Chapter 1: The Boy They Forgot
The rain had started before sunset, turning the narrow streets of Kanpur into rivers of mud and honking traffic. Most students had already gone home—laughing under umbrellas, hopping into rickshaws, texting in groups they believed made them invincible.
Sahil Raj stood alone under the rusted tin roof of the college gate, arms wrapped around his bag like armor. His clothes were soaked, his shoes muddy, and his soul even heavier than his drenched backpack.
The others had laughed when he left class early. They always laughed.
He didn't blame them anymore.
People like Sahil weren't made for crowds. Or friends. Or applause. Nineteen years old, thin and quiet, with a gaze that always seemed to drift elsewhere—Sahil had long learned how to fade into the background. Even his professors, impressed as they were by his academic brilliance, kept a comfortable distance. His mind belonged to the future. His life was trapped in the past.
But no one knew the real burden he carried.
No one cared to ask why he never smiled.
The World He Came From
Sahil's house wasn't really a house. It was a broken shelter clinging to the edge of the city's industrial belt. The walls were flaking, the electricity unreliable, and the smell of grease and mold was permanent.
He shared it with his uncle—a man who never looked at him without resentment—and his older sister, Anika. Or at least, he used to.
Now Anika was in a hospital bed, fighting for a life that had been nothing but sacrifice.
It was she who had raised him when their parents died in a mysterious fire. She who quit school at sixteen. Who cleaned offices, washed clothes, and delivered food to strangers while pretending everything was okay. She was a shield that life had worn down far too early.
Then, six weeks ago, a speeding car hit her while she was walking home late from a shift.
The doctors said the accident wasn't survivable. But Anika was still alive. Comatose. Breathing only because of machines. And Sahil—her quiet, brilliant brother—was left with bills, nightmares, and rage.
Every evening after college, he visited her. He sat by her bedside, told her stories, shared his homework aloud, played the songs she loved from his phone.
He never cried. Not in front of her.
Pain Wears Different Clothes
Sahil pushed the gate open and walked through the alleys toward home. Thunder rolled above like some ancient beast growling across the sky. As he approached his street, a familiar dread settled over him. His uncle was home—he could see the flicker of light from the old CRT TV in the hall.
He stepped inside as quietly as he could.
"You're late," came the slurred voice almost immediately. "Out wasting money, are you?"
Sahil didn't respond. He removed his shoes at the door, walked to the small kitchen, and began boiling water for instant noodles. He'd eaten nothing since breakfast—half a banana and a stale biscuit.
"Useless boy," his uncle muttered from the couch, eyes fixed on the screen. "Living in my house like a parasite. Your sister—she was the only one with sense. Now she's gone, and I'm stuck with a corpse that walks."
Sahil stirred the noodles slowly, his grip on the wooden spoon tightening. He didn't speak. He never did. Speaking only gave his uncle more words to chew on.
When the food was ready, Sahil slipped away to the backyard shed—a tiny one-room structure with a fan, a desk, and a shelf full of tattered books. Anika had helped him clean it out when he was thirteen. It became his sanctuary. It still was.
He lit a small lamp and opened his notebook. There, nestled between pages of physics problems and handwritten equations, was a photo of Anika—smiling, holding him close, their faces glowing under Diwali lights.
He placed it upright beside the lamp.
"I'm close, Didi," he whispered. "Just a little more. I'll get the scholarship. I'll get you out of that hospital."
Outside, the wind howled louder.
The Awakening
Sahil closed his eyes. The pain in his chest had been growing for days—a dull, constant pressure like something inside him was pushing outward. He'd dismissed it as stress, hunger, lack of sleep. But tonight… it was different.
It began with a pulse—like a second heartbeat.
Then the light in the shed flickered. The fan screeched and stopped.
His notebook pages flipped wildly. The air thickened.
Sahil gripped the edge of the table. His body felt like it was on fire. Red-hot pain exploded in his veins, crawling through his arms, his spine, his skull. He screamed, but no sound escaped. His vision blurred into streaks of red and white.
Symbols appeared on his skin—glowing, ancient, moving as if alive.
He collapsed.
A low hum filled the room, vibrating through the walls, through the ground, into the very bones of the earth.
Then silence.
When Sahil opened his eyes, everything had changed.
He was on the floor, drenched in sweat, heart racing—but not like before. His pulse was slow, powerful. Every sound was louder—the rustling of leaves outside, the distant hum of a truck. He could see clearer in the dark than he ever had before.
He looked at his reflection in the shed window.
His eyes—once brown—were now glowing faintly crimson.
Far Away, a Throne Trembled
In a world hidden from mortals, far from cities and steel, a palace stood carved in black stone, surrounded by a forest where no sun ever shone.
There, on a throne of obsidian, a woman stirred from slumber.
Queen Seraphina Drakora—ruler of the Crimson Dominion, sovereign of all pureblood vampires—opened her eyes for the first time in months. Her sleep had been deep, preserved by enchantment, guarded by flames that no mortal could approach.
But something had changed. A tremor. A ripple through the magical ley lines that fed her realm.
She rose from the throne and walked barefoot across the marble floor, her long crimson gown trailing behind her like smoke.
He had awakened.
The boy of prophecy.
The last of the blood-bound.
A servant approached, trembling.
"Your Majesty… the Seers have confirmed it. The Heart-Bearer lives. His blood—burns again."
Seraphina turned her gaze toward the high windows. Thunder cracked in the distance, though no storm had formed.
"Prepare the gate," she said softly. "It's time I meet the boy."
Back in the Shed
Sahil touched his chest. The pain was gone—but something had replaced it. A weight. A presence. Like a door inside him had opened, and behind it stood something watching.
He felt stronger. Sharper. Like his senses had leveled up beyond human understanding. He could hear every insect outside. He could smell the rust on the nails in the shed walls. He could sense a vibration in the air—something drawing near.
He picked up his notebook and gasped.
The equations he had written… were different. Symbols he didn't remember drawing were glowing faintly, vibrating with hidden meaning.
He whispered one aloud.
The air bent.
A flicker of red flame hovered in his palm—silent, beautiful, deadly.
He dropped the notebook in shock. The flame vanished.
Sahil backed away, heart pounding again—not from fear, but from knowing.
Something inside him had changed.
He was no longer just the boy the world forgot.