Chapter 1 The Wish
On New Year’s Eve, when everyone was celebrating the arrival of another year with laughter and noise, there was one person lying alone on the rooftop of his house, wrapped in the cold of Delhi.
The concrete beneath him was unforgiving, its chill seeping through his clothes, but he did not move. He lay still, arms folded beneath his head, staring at the sky as if it might offer answers his home could not. Below him, walls still remembered raised voices—quiet arguments about money, responsibility, and futures that felt heavier than they should have.
The conflict had not been loud. It never was. Words had been measured, carefully placed, each one reminding him of limits he did not choose. He had left before they could say more, before disappointment settled fully into the room, and climbed to the only place where the noise of life softened.
From the rooftop, the world felt distant.
He wondered almost clinically whether the world was truly a good place. Psychology suggested that humans believed it was out of necessity, not truth. Hope as a defense mechanism. Maybe people survived not because life was kind, but because they convinced themselves it could be.
A sudden crack split the air.
Then another.
Firecrackers.
The sounds echoed through the narrow spaces between buildings, followed by laughter, music, and the careless joy of celebration. He turned his head slightly, realization sinking in.
It was New Year’s Eve.
Everyone was welcoming a new beginning.
Everyone except him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then exhaled. “Forget it,” he whispered. “New year. New start.”
The words felt fragile, but he let them exist.
Opening his eyes again, he looked up—and that was when he saw it.
A thin streak of light crossed the sky, brief and brilliant. A shooting star.
For a moment, something childlike stirred within him. Without thinking, he murmured, “If you’re real… send me on an adventure. Like an anime character.”
The silence answered him.
He let out a small laugh, shaking his head. “I’m really childish.”
The laughter faded quickly. “I guess I’m just fed up with my life,” he admitted softly.
Then the star changed direction.
His breath caught.
Shooting stars didn’t do that.
The light curved unnaturally, growing brighter as it movedno longer passing by, but falling toward him. The air seemed to vibrate, a low hum pressing against his chest.
He didn’t have time to react.
The light struck him squarely in the chest.
Pain exploded not sharp, but overwhelming. His vision blurred as nausea surged through him, his body locking in place for a few seconds that felt endless.
Then everything went dark.
Darkness did not come gently.
It swallowed him whole.
When consciousness returned, it did so slowly, painfully, like a tide dragging him back against his will.
Cold was the first thing he felt.
Not the distant chill of winter air, but something sharper—closer—pressing against his skin. His chest ached, deep and heavy, as if something had passed through him and left its echo behind. He tried to breathe and found the motion difficult, unfamiliar.
His eyelids fluttered.
Light bled in through the darkness, blurred and uneven. The sky above him looked wrong—too still, too silent after the chaos he remembered. Fireworks were gone. The city’s noise had softened into a distant murmur, like a world pretending nothing had happened.
He swallowed, throat dry.
Did I faint?
The memory surfaced in fragments. The star. The light. The impact.
His hand moved instinctively to his chest.
There was no wound.
No burn. No blood.
Only a dull, persistent ache one that felt less physical and more remembered.
Confusion settled in, thick and uneasy. He pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing as his body protested. That was when he noticed he was no longer alone.
Someone was lying beside him.
His breath caught.
A girl unconscious, her body angled awkwardly against the rooftop floor. She wore robes unlike anything he had ever seen before, layered and flowing, torn and darkened in places where blood had soaked through. The fabric looked ancient, out of place against the concrete and satellite dishes, as though she had fallen from a different time entirely.
Her hair spilled across the ground like pale light—white, almost silver, catching what little glow remained from the city below.
She was injured.
That much was impossible to miss.
A shallow rise and fall of her chest told him she was breathing, but barely. Blood stained her side, her fingers curled slightly as if even unconscious she was holding herself together by sheer will.
His mind struggled to catch up.
Where did she come from?
No one could have climbed up here without him noticing. No one dressed like this belonged to his world. And yet—there she was. Real. Bleeding. Vulnerable.
The ache in his chest pulsed again, sharper this time.
A connection he didn’t understand tightened around his thoughts.
He shifted closer without realizing he had decided to move. The cold no longer mattered. Neither did fear. Only the strange, quiet certainty that this she was tied to what had happened.
To the wish.
To the star.
His voice came out rough when he finally spoke, barely louder than the winter air.
“Hey can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond.
The city below continued its celebration, unaware that on a rooftop above it, the new year had already taken something and given something back in return.
And nothing absolutely nothing would be the same again.
