother, her stories fragrant with masalas and monsoon. Of the orphanage matron who said, "Your stories will be your voice, Vivan. Speak them." He had never stopped trying, not really. But today, the voice is heavy with exhaustion.
The boarding call rattles him awake:
"Flight AI 170 to Mumbai. Business and priority boarding now. Please proceed to Gate 11C."
He shoulders his bag, walks past glossy ads and yawning travelers—each face a puzzle, a private universe. In the boarding tunnel, time compresses. He feels the old anxiety stitching up under his ribs. The clamped jaw of anticipation—going home. But not in defeat, he reminds himself. In hope.
***
In the cabin, he settles into the window seat, 4A—a seat with space and not so far from the cockpit. The seat beside him is empty, but across the aisle are two chatty aunties murmuring in Gujarati, and an elderly couple already arguing over which overhead bin their suitcase is in. Across the cabin, Vivan spots other faces that speak his tongue without words: tired fathers, women with hennaed hands, children with backpacks marked "NYU," a young man with the unmistakable stance of a Bollywood dancer.
For an instant, he's eleven again—the only brown face at an LA community center, wanting desperately to fit and, at the same time, to remain foreign.
The plane hums. The pilot's voice drifts over the speakers. "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Flight time today is fifteen hours—please fasten your seatbelts." Vivan closes his eyes. He conjures Mumbai—the smell of rain on red dust, the sprawled lines of laundry, a skyline jagged with cranes. His heart pounds, but not with fear.
He falls away into memory.
***
He awakes to turbulence—a sickening lurch of the aircraft. He blinks at his watch: four hours in. The cabin is dim, passengers nestled under navy blankets, but something is wrong. He senses it before he hears. The familiar drone of flight has shifted. Flight attendants whisper in urgent Hindi near the galley.
Then chaos erupts.
A shout in the cabin, a metallic clang, the sound of a tray crashing. Three men stand aisle-side, faces wrapped in scarves, eyes wild with purpose. Each with black duffel bags, and unmistakably, rifles. A hush—then screams, scattered and quivering. A child cries out for her mother.
Vivan's old instinct kicks in. Not the kind that shows up in films, but the kind you learn growing up on the street: rapid heart, cold clarity, every detail magnified. He sees the leader—tall, jittery, with a scar tracing one eyebrow. The second hijacker patrols near the economy cabin; the third is closest to Vivan's own row.
They bark orders in broken English and guttural Hindi. "Stay quiet! Sit down! This is not your fight—unless you make it so."
One of the aunties beside him clutches her husband's hand, whispering a prayer. Vivan's mind spins with calculations—tries to recall the old Krav Maga moves he learned, the fragments of self-defense from years of insecurity and being targeted as "other." The muscle memory is there, if foggy.
The lead hijacker approaches the cockpit. A blood-chill slithers up Vivan's spine.
He remembers, suddenly, the words of his mentor, Mr. Dunn—on the rare afternoons Vivan would skip class for a session at the LA dojo.
"Not about strength. It's about will. And timing. Get close. Get inside their guard."
At 35, he's not the boy who once shied away from fights. Life demanded more. Hollywood demanded more. He looks at the faces of the passengers—the petrified engineer in 7C, the young couple clutching hands, little Anya with her pink elephant toy two rows up. They might die if he does nothing.
He waits. Watches.
***
The hijackers herd a few passengers, barking for IDs and phones. The main hijacker addresses everyone, voice hoarse: "Comply, and no one gets hurt. We have a message for the world from the oppressed."
A commotion breaks out further back—a woman collapses, asthmatic, struggling for her inhaler. The hijacker near her shoves a steward toward her bag and turns his gaze away from Vivan.
An opening.
Vivan's pulse pounds loud and hot. He stands. Fear for his life and the lives of all the others explodes into courage. He feigns reaching for the call button but instead launches forward, striking the nearest hijacker's wrist. The rifle clatters away.
Instant chaos. Another hijacker fires—a wild shot—hitting a seatback, then Vivan's shoulder as he lunges. Pain flashes—searing white—but Vivan's momentum carries him into the assailant, knocking him backward, palm slamming the hijacker's nose. A second rifle goes spinning.
Passengers scream. Someone shouts, "Get down!" in Hindi.
The remaining hijacker aims. This time, the bullet strikes true—Vivan feels the impact, brutal and cold, below his collarbone, near his heart. He crumples, vision blurred and gray, but his hand finds the hijacker's ankle, yanking hard enough to topple him. Chaos breaks loose—another passenger dogpiles, followed by two men in business suits emboldened by Vivan's act.
The final hijacker is subdued—kicked, punched, held down until security volunteers rush from economy. Vivan hears nothing but a ringing in his ears. The world slows down.
He tastes blood. Tries to breathe. Nurses rush forward, voices frantic. "He's bleeding! Pressure here—quick! Someone call the cockpit, tell them…"
Vivan's hand fumbles for his phone. He tries to dial a number—his agent, maybe, his mentor, or the orphanage matron—but the device slips from his bloody palm. In its reflection, he sees a piece of his face, lines smudging, destiny pooling around him.
***
He floats again in memory—his mother's face, the monsoon, the orphan children all chasing kites, their laughter bright and breakable. He thinks of the stories he still hasn't told.
He's not done. Not yet.
The last thing Vivan hears, as blackness creeps at the edges, is a child's trembling voice behind him, whispering "Thank you, uncle," and a chorus of prayers rising and falling, rooted in every tongue Vivan has ever spoken.
***
**End of Chapter 1**