Dharavi woke early. The smell of damp earth, sewage drains, and boiling tea mixed in the narrow alleys. Stray dogs wandered across the dirt paths, looking for food. Families lined up at the communal tap with steel buckets. A tannery at the corner started its machines with a low industrial groan.
Aarav Salaskar sat on the edge of his shack, elbows resting on his knees. He had been awake long before dawn. Sleeping wasn't easy in Dharavi, especially when the walls of your home were made of corrugated tin and every sound outside felt too close.
He watched the alley without really seeing any of it. People moved as they always did—women bargaining with vegetable vendors, men arguing over work shifts, kids chasing each other barefoot through puddles. Normal life carried on with the same tired rhythm.
Aarav didn't feel like part of it. He never had.
His shack was one of the smaller ones, squeezed between a leather workshop and a family of seven. Inside, there was barely room for a rolled-up mat, a cracked mirror, and a wooden box where he kept the few things he owned. He lived alone, had been since he was thirteen.
That was the year his parents died.
The memory didn't come in images anymore. Just the echo of gunshots and screams from the alley. Two minor gangs clashing over territory, using knives and crude pistols. His parents were caught between them. No one was arrested. No one cared.
Aarav had learned a simple rule:
No one is coming to save you.
He didn't look angry. He didn't look broken either. He simply looked… quiet. Detached. Like someone who'd learned to swallow everything and keep moving.
He stood, stretched his arms, and reached for the wooden box. He opened it, expecting to see the few coins he'd kept and an old shirt folded over them.
Instead, something else was inside.
A dull blue light pulsed from a small rectangular panel. It wasn't metal or plastic; it looked like nothing he recognized. It emitted a faint hum, like the low vibration of a power line.
Aarav frowned. "What the hell…"
He wasn't the type to hallucinate. He didn't drink, didn't smoke. He didn't have the luxury.
The light flickered, then words appeared on the panel—white, clean text, completely out of place in a Dharavi slum:
WEAPON MERCHANT SYSTEM — ACTIVATED
Aarav stared at it, not moving. His heartbeat didn't spike; fear didn't hit him. He only felt a cold alertness, the same feeling he had when he sensed trouble on the streets.
USER: AARAV SALASKAR
STATUS: INITIALIZED
AVAILABLE SECTION: REVOLVERS
The panel dissolved into floating text, hanging in the air before him like a projection. No machinery behind it. No wires. Just light in empty space.
Aarav stepped back. He checked the doorway—no one outside. No trick, no shadows playing off metal sheets. The text remained.
More lines appeared:
BEGINNER ARMAMENT ISSUED
Bolt Detective Special — .38
12 rounds
Leather holster
Something heavy shifted inside the box. Aarav slowly lifted the shirt. Beneath it lay a revolver—matte black, clean barrel, polished grip. Brand new. Not a country-made gun, not a scrap-metal weapon from the slums. This one was real.
He picked it up. Cold steel. Balanced weight. Six-shot cylinder.
A weapon no one in Dharavi should have easy access to.
For a moment, his reflection stared back at him in the barrel—unshaved stubble, thin but sharp features, eyes that always seemed tired but rarely closed.
He didn't grin. He didn't gasp in awe. He simply examined the gun the way someone examines a tool they've never seen before.
Then the text appeared again:
MISSION 1: SELL 10 REVOLVERS
Reward: Unlock Pistol Section
No monetary reward.
Aarav exhaled through his nose. Slowly. Carefully.
"Sell?" he muttered under his breath.
He placed the revolver down on the mat and sat beside it. The alley outside was still loud with morning noises, but it all sounded distant now.
He didn't understand what this System was.
He didn't understand why it chose him.
But he understood guns.
He understood the underworld.
He understood what people would pay for a weapon like this.
His mind shifted through Dharavi's network—minor gangs, bootleggers, street thugs, the men who carried knives because they couldn't afford firearms. One name surfaced immediately.
Ali.
Aarav's only remaining friend from childhood, a boy who still tried to smile despite living in the same filth. His uncle worked for a minor boss under Mudaliar's network. And minor bosses always wanted influence. A gun could buy influence, or protect it.
Aarav didn't look excited. There was no spark of destiny, no thrill at getting power.
All he thought was:
If this System wants ten sales… and this revolver is real…
then this city is about to change.
He wrapped the gun in the shirt, tucked it into his waistband, and stepped out into the alley.
The morning crowd continued like nothing was different. But for the first time in years, Aarav felt something shift inside him—not hope, not fear… just direction.
He headed toward the inner lanes to find Ali.
And behind him, unseen, the faint blue text followed before fading out of sight.