FIRED BLOOD
1222 Words
The temple bells still echoed in Tara’s ears when she returned home that night.
Her feet were bare. Her white dress stained with red mud. Her hair stuck to her face from the rain, but her eyes blazed with something far hotter than fury.
She stepped into the silence of her home. The hallway was dimly lit by the soft glow of the tulsi diya her father kept lit every night. From the living room, she could hear the faint rustle of his prayer beads, his lips moving in chant. The smell of sandalwood and sorrow filled the air.
She walked past him, past the shrine, and opened the door to her sister’s room.
Adyaa lay curled on her side, a shadow of the girl she once was. Her back faced the door, but her shoulders trembled. Whether from cold or grief, Tara didn’t know. Maybe both.
Tara slid into the bed beside her and wrapped her arm gently around her.
For a moment, Adyaa flinched.
Then… she allowed it.
And slowly, silently, she cried. Her tears soaked the pillow. Her fists remained clenched. She didn’t speak. She hadn’t spoken in days.
But the weight of those tears hit Tara like flames. They didn’t weaken her. They sharpened her.
> YOUR VOICE MAY BE GONE, ADYAA, she thought. BUT MINE ISN’T. AND I WILL MAKE THEM SCREAM.
Two days later.
Tara followed Rinku from a distance. He was loud, careless, and drunk on both liquor and the safety of his surname. He spent his evenings gambling, laughing with his friends in the market square. There was no guilt in his posture. No shame in his voice.
Just arrogance.
Tara watched. Studied. Waited.
On the third night, he followed his usual routine. Drinks with his friends. A cigarette under the old neem tree. Then the shortcut behind the abandoned grain warehouse to reach home faster.
That’s where Tara waited.
She had planted the sedative in a discarded water bottle near his scooter earlier that evening. As predicted, he grabbed it without thinking, guzzled it in two gulps. His body began to slow just as he entered the alley.
The world around him started to spin.
He stumbled into the warehouse.
The door closed behind him with a sharp metallic clang.
Before he could react, darkness swallowed him.
When he woke up, he was tied to a chair.
Metal chains dug into his wrists. His legs were bound. His mouth gagged with cloth soaked in valerian root—enough to keep him sedated but conscious.
The room was empty except for a single lightbulb swinging overhead.
And her.
Tara stepped out of the shadows, her face covered by a scarf, but her eyes unmistakable.
Rinku’s pupils widened in terror.
He tried to scream.
She pulled the gag out of his mouth.
“GO AHEAD,” she said quietly “SCREAM. NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU.”
He choked on his breath. “T-TARA—LISTEN—I DIDN’T—”
“YOU DIDN’T?” she tilted her head. “YOU DIDN’T HOLD HER ARMS? YOU DIDN’T LAUGH WHEN SHE CRIED? YOU DIDN’T—WHAT WAS IT YOU SAID TO HER? ‘DON’T PRETEND YOU’RE INNOCENT’?”
His mouth clamped shut.
She circled him.
From her satchel, she pulled out three vials—each with handwritten labels.
Chili oil. Salted lime acid. Nettle concentrate.
She didn’t speak as she poured the first vial down his chest.
He screamed as it soaked into his wounds—thin scratches she had already made with a scalpel.
The second vial went over his thighs.
The third, she dabbed onto his eyelids with a dropper.
His screams echoed through the warehouse, but the walls were thick and far from the village. No one came.
Tara watched him writhe, her face calm.
“YOU SHOULD’VE STAYED AFRAID,” she said.
“P-PLEASE—TARA—I DIDN’T MEAN—”
“MEANING IS FOR POETS. PAIN IS FOR MONSTERS LIKE YOU.”
He sobbed. “WHAT ARE YOU—WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH ME?”
She stepped closer, whispered into his ear:
“I’M GOING TO ERASE YOU."
When Rinku lost consciousness, she got to work.
She opened the final vial from her satchel—a milky, odorless solution she had spent weeks perfecting in her lab.
Originally, it had been a project for a chemistry competition: a compound that could dissolve biodegradable waste without harming the soil.
But tonight, it had a different purpose.
She poured it over his body.
In minutes, flesh began to melt. Bones cracked. Blood hissed into steam. Everything organic broke down.
There would be no body. No trace. No evidence.
Only a dark stain on the cement floor, and the whisper of vengeance.
Two days later.
The village murmured. Rinku was gone.
His friends claimed he had run away. Others said he’d owed money to a city g**g. Some blamed the monsoon river.
No one suspected Tara.
Except the other four boys.
They weren’t sure how or when—but something in them knew. Fear crept in behind their bravado. For the first time, they locked their doors at night.
They didn’t go to the police.
They didn’t need to.
They had their own way.
That night, they came for her father.
It was Javed who slit his throat.
Aman who stood outside, watching with dead eyes.
They knew Tara was out—visiting the apothecary in the next village.
They waited until the street was empty.
Her father opened the door, recognizing one of them. “BETA, WHAT—”
The knife was swift. He fell without a sound.
Blood pooled in the courtyard.
The men slipped away like snakes into the darkness.
Tara returned just after midnight.
The house was silent. Too silent.
She called for her father.
No answer.
The tulsi diya had gone out.
She stepped into the courtyard and froze.
There, in the center, was his body.
Still. Eyes open. Blood painting the bricks red.
Her knees buckled.
For the first time in years, Tara screamed.
She sat beside him for hours, unable to move. Her hands shook as she closed his eyes. She touched his forehead with trembling fingers and whispered the last prayer he had taught her.
> “OM TRYAMBAKAM YAJAMAHE… MRITYOR MUKSHIYA MAAMRITAT…”
PROTECT US FROM DEATH, O LORD… AND LEAD US TO IMMORTALITY…
But no god came.
No protection. No justice.
Only silence.
Until the wind picked up.
And Tara heard it again—the same voice that had spoken to her in the temple.
> “THEY KILLED HIM. NOW THEY WILL KNOW WHAT DEATH TRULY IS.”
She rose slowly.
There were no more tears.
Only fire.
Adyaa’s door creaked open behind her.
She stood there, thin as a reed, trembling, pale—but her lips moved for the first time in days.
“TARA…”
Tara turned.
Their eyes met.
And in that moment, Adyaa saw something new in her sister.
Something ancient.
Something divine.
“I’LL FINISH THIS,” Tara whispered. “FOR YOU. FOR HIM. FOR EVERY GIRL THEY EVER HURT.”
She walked into her lab.
She closed the door.
And on her chalkboard, she wrote three names.
> MAHESH. SONU. AMAN.
And beside them, in all caps, the words:
> THEY WILL BURN.
- Writer
