Echoes of the Eternal Rain
Chapter 1: The Lament of the Clouds
In the village of Chandrapur, where the earth drank deeply from the monsoon's chalice, Vikram perched on the edge of a weathered cliff, his silhouette a solitary brushstroke against the canvas of a weeping sky. The rain fell in silver threads, weaving a tapestry of melancholy that draped the world below. At twenty-four, Vikram was a poet without verses, his soul a mosaic of unspoken sonnets, each shard etched with the ache of a motherless childhood.
The heavens, cloaked in charcoal veils, poured forth their grief, as if the gods themselves mourned the dreams Vikram had buried in the furrows of his heart. His fingers clutched a faded locket, its tarnished surface cradling a miniature portrait of his mother—her eyes, twin lanterns in the fog of his past, flickered with a warmth he could no longer touch. She had been his muse, her laughter a melody that once danced through the paddy fields, until a fever stole her in a monsoon's cruel embrace.
"The rains are the earth's poetry," she would say, her voice a soft cadence that lingered like mist. But now, the rains were a dirge, each droplet a reminder of the void she had left behind. Vikram's gaze wandered to the horizon, where lightning stitched the sky with threads of fleeting fire, and he wondered if the storm could ever wash away the weight of his solitude.