“Run,” I whispered.
It was a night sewn shut with clouds, no moon, no stars—just the thick, breathing dark of our village on the edge of the forest. I was twelve, my little sister Meera was seven. We shared a string cot on the verandah because the summer heat made the tin-roof house feel like a kiln.
Meera saw me. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. That silence—that absolute, terrified silence—was louder than any scream.
“You saved her,” my mother said to me.
The dark under the jackfruit tree was absolute. But shapes moved there. Two men, low to the ground. One held a jute sack. The other—his hand was over Meera’s face. She was kicking, her small legs flailing, her eyes wide as broken plates.
