The sky was full of dark clouds. The sun was gone, hidden behind a wall of grey. The air felt heavy, like it was holding its breath before the rain came.
Deep in the forests of Bengal, a small hut stood among tall trees and thick grass. Smoke rose from its chimney. Inside, Roma was cooking lunch for her father.
She was nineteen, dressed in a plain cotton saree that had faded from years of washing. Even so, it suited her. Her bronze skin shone in the firelight, and her black hair fell loose down her back. Her face was calm, her eyes sharp and full of life.
Most girls her age were married, but Roma lived alone with her father, far from any village.
Once, they had lived in a place called Sundarpur, near the forest's edge. Her father, Ramesh, had worked as a soldier for the local landlord. But that ended the day the landlord's son accused him of stealing. The landlord didn't ask questions; he simply ordered Ramesh to be executed.
Ramesh ran that same night. He took Roma and disappeared into the forest, where even the landlord's guards refused to go. The woods were full of tigers, and people said ghosts lived there too.
Eight years passed.
Roma grew up learning the ways of the forest, how to tell when it would rain, how to tell a tiger's growl from the cry of a deer, and how to use herbs to heal a wound.
That afternoon, the forest was quiet. Too quiet. Then came a crash.
A loud, heavy thud, followed by a sharp crack of breaking wood.
Roma froze, her heart beating fast. She thought of tigers again. But no growl followed. No sound at all. The silence after was worse than the noise.
She waited, listening. Then she took a small knife from the table and stepped outside.
Behind the hut, everything was a mess. The stack of firewood her father kept had collapsed. The roof above it was torn open, and smoke rose from the broken pile. The ground was blackened, as if lightning had struck there.
Roma's breath caught in her throat. She stepped closer, careful and slow.
Then she saw him.
A boy, younger than her, lay in the middle of the wreckage. His clothes were torn, his body scratched and burnt. Steam still rose from the ground around him.
He was alive. Barely.
Roma dropped to her knees beside him. His skin was pale, almost glowing under the dirt, his lips slightly open. His hair was dark and messy, and his face, though bruised, looked soft, almost peaceful.
She stared for a moment, confused and amazed. She hadn't seen another man, or even another person, in years.
Then she pushed the thought away and acted. She slipped her arms under the boy and dragged him inside. He was heavier than he looked, but she didn't stop.
Once inside, she laid him on the floor by the fire. She cleaned his wounds, applied herbal paste, and wrapped them in cloth. Her hands moved fast and sure; she had done this many times for her father.
When she finished, the boy's breathing had steadied. His face looked calm again. Too calm for someone who had fallen from the sky.
Roma sat back, staring at him. Who was he? Where had he come from?
Her heart was still racing. She turned away quickly, trying to shake the thought. Her cheeks were warm. "You're being stupid," she whispered to herself.
Outside, she heard footsteps, heavy ones. Branches snapped under a familiar stride.
Her father was home.
"Roma, Ma! Where are you?"
Ramesh's deep voice echoed through the trees. He always called his daughter Ma, a habit that had stuck since she was little.
"Here, Baba! Coming!"
Roma ran to the front door and saw her father stepping out from between the trees. His bow and quiver hung across his back, and behind him trailed a rope tied around a wild boar, heavy and bloodied.
Her eyes widened. "A boar?!"
Ramesh grinned, his teeth bright against his dark face. "See what I caught!"
"Wow, Baba! That's amazing! Does this mean meat curry tonight?"
He laughed. "I don't mind some after a week of dry rice."
Ramesh was forty-five, still strong and broad-shouldered from years of hunting. His skin was weathered by sun and rain, his moustache thick, his hair long and tied behind his neck.
Roma smiled, but her excitement faded as she remembered what had happened earlier. "Baba, I have something to tell you."
He glanced at her. "What is it?"
"The woodpile behind our house… it's broken. Completely destroyed."
Ramesh's grin disappeared. "What?" He dropped the rope, eyes narrowing. "How? Was it a tiger again? Did it attack you? Are you hurt?"
Roma raised her hands. "No, Baba, it wasn't a tiger."
"Then what? A bear? Elephants?"
"Come see for yourself," she said, already turning toward the back of the house.
Ramesh followed her, steps quick and heavy. His eyes swept the wreckage the moment he saw it — the torn roof, shattered wood, and the black marks on the ground. No claw marks. No tracks. No signs of animals at all.
"What in the gods' name happened here?"
Roma hesitated. "I don't know, Baba. But… I found someone there. A boy."
Ramesh blinked. "A boy?" He frowned hard. "Are you saying he fell through the roof?"
"That's what it looks like." Roma crossed her arms. "You can ask him yourself once he wakes up."
"Where is he now?"
"Inside. Still unconscious. I already treated his wounds."
Ramesh sighed through his nose. His anger had softened into suspicion. "Lead the way," he said.
They went inside together. The boy lay on a mat near the fire, wrapped in a thin cloth. Ramesh stopped cold.
The boy was beautiful — pale skin, smooth face, lips soft as if carved from wax. His body was lean but fit, not a peasant's body. A faint, almost holy glow clung to his skin in the flickering light.
For a moment, Ramesh simply stared. The image pulled at something old in him, a memory of the stone gods back in Sundarpur temple.
"See, Baba?" Roma said quickly. "He's just a boy. Not even grown. He can't be dangerous."
Ramesh said nothing. His eyes studied the boy's arms, shoulders, and hands. "Strong but soft," he thought. "Trained, but never tested. The lad had never seen a real fight."
Part of Ramesh wanted to drag him outside and question him about who he was, where he came from, and when he woke up. But another part, the father inside him, said no. The boy was hurt, weak, and harmless. Whatever he was, he wasn't a threat.
"The boy stays."
Ramesh said finally, voice low.
"Only until he wakes. Then I'll hear his story."
Roma's face brightened at first, then fell when she heard the rest.
"Alright, Baba," she said quietly.
"Come eat now. The food's getting cold."
"Go ahead. I'll follow," said Ramesh.
Roma nodded and walked out.
When she was gone, Ramesh slipped the quiver from his back and reached inside. His fingers brushed something small and round, a bracelet, dark brown and warm to the touch.
It was made of 'Daivik Rudraksha', crafted by the head priest of Sundarpur himself. The priest had made only five such bracelets in his entire life, each one blessed with prayers meant to ward off evil and protect the pure of heart. Years ago, after Ramesh saved the priest from a tiger, the grateful man had gifted him this one. Since that day, the bracelet had never failed him. Every hunt, every brush with death, he had always come back alive. If there was any way to test whether this boy was a curse or a gift, this was it.
He took a slow step toward the boy.
Then thunder cracked loud, sharp, and close.
"Baba! The food's ready!" Roma called from the kitchen.
"Just a moment, Ma!" he shouted back.
The air felt strange, heavy and dry. Ramesh frowned. The sky had been clear when he came home, but now the light outside had dimmed. He turned to the window. The clouds had thickened fast, dark and rolling. A cold wind blew through the hut.
Every instinct in him screamed danger.
He looked back at the boy. His breath caught.
The boy was floating!
His body hung a few feet above the floor, still unconscious, but surrounded by faint sparks of blue light. The air crackled. Ramesh stepped back, eyes wide. His mind raced. "Magic? A noble's son? A demon?"
His body tensed. He wanted to run, to grab his bow and flee, but his feet wouldn't move. The air itself had turned alive, buzzing, humming.
Every hair on his body stood up.
He knew that feeling. He'd seen it before, seconds before lightning struck.
And then...
"Baba…"
Roma's voice came faintly from the next room. He turned his head, and the world went white.
Light swallowed everything. A sound like the sky splitting in half roared in his ears.
Pain followed: searing, tearing pain, as if his flesh had been peeled away. He gasped, but no sound came. His skin burnt, yet something else stirred inside him, something wild and powerful.
Through the agony, he saw the air itself sparkle, tiny blue-green lights dancing all around him. Hallucinations, he thought dimly. I'm dying.
Then his knees buckled. The world tilted.
Before darkness took him, he saw the boy, glowing white-blue, floating in the air.
His last thought was not of himself, but of his daughter.
"My Roma… She was in the next room…"
Then everything went dark.