My name is Arjun Rathore. I once lived in Mumbai, the financial heart of India. But for the last eight years, I was trapped in a place so dark and suffocating that words can't describe it.
Today, everything changed. My father's wealth had finally reached me, pulled me out of that abyss, and now I was being escorted home.
At Delhi airport, I sat surrounded by policemen, watching strangers pass by. Their glances lingered on me. Curiosity. Fear. Disgust. I could see it in their eyes as they shifted between the officers and my face, my unkempt beard, the weathered mountain clothes that clung to me like old scars. Fresh clothes had been offered, but I hadn't taken them. I wasn't ready to leave behind the reminders of where I had been.
Questions were thrown at me by the officers, but I stayed silent. Words had long abandoned me.
In that silence, faces swam in my mind. My father, Harish Rathore, a man whose name carried weight everywhere. A tycoon, respected and feared, merciless in judgment. To fall from his favor was worse than death.
My mother, Meera Rathore, his opposite in every way. Gentle, warm, her whole world wrapped around her children.
And then… one more face.
The only one who had given me hope when I had none.
Anaya.
She wasn't my sister. She was my childhood friend. Her parents had died when she was little, and my family took her in. She had lived under the same roof as me, laughed with me, fought with me, followed me everywhere. The last time I saw her, she was just a girl of ten. Small, innocent, fragile.
Thinking about her now, my chest tightened. My throat burned. My heart, which had forgotten how to beat, stirred again.
A hand pressed down on my shoulder.
"Sir, the plane is ready. We should go."
The inspector's voice pulled me back. I stood, lifting the iron trunk I carried. A constable moved to help, but one sharp glance from me made him step back immediately.
On the flight, my thoughts drifted again. By the time I surfaced, the plane was already descending.
My family would meet me at the Mumbai airport. They hadn't dared come to Delhi. Too many cameras. Too many eyes.
The plane landed. Papers were signed. The inspector turned to me.
"Arjun, this is where we part. From here, it's your family's road."
For the first time in hours, I spoke.
"No. My journey has only begun. Thank you… for bringing me this far."
The inspector looked startled, but I didn't linger. I stepped forward.
And then I saw them.
Dozens of faces. Some strangers, some familiar. But one pair of eyes froze me in place.
The world tilted. Memories clawed their way back, dragging me into the past.
Before I could think, warmth wrapped around me.
"Arjun!"
It was my mother. She crushed me against her, sobbing.
"Where did you go? How could you leave me like this? Do you know what I went through? I'll never let you out of my sight again."
Her words spilled in broken pieces. The people around us wiped their eyes. But mine stayed dry, distant, searching.
"Meera, let me meet my son too."
My father's voice was softer than I remembered, stripped of its usual edge.
Mother released me. I bent to touch his feet. He held my gaze, and for a moment I thought I saw relief, joy, but also guilt. He pulled me into a brief embrace, and I felt the dampness of his tears before he quickly turned away.
"Arjun," he said, "Anaya has been waiting to see you."
I froze.
She stepped forward.
Not the ten-year-old girl I remembered. But nineteen now. Her hair framed her face like soft ink, her eyes bright and alive, her presence no longer that of a child who once clung to me but of a young woman who made the air shift when she entered it.
She ran the last few steps and threw her arms around me.
The moment she touched me, a shiver tore through me, sharp and unexpected. And I knew she felt it too, because her body stiffened against mine.
Eight years vanished in that heartbeat. She was no longer the girl I remembered. She was something else now. Someone who unsettled me, someone who made my frozen heart stumble and falter in ways it hadn't in years.
Her warmth seeped into me. Her scent broke through every wall I had built.
And in that moment, I knew. My story was not ending. It was only beginning.