The Phoenix Within

This was her city's secret side. Unfamiliar, thrilling, and full of stories. She couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else but right here, driving alone through the heart of the storm.

- By Anirban Dasgupta

CHAPTER 1

Sonali pressed her fists a little tighter on the steering wheel, knuckles bright against the dim interior of her Kia Seltos. She eased her foot on the brake, coming to a gentle halt at an intersection where the traffic light, blurred by the rain, shone like a molten emerald. The windshield wipers, set to their highest speed, smacked and squealed, clearing the relentless flood only to let it gather again, a hypnotic rhythm across glass.

She recalled Sangeeta’s worried expression as she'd fetched her bag. “Seriously, Sonali, don’t do this. Stay the night. It isn’t safe to drive alone right now,” Sangeeta had pleaded. Animesh chimed in with a firm nod, reinforcing the same plea. But Sonali had smiled, thanked them, and slipped away. As she pulled onto the quiet street, she grinned, remembering Sangeeta’s parting words to Animesh—spoken with a knowing smile— “Once she’s made up her mind, there's no changing it.”

Maybe it was foolish, just stubborn, but she meant what she told them at the party. The rain never scares her. Silhouettes of buildings dissolved in the storm, their neon signs shivering and mirrored on the slick tarmac. Every so often, a lightning bolt slashed the sky, casting the cityscape in an eerie negative for a split second, revealing rooftops, water tanks, terraces like secret haunts, then swallowing them all back in shadow.

CHAPTER 2

The hypnotic swish-slap of the wipers, the rain’s endless percussion—all of it sent her drifting back, back to the hills of Uttarakhand, the little town and the cramped rooms she'd once called home.