Chapter 3
Zash didn't sleep that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, the world flickered. He would see a lantern sway before it moved. Hear his mother's cough before it left her lips. Feel the floor creak beneath Farhan's restless turning before it happened.
The visions lasted only seconds, but they left his chest tight with panic.
Am I… broken?
When he stood, his body felt different too. Light. Almost… unshackled. His muscles didn't ache from hauling water or bread crates. His breath didn't catch in his lungs. It was as if fatigue itself had abandoned him.
He pressed a hand against his chest, trembling. "What… What did that masked man do to me?"
The thought of it made his stomach twist. Power was supposed to be a blessing, something children dreamed of. But to Zash, it felt alien, as though his very humanity was being stripped away.
He curled his fists and sat by the door, waiting for the dawn, waiting for something to make sense. But dawn only brought noise — people screaming in the distance, vendors whispering about last night, the heavy silence of neighbors who had lost loved ones in the distortion.
Sylhet had not escaped unscathed. At least two hundred were dead. Entire rows of stalls were gone, houses reduced to splinters. The monsters had vanished, yes, but not before their claws tore lives apart.
And inside their shack, Haidar sat quietly, staring at his hands.
For hours he hadn't spoken, his eyes tracing the scars and calluses etched deep into his skin. He thought of nets mended, bread carried, sacrifices made — and yet, somehow, he had never once noticed the storm sleeping inside his own son.
A father should know, he told himself, biting back the lump in his throat. A father should see. And yet… I didn't. I failed him.
He remembered his own father — a man who had walked into a distortion when no one else dared. A man who had promised to come back. A man who never did.
The sound of boots on mud drew him back to the present.
A small group was moving through the slums, their polished uniforms looking out of place among the rusted tin and dirt paths. At the center of them was a man in a dark cloak, his presence commanding, his gaze sharp enough to cut stone.
Vansh Lexington. War Rank of Bangladesh.
Whispers spread like fire as he passed. People bowed their heads, some out of respect, others out of fear. To Sylhet's survivors, he was salvation. To its mourners, he was too late.
Lexington moved slowly, eyes scanning the wreckage, the faces, the grief. He paused often, as though searching for something unseen. And then, by chance or fate, his gaze settled on a small shack.
Inside, he saw the boy.
Zash.
His eyes narrowed. There was something about the way the boy carried himself — the stiffness in his shoulders, the restless flicker in his gaze, the air of someone trying to hide in plain sight.
Strange, Lexington thought. A child like that, here in the mud of Sylhet? With potential that heavy, why does he feel… different? Almost as if…he
The thought brushed too close to suspicion, and he silenced it. Sylhet was bleeding, its dead not yet buried. This was neither the time nor the place to chase shadows.
He approached the doorway. Haidar rose at once, his body tense, shielding Zash behind him.
"Your boy carries potential," Lexington said, his voice even but heavy. "Too much to be wasted here. Come with me to Dhaka. I will see him trained. Fed. Molded into a true Celestial. He deserves more than this life."
For a moment, silence held the air. Then Haidar spoke, his voice breaking but filled with fire.
"MY FATHER ONCE WALKED INTO A DISTORTION!" he shouted, his eyes burning. "HE PROMISED ME HE WOULD COME HOME! HE PROMISED… AND HE NEVER RETURNED!!!"
He stepped forward, fists clenched, his chest rising and falling with rage and grief.
"ALL I HAD LEFT WAS HIS PROMISE, AND THE SILENCE THAT FOLLOWED IT! I WILL NOT LET MY SON WALK THE SAME PATH!!! NOT WHILE I DRAW BREATH!!! IF HE RISES, IT WILL BE ON HIS OWN TERMS — NOT AS A WEAPON MOLDED BY ANOTHER MAN'S HANDS!!!"
The shack seemed to tremble with the weight of his words. Even Zash felt his throat tighten, his chest burning at the rawness of his father's voice.
Lexington's eyes narrowed. For a brief moment, his aura leaked out — a crushing, invisible pressure that rolled across the slums like a storm. People froze in place, their knees buckling, their eyes wide with terror. Mothers clutched their children. Men lowered their heads, trembling.
"He's going to kill them," someone whispered.
The fear was palpable, spreading like fire through the crowd that had gathered to watch. No one dared breathe. No one dared move.
No one — except Haidar.
He stood firm, shoulders squared, his body shielding his son. The weight of the War Rank's presence pressed down on him like a mountain, but he refused to bow.
Lexington studied him in silence. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the aura receded.
"…How old are you, boy?" he asked suddenly.
Zash blinked, startled. "…Fourteen."
"Too young," Lexington muttered, shaking his head. "Much too young."
He turned as if to leave, but paused. Slowly, he reached into his cloak and pressed something into Haidar's calloused hands — a small bundle of folded bills.
"Take care of your family," Lexington said quietly. For the first time, his voice softened, carrying the weight of someone who had buried promises of his own. "…And I'm sorry about your father."
Haidar stiffened but said nothing, gripping the money with trembling hands.
Lexington's eyes returned to Zash. "If you ever change your mind… if he changes his mind… find me in Dhaka. If we're both alive by then, I'll be waiting."
His boots thudded softly against the ground as he left, but his gaze lingered on Zash one final time — a piercing look, as if peering past the boy into the man he might one day become.
And then the War Rank was gone, leaving behind silence, and the weight of choices yet to come