Chapter 9

“The Thief”

The sun leaked through Mumbai's perpetual haze, casting a sickly light across the crumbling remains of Dharavi. Ankit sat alone in their old hideout—a forgotten maintenance room tucked between two leaning apartment blocks—his fingers tracing the frayed hemp bracelet that felt too heavy against his wrist. Three days had passed since he'd lost everything. Three days since the ground had vanished beneath his feet, leaving him suspended in a nightmare he couldn't escape.

The hideout still bore traces of them: Navi's collection of salvaged books stacked carefully in one corner, their pages warped from humidity; Ravi's knife marks scoring the wall where he'd kept count of their successful scavenging runs. The space felt like a tomb now, preserving fragments of lives that had ended in blood and violence.

His eyes burned as he stared at the matching bracelet lying in a dark stain on the floor—Navi's bracelet, torn from her wrist in those final moments. The simple braided hemp had darkened where her blood had dried into the intricate knots they'd woven together, back when they still believed in things like family and forever. Ravi's identical bracelet was probably still on his wrist, buried somewhere in the mass graves where they dumped the unclaimed dead.

The memory rose unbidden, sharp as broken glass.

***Eight months earlier***

"You're doing it wrong again, yaar," Navi laughed, her nimble fingers working the hemp strands with practiced ease. The afternoon light filtered through gaps in the maintenance room's ceiling, catching the dust motes that danced around her head, giving her an ethereal glow. At sixteen, she moved with the fluid grace of someone who'd learned early how to become invisible when needed. "Look, see? Over, under, then through—like this."

"Arre, it's not my fault," Ankit protested, fumbling with his own strands. "My fingers are not made for such delicate work." He shot a pleading look at Ravi, who sat cross-legged beside them, already finished with his bracelet. "Ravi, tell her not all of us can be having such artist hands, haan?"

Ravi's laugh was warm, familiar as their shared breaths in this tiny space. At nineteen, he carried himself with the confidence of someone who'd carved out a place in a world that offered none. "Don't be looking at me for help, little brother. This was your idea, remember?"

It had been. Ankit had found the hemp cord while scavenging near the old textile district, three lengths that seemed too perfect to waste. Something about them had sparked a memory of the family bands he'd seen wealthy children wearing before the collapse—bright threads woven with gold and silver, marking them as belonging to someone, to somewhere.

"There," Navi said, holding up her finished work. The simple braid had become something more under her touch, the knots forming a pattern that spoke of care and attention. "Now we will always be together, no matter what happens."

Ravi reached over, ruffling her hair with brotherly affection. "Always the romantic, our Navi. Even in this mess, you're finding beauty."

She swatted his hand away, but her smile could have lit the darkened corners of their hideout. "Someone is having to, nah? Otherwise, what's the point?"

They worked in comfortable silence after that, the only sounds their breathing and the distant chaos of Dharavi's endless struggle for survival. When they finished, they helped each other tie the bracelets on, making sure the knots were secure.

"A proper family now, haan?" Navi held up her wrist, admiring how the simple hemp caught the light. "No matter what happens?"

"No matter what," Ravi agreed, his voice solemn. "We protect our own."

Ankit touched his bracelet, feeling the rough texture against his skin. "Together or not at all."

Present time bled back in, staining the edges of Ankit's vision with the heaviness of loss. His fingers had stopped tracing the bracelet, his knuckles white from gripping his wrist too tightly. The hideout's air felt thick with ghosts, memories pressing against his skin, clinging to him with a weight that refused to leave. Three days. Just three days since everything had shattered—

His mind recoiled, but the memory forced itself forward, brutal as a knife between the ribs.

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***Three nights ago***

The scream tore through Dharavi's usual nighttime chorus of misery. At first, Ankit hadn't recognized it—just another voice joining the symphony of suffering that echoed through Mumbai's dying streets. But something in its pitch, its desperation, had pulled him from his half-sleep in their hideout.

"Navi?" He whispered her name into the darkness, realizing she wasn't in her usual spot. The maintenance room felt wrong, empty in a way that made his skin crawl. Ravi's sleeping mat lay abandoned too, the blanket thrown aside as if he'd left in a hurry.

Another scream, closer now. This time he knew that voice.

His feet carried him through the maze of Dharavi's narrow alleys, past the hollow-eyed faces that turned away from another's suffering. The screams had stopped, replaced by something worse—wet, choking sounds and the dull thud of flesh striking flesh.

He found them in a dead-end corridor, where the buildings leaned so close together they almost touched overhead. The single flickering light cast everything in stuttering shadows, making the scene before him feel unreal—a nightmare come to life.

Ravi's massive frame pinned Navi to the filthy ground, one hand clamped over her mouth while the other tore at her clothes. Her muffled screams echoed off the narrow walls as she fought against him, nails leaving bloody trails across his arms. The single light above them flickered in cruel rhythm with her struggles, casting the scene in broken flashes of horror.

"Please..." she managed to gasp when his hand shifted. "Ravi—"

He slammed her head against the concrete, silencing her words. His face remained expressionless, almost inhuman as he violated her. Only his breathing changed, becoming heavier, more animalistic with each passing moment. Blood and tears streaked Navi's face as she fought, her struggles growing weaker.

When Ankit's shadow fell across them, Ravi's head snapped up. His eyes were wrong—pupils blown wide with a primal hunger that had consumed whatever remained of the brother who had protected them for so long. Blood ran from deep scratches on his face where Navi had fought back, cutting through the sweat that glistened in the flickering light.

"Brother, stop!" The words tore from Ankit's throat, but they sounded distant, as if someone else was screaming them.

Navi's hand shot up in one final effort, fingers clawing at Ravi's face. Her nails found his eye, sinking deep. The wet pop as her thumb punctured the organ was grotesque, a sound that seemed to echo in Ankit's ears. Ravi's roar of pain was primal, inhuman. His massive hands locked around her throat, squeezing with mindless brutality.

Each desperate attempt to breathe produced a horrible rattle as her windpipe slowly collapsed beneath his thumbs. Her legs kicked weakly against the filthy ground, leaving streaks in the muck as she fought for life. The hemp bracelet around her wrist—identical to theirs—had torn loose in the struggle, now lying in a growing pool of blood.

He slammed her head against the ground with savage force. The crack of her skull meeting concrete echoed off the narrow walls.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Each impact sprayed a fine mist of blood and other matter, painting abstract patterns across the corridor's walls. Navi's arms fell limp at her sides. Her eyes remained open, but the light that had made her Navi, that spark of hope and beauty even in their broken world, was gone. Just empty glass staring at nothing.

Only then, with her blood cooling on his hands, did Ravi seem to remember himself. His head turned slowly toward Ankit, his one remaining eye widening with horrific recognition. The animal rage drained from his face, replaced by something worse—awareness of what he'd done, of what his little brother had witnessed.

"Ankit..." The word came out broken, barely human. His ruined eye leaked fluid down his cheek, mixing with sudden tears. "I... what have I..."

His brother's trembling hand moved to the gun tucked into his waistband—the weapon he'd used to protect them so many times before. "Ankit..." he said again, voice cracking like shattered glass. Tears cut clean tracks through the blood on his face, his remaining eye fixed on his little brother with a look of pure horror. The gun's barrel looked almost black in the flickering light as Ravi pressed it under his chin.

The gunshot was deafening in the narrow space. The back of Ravi's head exploded outward in a spray of bone, brain matter, and blood. His body toppled sideways, collapsing across Navi's legs in a grotesque tableau of violence and betrayal. The gun clattered to the ground, steam rising from its barrel into the cool night air.

Ankit's legs gave way. He fell to his knees in the filth, retching until there was nothing left but bitter bile. The flickering light cast jumping shadows across the scene—Navi's empty eyes, Ravi's ruined face, their matching bracelets now painted the same shade of crimson.

The hideout's stale air dragged Ankit back to the present. His throat burned as if he'd been screaming, though he hadn't made a sound. Three days. Three days of existing in a world that no longer made sense, where every shadow held echoes of that night, and every sound carried memories of Navi's final screams.

No one had come to investigate the gunshot. In Dharavi, such sounds were too common to merit attention. By morning, both bodies had been collected with the night's other dead, tossed into mass graves without ceremony or markers. Just two more statistics in Mumbai's endless ledger of loss.

The morning sun crawled through gaps in the ceiling, illuminating dust motes that danced, moving with an eerie restlessness. Ankit's fingers found his bracelet again, feeling the rough hemp that now felt like it was burning into his flesh. On the floor, Navi's torn bracelet lay exactly where he'd placed it, the dried blood turning the simple craft into something grotesque.

The broadcast system crackled to life outside, its harsh static cutting through his grief like a knife. The massive screens that had been installed throughout Mumbai over the past weeks flickered on, bathing Dharavi's crumbling walls in cold blue light.

"Citizens of Mumbai," the announcement began in Hindi, then repeated in English. "The Global Resource Council presents humanity's salvation: The Ultimate Dive."

The screens shifted to show the nearest processing center—the converted shopping mall where he, Navi, and Ravi had once scavenged for supplies. Its walls now gleamed white, sterile, promising an orderly end to a chaotic world. The contrast between its clinical facade and Dharavi's decaying sprawl felt like a mockery of everything they'd survived together.

In the growing light, his reflection caught in a shard of broken mirror propped against the wall. Hollow eyes stared back at him, set in a face he barely recognized. The hemp bracelet stood out stark against his skin, its simple weave now feeling like chains binding him to memories he couldn't escape.

"We cannot guarantee anyone will survive the game," the voice continued with clinical honesty. "The odds of victory are extraordinarily small. But for those brave enough to try, this offers a chance—however slight—at something better than a slow death from starvation, disease, or violence."

Ankit's fingers traced the bracelet one last time. Three days ago, he had watched his world end in blood and violence. He had witnessed the collapse of everything he believed in—family, love, protection. Now, staring at the glowing blue promises of the Ultimate Dive, something stirred inside him. It wasn't hope, not really. It was more like a final, desperate resolve.

If the world wanted to drown him, he wouldn't go quietly. He would make it count—for Navi, for the family they’d lost, and for the broken promises that lay bleeding in Dharavi's alleys.

He rose, his movements slow but purposeful. The bracelet felt heavy, but it no longer burned. It was a reminder—a promise. Whatever lay ahead in the Dive, Ankit would face it. He had nothing left to lose.