The end of the world didn't begin with a scream. It began with silence.
At 11:41 PM, Mumbai was a living, breathing creature of noise. The humid air was thick with the blare of horns, the distant rumble of local trains, the shouting of street vendors, and the low hum of a city that refused to sleep. Raghav leaned against the peeling paint of a closed shutter, a cigarette unlit between his fingers. He watched the street across from him—a chaotic intersection where traffic was gridlocked as usual.
He checked his watch. 11:42 PM.
He reached into his pocket for his lighter. His thumb flicked the wheel.
Click.
The flame didn't ignite.
Raghav frowned and tried again. Click. Nothing.
He looked up, annoyed, and that was when he realized the lighter wasn't the problem. The flame hadn't failed. The sound had.
The click made no noise.
He froze. His military instincts, buried under two years of civilian life, snapped awake instantly. He looked around. The traffic was still moving—cars were inching forward, an auto-rickshaw was swerving around a bus—but there was no sound. The furious honking of the taxi driver in front of him was gone. The shouting tea seller was mouthing words into a vacuum.
It was as if someone had pressed the mute button on reality itself.
Raghav's breath hitched. The air pressure dropped so suddenly his ears popped. It wasn't just quiet; it was heavy. A crushing, oceanic weight pressed down on his shoulders, making his knees buckle.
Get to cover. The thought wasn't conscious; it was muscle memory.
He dropped the cigarette and pushed off the wall. But before he could take a step, the sky tore open.
It didn't happen in the distance. It happened directly above the intersection.
There was no explosion. No fire. Just a sickening, tearing sensation that vibrated in Raghav's teeth. The night sky, choked with smog and city lights, split down the middle. A jagged, bleeding line of violet light cracked reality open like an old wound.
And then, the sound returned.
CRACK.
It wasn't a thunderclap. It was the sound of the atmosphere shattering.
Every window on the street exploded simultaneously. Glass rained down like hail. Car alarms shrieked in unison, a deafening chorus of panic. The ground lurched violently, throwing Raghav against the metal shutter.
"Earthquake!" someone screamed nearby.
Raghav scrambled to his feet, ignoring the ringing in his ears. He looked up at the rift. It was pulsing. And it was leaking.
Thick, purple energy spilled from the crack in the sky, dripping down like heavy oil. Where it touched the streetlights, the bulbs popped and went dark. Where it touched the asphalt, the road hissed and bubbled.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was what fell out of the rift next.
Gravity seemed to invert for a second. Debris from the street floated up, suspended in the air, before slamming back down with crushing force. And in the center of the chaos, a massive shadow plummeted from the violet void.
It crashed into the middle of the traffic jam, crushing a sedan flat.
Dust and concrete sprayed everywhere. Raghav shielded his face, coughing. As the dust settled, the screams of the crowd turned into gasps of disbelief.
It wasn't a meteor. It was a tree.
A colossal, twisted tree with bark the color of dried blood and leaves that looked like jagged shards of metal. It stood three stories tall, its roots already writhing like snakes, burrowing into the concrete road as if the tar was nothing more than soft mud.
"What is that?" a woman whispered, backing away.
Raghav didn't ask questions. He scanned the area. Exit routes. Threat assessment.
The tree wasn't alone.
The rift above widened, groaning like bending metal. More shapes fell. Debris. Rocks. Patches of strange, glowing grass. It looked like chunks of another world were being shoveled onto Earth.
And then, movement.
From the shadows of the alien tree, something stepped out.
It was low to the ground, moving on four legs. It resembled a wolf, but it was wrong. Its spine was arched with bone-like spikes, and its skin was covered in black, wet scales that shimmered under the flickering streetlights. It was the size of a small car.
The crowd froze. The primal part of every human brain recognized a predator.
The beast sniffed the air. Steam hissed from its nostrils. Its yellow eyes scanned the paralyzed crowd, intelligent and hungry.
"Don't run," Raghav muttered under his breath, his hand drifting to the small folding knife clipped to his belt—a useless toy against a monster like that. " nobody run."
But panic is contagious.
A man in a business suit, clutching a briefcase, broke the standoff. He screamed and bolted toward the alleyway.
The beast didn't growl. It vanished.
It moved faster than human eyes could track—a blur of shadow and violence.
One second the man was running. The next, he was airborne. The beast slammed into him mid-stride, jaws clamping around his torso with a sickening crunch. The man didn't even have time to finish his scream.
He was gone.
Blood sprayed across the pavement, vivid and red against the grey dust.
The spell broke.
Chaos erupted. People trampled each other in a desperate bid to escape. Cars revved, smashing into each other, trying to drive through the gridlock.
Raghav didn't run with the herd. He knew that in a stampede, the crowd was just as dangerous as the monster. He backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on the beast. It was tearing into its prey, ignoring the screaming mob for now.
This isn't an animal, Raghav thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. Animals kill to eat. That thing... it's enjoying this.
The ground beneath his feet trembled again. Raghav looked down. The asphalt was cracking. Green vines were shooting up from the fissures, wrapping around the tires of a parked bus. They grew with terrifying speed, thickening and hardening in seconds.
The world was being rewritten.
Raghav looked up at the sky. The rift was expanding. More tears were opening up across the horizon, glowing like infected scars. This wasn't just happening here.
"Aisha," he whispered.
The name cut through his shock like a knife. His cousin. She was alone in the apartment, three blocks away.
Three blocks. In normal times, a five-minute walk. Now, it looked like a suicide mission.
Raghav turned and sprinted. Not onto the main road, but toward the side alley that led to the fire escapes. The ground level was a kill zone. He needed elevation.
He vaulted over a fallen motorcycle, his boots skidding on the loose gravel. He reached the metal ladder of an old residential building and hauled himself up. His muscles burned, but adrenaline pushed him forward.
He climbed to the first roof and looked out over the city.
The sight stopped him cold.
Mumbai—the city of dreams—was gone.
In its place was a patchwork nightmare. Entire city blocks had vanished, replaced by dense, dark jungles that glowed with bioluminescent light. A skyscraper in the distance was leaning precariously, wrapped in massive vines that were crushing the concrete structure.
To the west, where the sea should have been, the water was glowing a toxic green. And rising from the center of the chaos, piercing the clouds, was a massive black tower. It stood silent and ominous, lightning arcing around its spire.
Raghav pulled out his phone. No signal. The screen flickered with static before dying completely.
Technology was dead. The rules of physics were bending.
He looked toward his apartment building. It was still standing, but the jungle was encroaching on it fast. A thick canopy of alien trees was spreading across the streets, connecting rooftops like a bridge.
Raghav gripped the handle of his small knife. It felt pathetic in his hand, but it was all he had.
He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a savior. He was just a man who had promised his aunt he would keep his sister safe.
"Adapt or die," he whispered the old army motto.
He took a breath of the strange, metallic-smelling air and started running across the rooftops.
The Collapse had begun.