“He did not fall from the stars.

  He was the fire that made them.”

  The world held its breath the night he arrived.

  No thunder, no howling winds. Only silence, thick and ancient, bnketed the sky like a funeral shroud.

  And then—light.

  A blinding pulse of golden fire split the heavens open, pouring across the earth like a second sun had descended.

  At the heart of it, beneath the twisted arms of an ancient banyan tree, a woman y dying. Her body scorched, her final breaths shallow. In her arms, an infant screamed—not from pain, but power.

  His skin shimmered with golden hues. His eyes, though barely open, radiated the fierce brilliance of a sor storm. Grass around him withered. Air around him trembled.

  From the darkness emerged a figure cloaked in tattered robes, his face masked in gold, marked only by one sacred symbol: ☉.

  He knelt, not to take the child, but to kneel before him.

  > “You are too early… and they are not ready.”

  With trembling fingers, the stranger pced a seal upon the boy’s chest—burning it with ancient script—and whispered a spell older than gods.

  > “Anshul… you will sleep among mortals.

  But your fire will rise again.”

  And just like that, the light vanished. The earth calmed. And in the cradle of death, a legend was born.

  Sixteen Years Later

  Lakshmanpur — Edge of the Forgotten Forests

  They called him cursed.

  Not aloud. Not directly. But with looks. With silence. With distance.

  Anshul Verma didn’t fit. Not in the dusty vilge streets, not in the temple prayers, not even in his own reflection.

  Raised by Dhaari, the one-armed bcksmith who found him as a baby beside the river after the Great Eclipse, Anshul had grown into a lean, sharp-eyed boy with a stubborn will and strength that felt… unnatural.

  Lately, things were changing.

  His dreams had turned strange. Blinding visions of deserts drenched in blood, voices chanting in forgotten tongues, and always—always—the sun, watching him from behind veils of fire.

  Worse were the moments when he lost control.

  Like st night.

  One punch, one flicker of anger—and his palm had burst into fme. Not illusion. Not imagination. Real heat. Real fear.

  Only Riva saw it.

  His only friend. Brave, sarcastic, and too smart for this vilge.

  She didn’t run. She looked him in the eye and said,

  > “You’re not who you think you are, Anshul. And you’re definitely not normal.”

  This morning, the whispers were louder. The air felt thicker.

  And now, he stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, heart hammering, fists clenched. Behind him—safety. Ahead—answers.

  > “If the truth lies in darkness…

  I’ll walk straight into it.”

  The wind shifted. Something ancient stirred.

  And somewhere, deep beneath the soil, fire smiled.

  To be continued...