Rain washed through the city in narrow silver sheets, the kind that drained color from everything until the streets looked like fading memories. Manraj walked quietly with his hands buried in his coat pockets, jaw clenched against the cold. Streetlights glowed like blurred halos in the wet air, and the night smelled of rain, concrete, and something older.
He kept moving. Stopping felt dangerous, like an invitation he wasn't ready to answer.
The warmth inside him had been growing all day. At first, a small thrum under his ribs. Then a pulse. Then a presence with teeth. He had felt it once before, long ago, but tonight it pressed against him like an animal pacing the bars of a cage.
Manraj paused under a bus stop awning. Water traced thin lines down his face as the city rumbled around him—distant horns, the squeal of a tram, footsteps splashing through puddles.
He told himself he was ordinary. He tried to believe it.
Then the pressure surged.
Heat pooled behind his ribs. The glow of the streetlamp stretched, bending into molten gold. The air around him tightened, waiting for him to lose control.
"You don't belong to flames," he whispered to himself.
A voice answered from the rain.
"You could burn the whole city if you slipped."
Manraj turned sharply.
She stood a few steps away, as if carved from the night itself. Wet hair, dark coat, glasses shining with drops of water. A quiet authority. A familiar ache he couldn't explain.
Zoya.
A rumor in the city. A woman who walked the gutters. A shadow with a name people whispered like a question.
Tonight, she was real.
"You're burning again," she said. No judgement. Just truth.
"I can't stop it," Manraj said. His voice cracked more than he expected.
Zoya stepped closer. Rain slid off her coat in thin lines. She placed her hand on his forearm—firm, steady, grounding.
"Then don't slip."
The heat inside him recoiled at her touch. The wild pulse faded. The air loosened. His breath steadied until it became just breath again.
"How did you do that?" he asked.
"I didn't," she replied softly. "You did. I only reminded you you were still human."
Something shifted in him. Not a memory—something deeper, like recognition.
But Zoya's eyes flicked past him suddenly. Her posture tensed.
A shadow moved at the mouth of the alley.
Manraj didn't see it.
Zoya did.
Something old and patient watched them through the rain.
"Come on," she whispered, guiding him away. "We need to go."
As they walked, the shadow remained behind, bowing its head as if waiting for the right moment to follow.
Somewhere above them, lightning flashed. For a split second, Manraj thought he saw a silhouette standing on the rooftop across the street—broad shoulders, rigid posture, familiar in a way that twisted his chest.
He blinked, and the figure was gone.
The flame inside him quieted, but it did not sleep.
It waited.
Something in the city had awakened with him. Something that had known his name long before he ever learned to fear it.
And across the darkness, a voice he didn't remember whispered like an echo:
Chosen.
Saved.
Forgotten.
Manraj shivered.
He wasn't ready for what would follow.