Chapter 1: Reborn on the Eve of Ruin

Zombies on the news, and suddenly every aunty and uncle in the city was elbowing their way through the kirana, panic-buying like it was Diwali sales.

The scene was straight out of an Aaj Tak breaking news segment, except this time it was terrifyingly real. Shopkeepers shouted over the din, people shoved and jostled, the whirr of the ceiling fan overhead did nothing to cut the humidity, and the sharp tang of spilled haldi mixed with sweat. The smell of fear tangled with grains and stale air-conditioning. Someone nearby hollered about sugar prices; an aunty, not to be outdone, was bargaining hard even in the face of doomsday.

Only I was clutching an axe, desperately running up the hill.

My hands were slick with sweat and dirt, the old wooden handle digging painfully into my palm. Heart pounding, I zigzagged through the mob, Maa’s warnings about not running with sharp things echoing uselessly in my head. But what use were those warnings now?

They didn’t realise—the scariest thing isn’t the zombies.

I could almost hear Dadi’s voice in my head, as if she were right behind me, her hand resting heavy on my shoulder: “Beta, dushman toh samne wale ko kehte hain, lekin asli khatra toh andhar hi hota hai.” The scariest enemy isn’t always outside.

In just 24 hours, sea levels will rise, and all land below 500 metres elevation across the world will be completely submerged. That’s the real extinction event for humanity.

Sweat trickled down my back as those numbers replayed in my mind, the idea too big and heavy for one person to carry. Water everywhere—like Mumbai’s monsoon floods, but this time across continents, swallowing entire cities. That was what was coming for us.

Only by heading up the hill is there any hope of survival.

And in our country, hope is the last thing we ever let go of, hai na?