Where He Stayed 2

Chapter 1: The Weight of Blood

The sky was still the same faded gold it had always been at dusk, but something about that evening felt heavier.

I followed Appa up the stairs, my legs moving out of habit, my mind uncertain. I was eighteen now. Old enough, apparently. But for what, he never said. He only said, “You’ll understand when it’s time.” And it was time.

The storeroom sat crouched at the terrace’s edge, its wooden door darker than the evening around it, older than the house itself. It had always been locked. Off-limits. But now, the key hung from Appa’s finger like an invitation I couldn’t refuse.

Inside, the air shifted. It didn’t feel like dust or age. It felt like memory. Like something waiting.

Appa lit a brass lamp in the center of the room. Its flame flickered against the cracked walls. Symbols I hadn’t noticed before shimmered faintly, as though acknowledging our presence. He knelt before them, placing three grains of something red on the floor. Then, without looking at me, he began to speak.

“They called it Uldara, a village cursed not for a sin—but for a broken promise.”

My skin prickled. He spoke like he wasn’t telling me something new, but reminding me of something ancient I was supposed to already know.

“A chieftainess made a pact once. To protect the village, she gave her child to the shadows. But she broke the deal, tried to escape with the child. And for that betrayal, the shadows didn’t just take her—they swallowed the entire village. Burnt it from the inside.”

Appa finally looked at me. His eyes weren’t fearful. They were… resigned.

“Only one woman was left. She begged them—let the line live, even if cursed. And the shadows agreed. Not out of mercy. But to bind the pact into flesh and blood. That blood is ours, Aarav.”

My mouth went dry. “And you want me to take it now?”

He nodded. “It has to pass. I can’t hold it any longer. You have to resist. Until it fits. Until it becomes part of you.”

I wanted to laugh. Or run. But I stood there. I watched him pull out a dull-bladed knife and scratch a mark into his own palm, then mine. When our hands touched, the storeroom pulsed. Just once. Like a heartbeat. A warning.

Appa whispered, “This is not a thing that happens in a day. You will fight it. And it will fight back. That is how it begins.”

Outside, the wind howled against the closed door.

Inside, I took my first step toward becoming someone I wasn’t sure I’d survive.

Chapter 2: Marked

Some marks you wash away with soap.

Some stay even after your skin forgets the sting.

And some—like the one now etched into my palm—don’t belong to you at all.

⸻

It had been weeks since that first night in the storeroom.

Appa kept calling me back. Not every day, but often. At night, when no one else was awake. Always alone. Always silent until the rituals began.

Every time I stepped into that room, it was like the walls knew me better. Like they leaned in closer. Listened harder.

The shadows began to whisper. At first, they sounded like wind under the door. Then like voices I knew. And sometimes—like my own voice speaking back at me.

I didn’t tell anyone.

How could I?

Vaishnavi was barely thirteen. Still holding onto childhood. Still drawing doodles in the margins of her schoolbooks. Ishita, just three, didn’t even know what fear was.

And Amma… Amma looked at Appa like he was breaking apart. Like the man she married was walking deeper into something she couldn’t follow.

One night, Appa brought me to the room and didn’t light the lamp.

He said, “Let it see you as you are.”

And in that darkness, I felt something move around me. Not on the floor, not in the air—but inside.

“The mark is a calling card,” Appa whispered. “Each visit binds you a little more. It won’t be fast, Aarav. But it will be.”

I asked him, “Why did you take it? Why didn’t you say no?”

He smiled—sad, hollow.

“I tried. You will too.”

And that night, for the first time, I saw the other hands.

In the reflection of the storeroom mirror—two shadows stood beside me.

They looked like friends. My friends. But not them.

The mark on my palm glowed faintly, as if they had finally recognized their way home.