It was a cold December afternoon when I finished talking to my parents. They were telling me how everything was peaceful and perfect back home in Daman—the sea calm, the air clean, life orderly in ways mine no longer was.
My father, Raj, a Commodore in the Indian Navy, eventually asked the question I had been dreading.
"What are your plans for the future?" he said. "You graduate in six months."
I had no answer.
So I did what I always did.
I told him the network was getting bad and cut the call.
Minutes later, my phone buzzed again. This time it was my younger sister, Megha.
She didn't waste time.
"So," she said cheerfully, "Baba has disowned you again. I think this is the hundredth time."
I sighed.
She laughed and asked, "Why did the great Shreyash leave the cousins' group chat?"
"Because it was boring," I replied, "and predictable. Just like this conversation."
She burst out laughing and then immediately switched topics, as she always did.
"Call Aai," she said. "Convince her to let me go to the summer camp in the Karavali mountain range."
I groaned, but I agreed.
Megha and I had an unspoken pact—to support each other against Baba, and sometimes even Aai, whenever survival demanded it.
Before hanging up, she casually dropped another piece of news.
"Aparna Tai is getting married this December."
That stopped me.
Aparna Tai—my elder cousin.
My father had two elder brothers: Kanta Kaka and Ajay Kaka. Fifteen years ago, Ajay Kaka and his wife vanished without a trace, leaving behind Surbhi Tai and Aparna Tai.
My father took Aparna Tai in.
Kanta Kaka took Surbhi Tai.
Kanta Kaka was… different.
A retired Special Forces operative, he was a man carved out of discipline and violence. When I lived with him—from 8th to 12th standard—he trained both Surbhi Tai and me in various martial arts. Bruises were normal. Pain was expected. Weakness was unacceptable.
Surbhi Tai eventually joined the Special Forces herself and later married her fellow officer, Major Parag.
Including me and my three sisters, there were eight cousins, making us a chaotic group of thirteen. My Ajoba used to call us the "Thirteen Terrors."
Now, we were scattered.
Life had pulled us apart—different cities, different ambitions, different failures. Leaving the cousins' chat group wasn't the cause; it was just proof of how far we had drifted.
The weight of it all settled on my chest.
I needed distraction.
I called my best friends, Badri and Ojas, asking them to come over. We had bought some new cigars and I needed my head to stop spinning.
Badri declined immediately.
"I'm sleeping," he said. "And you know I hate smoking."
So I called Ojas and told him to get to my room immediately.
He arrived with a cigar cutter. I lit the cigar, the smoke burning my throat as we talked about the one thing worse than family drama—end-semester exams.
Passing marks at the National Institute of Legal Studies, Mumbai (NILS) were brutal. We had already screwed up the mid-sems.
Ojas said he had good notes, but if we wanted to survive, we'd have to start studying from tomorrow.
I agreed.
That was when the world broke.
The room shook violently, as if the earth itself had screamed. The tremor wasn't natural—it felt deliberate. Then came a thunderous crack of lightning, louder than anything I had ever heard.
The electricity died instantly.
Before I could react, before fear could even settle in, something appeared before my eyes.
A translucent screen, floating in the air.
Cold. Silent. Merciless.
White letters burned into it:
> "Welcome, insignificant humans,
to the Beginning of the Disaster."