Prologue
"It feels cold around here... these woods make creepy sounds too," Biniya muttered, shivering as he peered into the darkness between the trees. He had no warm clothes, only a wooden torch he held close to his chest and an iron bucket dangling from his other hand. "Why did we have to meet him today, of all days..."
He scanned the forest with restless eyes, as if expecting something to crawl out of the shadows.
Dhanu bent down and picked up a dry stick. "Is this all you sense right now?" he asked.
Biniya ignored him, hugging himself as another shiver passed through his thin body. With hardly any flesh on his bones, even the night air felt like winter. Dhanu, on the other hand, felt no cold—or perhaps he simply forced himself to ignore it. His mind was too cluttered with worries. Sweat soaked through the vest stretched over his round belly, glistening despite the chill.
He gathered more fallen branches from around the clearing and tied them into a bundle.
"Will this be enough?" he asked.
"I think so..." Biniya grumbled, then burst out, "But why do we have to do all the work? First we carry that sack all the way through the forest, and now this!"
"Perhaps you already know the answer," Dhanu muttered. "We have to go back, or he'll start another scene."
"I don't care," Biniya scoffed—but Dhanu knew well that he did.
They followed a faint glow flickering between the trees.
Soon Dhanu spotted Chandru seated on a thick branch, a bottle dangling lazily from his hand. He didn't look nineteen at all—broad shoulders, long hair tied loosely, dressed in clothes too fancy for a night like this. Beside him stood Kini, arms crossed, talking in a hurried voice. Kini was slim and small like Dhanu, but his face was twisted with something deeper—a shaking dread.
"Listen to me, Chandru... what we did was wrong. You know it," Kini stammered. His hands trembled so visibly that the light of the torch flickered over his shaking fingers. His face was flushed, eyes wet, breath quick and shallow. He was muttering to himself between every sentence.
"What we did is fine," Chandru said, placing a heavy hand on Kini's shoulder.
"No one will ever know. And you won't tell anyone."
He grabbed Kini by the collar and pulled him close. "If you talk, I will deal with you too," he said in a calm, chilling tone.
Then, turning away, Chandru snapped, "Why are those idiots so slow? We need to finish this fast."
Dhanu and Biniya stepped forward without saying a word. They placed the branches over the pile of wood they had already gathered earlier. Chandru had refused to let Kini go with them—maybe because he didn't want to be left alone... or maybe even he feared the dark. Dhanu's breath came in harsh gasps, Biniya's too, but Chandru didn't care.
"Who takes this long to gather a few things?" Chandru barked.
"We didn't want to be seen," Biniya replied quietly. "We had to sneak into the village to steal the oil."
"Why don't you do it yourself..." Dhanu muttered—too softly, he hoped.
But Chandru heard.
He climbed down from the branch, walking toward Dhanu with slow, deliberate steps.
"The next time you say something like that to me," he said, voice low and venomous, "I'll show you just how fast I can get things for you."
Dhanu felt his insides twist. He stepped back instinctively. Chandru snatched the torch from Biniya's hand.
"If you really want to go back home," he said, "we should end what we started."
Biniya uncorked the bottle and poured oil over the wood. The branches darkened as they soaked it up. Kini crouched, staring into the pile as if searching for something lost—or something he wished would disappear forever.
"Let's do it," Dhanu whispered, his voice trembling. "We did this together... so we end it together."
Chandru's eyes glinted.
He flung the burning torch onto the oil‑soaked branches.
The fire caught instantly.
