Not with fire, but with the screams of a village being torn apart.
Velan hid among the tall stalks of dry millet, his small hands shaking, his lips bitten raw. From the field’s edge, he watched — wide-eyed, helpless — as the men dragged his father into the dirt.
Three zamindars. One British officer. All of them laughing.
His father had begged them to wait. Promised the taxes after harvest. But debt had no patience, and the empire had no mercy.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
The first whip cracked. Then another.
Velan’s mother threw herself at their feet. They kicked her aside.
Then the British officer stepped forward, pistol in hand, and ended it with a single shot.
The wind carried the sound like thunder.
And just like that, the world ended.
Velan did not cry. Not yet. He waited until the men left. Waited until the flies came.
Then he ran — far from the smoke, far from the blood, into the forests where law had no name.
He never forgot the face of the man who gave the order.
And he never stopped hearing the words that followed.
“Burn the house. Let the vultures eat.”
Years later, when the rivers would run red and the empire tremble, they would say a demon had risen in the south.
But no. It wasn’t a demon.
It was a boy who never got to be one.