The rain had finally arrived, not as a cleansing force to wash away the sins of the city, but as a relentless, muddy deluge that turned the chawl's corridors into a drowning maze. The sky above the slums was a bruised, heavy purple, weeping a cold spray that smelled of wet charcoal and rusted iron. Ananya sat by the open door of their ten-by-ten room, her back pressed against the rough, peeling doorframe. Every breath was a struggle; the damp air hit her split lip with the sting of a thousand needles, and the swelling had subsided only to leave a dull, throbbing ache that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. The bruise on her cheek, a dark souvenir from the collector's hand, had transitioned into a sickly shade of yellow-green—a mark of her "shame" that she carried like a brand in the eyes of her brothers.