I was no warrior.
Not now.
My thigh throbbed like a cursed drum, pulsing black and blue under torn leather. Each step dragged more blood down my leg. Flies followed me like they sensed I wouldn't last.
The market was loud. Bright. Alive.
And I… I was not.
I limped from stall to stall, clutching my shirt down to hide the brand, hoping someone—anyone—would see a child, not a ghost.
"Work?" I croaked to a fruit-seller.
His nose curled before his mouth moved. "That leg... you'll scare customers. Go rot somewhere else."
He didn't just turn away—he shoved me.
I stumbled back into dust. Pain shot up my spine like lightning in a dead tree. I crawled to my feet and tried again. And again.
A butcher lifted a cleaver. "You're already rotting, kid. Don't do it near my shop."
That night, I slept behind a spice stall, coughing on pepper dust. The next morning, I begged again.
Nothing.
My stomach had turned against me. It clawed and twisted, dry and empty. I started licking rain off banana leaves. Even beggars wouldn't look me in the eye.
By the end of the second day, my left leg had ballooned—angry, purple, burning from the inside.
I knew if I collapsed here, the dogs would chew me up by morning.
I could go back to the stream… but no. Who knew how many more of those cursed leeches waited in the water?
I needed warmth. Food. Anything.
I need something that no one will throw me away right i should go back to the dump
Only one place left.
The dump.
It welcomed me with the scent of rot and rusted iron. A broken kingdom of bones and metal. Flies thicker than fog.
I searched for food.
all i found was decomposed food,
Found nothing but blackened rice and things with fur growing on them
I brought it to my mouth once—my body rejected it. my nose was screaming that if you eat i will throw all out from your stomach
But i tried nevertheless, but god didnt support me, i vomited
whatever strength in my body left after the vomiting i couldn't stand
I retched until blood came up. My throat burned worse than the wound.
it was so cold, i need to go away from this rain
i found a barrel
I curled up under an overturned barrel. Rain fell like needles on rusted tin.
still coldness is not leaving me . i need to check my body but the rain is not stopping.
Rain hissed down in thin sheets, cold as snake breath. I had no shelter. My clothes clung to my body like dead skin. Each step I took was no longer a step—it was a war. My thigh… gods, my thigh had swollen like it would split open. The skin was black and bloated, red veins creeping out like spider legs. I felt it move inside.
The leech was still alive. Burrowed deep. Eating me.
I'd tried to rip it out. With stones. With a shard of glass. But it had vanished under the skin—somewhere near the bone. If I cut deeper, I'd lose the leg. Or die.
I had no coin. No herbs. No tools.
Only hunger. Only firelight in the distance.
There—at the base of a rusted old water tower, half-buried in garbage—burned a small flame. Protected from the rain by an arch of scavenged plastic and broken crates. Around it, five figures huddled like beasts around a kill.
Three men, one woman, and a boy.
Scavengers.
I dragged myself toward them.
Around the Fire
Jagan, the one with skin like oiled bark and eyes sunken deep into his skull, took a long drag from a pipe packed with leaf ash. Smoke curled around his beard like moss on stone.
"I'll give you two broken copper," he said, voice gravelly. "That kid won't reach us."
"I'll take that," muttered Meera, the woman with the green shawl patched with coconut thread. "If he does, you treat his wound."
The youngest of the group, Sudhi, snorted. "He won't. Look at his leg. Look at how he crawls. That's death, not a child."
Meera leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Even death has to earn its fire."
They all turned to watch.
Karikalan
Mud swallowed my elbows.
My fingers were scraped raw from the stones.
I didn't cry. I couldn't. My throat had closed from thirst and cold. But I whimpered—pathetic, broken sounds leaking out with every push forward.
The world tilted. Rain blurred everything.
I didn't crawl like a person. I was flat on my belly, dragging my own corpse toward warmth. My left leg… I couldn't feel it anymore. The cold had taken it. All I felt was weight. A rotting tree branch strapped to my body.
My vision narrowed to the fire.
Only the fire.
It flickered like a promise.
The pain blurred into madness. My breath was wheezing. Wet. Each gasp cut my chest like knives. The necklace clinked against my ribs with every drag.
Then…
It burned. Just once.
Warm. Alive.
A golden flicker against my skin.
I felt something lift inside me. Not the pain, no. The pain stayed. But my mind broke through the fog.
I screamed inside my head.
I will not die here.
The garbage sliced my elbows. My jaw hit a rock. Blood filled my mouth. I tasted rust. Filth. But the fire was close now. Ten meters. Five. One.
And then—
I fell into the ring of warmth.
Sudhi stood up.
"What the hell? He made it?" His voice cracked, not with shock—but shame. "This stinking little worm actually—?"
He raised a stick. "I say we throw him back where he came from."
Jagan leaned back, unimpressed. "Don't pout, boy. You made the bet."
"But if we let him stay, he'll attract flies. Disease. He's already dead!" Sudhi hissed.
Meera's voice was cold and sharp as salt.
"And if he isn't?" She stepped forward. "You forget, Sudhi—we all crawled here once."
Jagan gave a grunt. "He's yours now, woman. Fix him."
Meera knelt beside me without touching. Her eyes scanned the leg.
"Leech," she muttered. "One of those deep burrowers. Godless little demons."
She reached into her cloth pouch and drew out crushed neem leaves, a handful of rough salt, and a gourd of pungent green oil.
No prayers. No hesitation.
She hurled the mixture at the wound.
The salt bit first—like fire. Then the oil soaked in, slick and acidic.
My leg erupted.
Something moved.
The skin bulged, split.
The leech burst out—fat, black, wriggling in the open air, bloodied and blind.
Sudhi stumbled back. "By the gods…"
Meera exhaled. "He lived."
My scream echoed into the storm.
Then the world went white.
Then black.
Then nothing.
Later…
Jagan stared at the boy's unconscious body, rain tapping gently on the tarp overhead.
"Fate, eh?"
Meera rubbed her cold fingers. "More like madness."
Sudhi spit into the mud. "He's not like us."
"Not yet," Jagan said, drawing his ragged shawl closer. "But the dump takes all kinds. If he survives… he'll never be just a boy again."