The last sliver of orange vanished, leaving the sky a bruised, dusty purple. Kyra stayed on the rooftop long after the call ended.
The wind grew colder, biting at her arms, but she didn't move.
In the darkness, the sounds of the neighborhood—the clinking of utensils from nearby kitchens, the distant hum of a motorbike—began to fade, replaced by the ringing in her own ears.
She stood by the rusted railing, her knuckles white as she gripped her phone.
The name "Lucifer" still glowed on the screen—a digital tether to a man who claimed to love her but felt more like an anchor dragging her into deep water.
Three months.
The words felt like a lie even as she remembered saying them. She had promised him three months until she was an adult, until she was "his."
The wind, which had been a mild summer breeze moments ago, suddenly felt sharp and drafty, carrying the scent of floor wax and old books.
Her mind was slipping. It was a defense mechanism she had perfected over the years—drifting away from a reality she couldn't handle into the archives of her own pain.
She wasn't on the roof anymore. She was falling through the cracks of her own history, back to the year the light went out.
She was fourteen.
At fourteen, Kyra was a silent girl inhabiting her own house.
While other girls her age were experimenting with lip gloss and gossiping about boys, Kyra was a master of concealment.
The skin disease that had plagued her since she was three years old had left more than just physical marks; it had etched a permanent sense of "otherness" into her soul.
Even in the sweltering heat of the suburbs,
She wore full sleeves, the fabric a shield against the pitying eyes of neighbors and the disgusted whispers of classmates. She was the girl who ate boiled food while her sisters enjoyed sweets.
She was the girl who followed every rule, hit every mark, and topped every exam, believing with a desperate, childlike fervor that if she were "perfect," she could compensate for being "broken."
She believed that if she was a "topper," her father would look at her without seeing a medical bill. She believed if she was silent, her mother wouldn't see a chore.
That belief died on a Tuesday afternoon.
The memory was so vivid she could almost feel the rough texture of the sofa cushions against her skin.
Fourteen-year-old Kyra had been sitting in the corner of the living room, a textbook open in her lap, though she wasn't reading.
She was practicing her invisibility, a skill she used whenever her parents voices began to take on that sharp, jagged edge.
They were behind the kitchen door, but the wood was thin, and their desperation was thick.
"The business is failing, John!" her mother's voice pierced the air. It wasn't just a cry; it was the sound of a woman drowning.
"The creditors called again. The loans are piling up. We can't keep everyone afloat. We're sinking!"
"Then what do you want me to do?" her father roared back.
Kyra flinched, the sound of his fist hitting the table echoing like a gunshot.
"Every cent I made for these years went into her treatments! Do you have any idea what the specialists cost? What the imported medicines cost? Treating Kyra took everything! Now she is recovering but I have nothing left to give or invest!"
Kyra's breath hitched. She pressed her back against the wall, her fingers digging into the fabric of her long sleeves. She wanted to disappear, to melt into the floorboards.
"So this is my fault now?" her mother's voice dropped. The screaming stopped, replaced by something far more terrifying: a cold, clinical detachment which was filled with a little sadness and weariness.
"I gave birth to her, yes. But I can't let her drag the rest of us down. I have two other daughters, John. Lumina and Ava deserve a life, too. I can't put all our focus, all our survival, on Kyra. She's fourteen now. She's grown."
There was a long, terrifying silence. Kyra held her breath, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"What are you saying?" her father asked, his voice lower now, weary.
"I'm saying we have to be practical," her mother whispered. The words were a icy blade.
"The glass factory owner, your buisness partner and friend... you remember what he said? His son is twenty. Their family is wealthy. He mentioned their births matched—it's a good omen.
If we settle her marriage now, it's one less mouth to feed. One less future to worry about.We can take the dowry settlement, you can save the business and Kyra... Kyra will be in safe hands. She won't be our burden anymore and she can even continue her studies from there."
In the living room, the world stopped turning.
Kyra felt her blood turn to ice. A mouth to feed. A burden. The words looped in her mind, over and over.
She looked down at her hands—the hands that had spent hours writing perfect essays, the hands that had scrubbed the floors to help her mother, the hands that were currently trembling.
None of it mattered. Her intelligence was a footnote. Her obedience was a given.
To the people who had given her life, she was simply a liability to be traded away to the highest bidder to save the "real" family.
In that very afternoon, the "Perfect Kyra" died.
She didn't cry in front of them. She didn't confront them.
She simply put on her mask—the same smile she would one day use on Lucifer—and walked out the door. But she didn't go to the library to study.
She couldn't look at a textbook without seeing the face of a girl who was being sold.
She felt a frantic, clawing need to be something—anything—other than a "burden."
She needed to belong to someone who didn't view her as a debt.
So she enrolled herself in a tuition class across town, a place where no one knew her as the "sick girl" or the "topper."
As she walked toward the dilapidated coaching center, her mind was a storm of dark thoughts.
If they want to get rid of me, I'll find my own way out. I'll find someone who actually wants me.
That was when she saw the bicycle.
It was propped up against a graffiti-covered wall and leaning against it was a girl who looked like she had never known a day of silence in her life.
She was older, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Her hair was messy, her clothes were bright and fashionable, and she was laughing at a joke only she knew.
She looked free. She looked dangerous.
She looked like everything Kyra was forbidden to be.
As Kyra approached, her eyes downcast, the girl straightened up.
"Hey," the girl called out.
Kyra stopped, her heart skipping a beat. She looked up, expecting to see the usual look of pity—the look that said, Oh, poor Kyra, she's so brave for having that skin.
But the girl didn't look at her sleeves. She looked straight into Kyra's eyes.
Her smile was wide, infectious, and entirely devoid of judgment. It was like the first hit of a powerful drug to a person who had spent their life in withdrawal.
"You look like you're carrying the weight of the whole world on those skinny shoulders," the girl said, tilting her head. "And you look lonely as hell. Want to be friends?"
Kyra stood frozen. In her house, "friendship" was a distraction from studies. In her house, every relationship was a transaction. But this girl... this girl was offering something for free.
"I... I'm Kyra," she whispered, her voice cracking.
"I'm Mille," the girl said, patting the seat of her cycle. "Come on, Kyra. Let's go somewhere the air doesn't feel so heavy."
Kyra didn't know then that Mille was the gateway. She didn't know that Mille's "freedom" was a different kind of cage. She didn't know that this one "yes" would lead her to the darkness where even living will become difficult.
She only knew that for the first time in fourteen years, someone had looked at her and didn't see a medical bill, a liability, or a responsibility.
They saw a person.
"Kyra.... Are clothes dry yet? What are you doing upstairs.."
On the rooftop, in the present, Kyra's eyes snapped open as she listened to her mom's voice.
A tear, cold and solitary, escaped and ran down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, the same hand that was now clutching the phone.
The sun had fully set now. The sky was a deep, bruising purple.
"I'm not a burden anymore," she whispered into the dark, though she knew it wasn't true. She had just traded one master for another.
Her parents had just difficulties back then and now they love you right and Lucifer, he also loves you. look,how he waited for you and how he adores you.
She looked at her reflection in the darkened screen of her phone.
She saw the fourteen-year-old girl who had been sold for a business partnership, and she saw the nineteen-year-old girl who was currently lying to everyone she loved them.
As she looked at mobile screen, She forced a bright smile and cheerfully shouted to her mom and skipped downstairs, "Mom, the clothes aren't dry yet, I will check again after half an hour."