Dear Lucifer

CHAPTER 1

1st March, 2025
Location:
India
West Bengal
Kolkata
Howrah
Near Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Street
The highway stretched endlessly into the fog, an eerie ribbon of asphalt lost in the suffocating mist. The headlights of a lone sedan barely cut through the dense shroud, the beams swallowed before they could touch the trees lining the road. Inside the car, Amitesh gripped the wheel with white-knuckled hands, his jaw set, eyes flickering between the road and the rearview mirror.
Amitesh Guha hated his job. Hated it with every fiber of his being.
If anyone had asked him ten years ago where he saw himself at 38, he wouldn’t have said working a dead-end job, drowning in unpaid bills, and drinking vodka like it was a competitive sport. But here he was, on a fog-drenched highway at nearly eleven in the goddamn midnight, nursing a headache that felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to his skull.
The clock on the dashboard read 11:37 PM. He was supposed to be home by now. He should’ve taken the interstate, but something—instinct, desperation, fate—had made him take the backroad instead.
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. His eyes burned. The streetlights blurred into streaks, his head throbbing from too many drinks and not enough sleep. His boss had been riding his ass all week, customers treating him like a human punching bag, and to top it all off, his ex girlfriend had texted him a “I’ve got a new bf you know?” out of nowhere. Like hell he was. Amitesh groaned and pressed his palm against his forehead. He shouldn’t have had that last drink. Hell, he shouldn’t have had the first. But what else was he supposed to do? Go home? Stare at the ceiling and listen to his own shitty thoughts?
The highway stretched out ahead, empty and lifeless, just like his motivation to do something properly.
Then, out of nowhere—a message.
Amitesh squinted, his sluggish brain taking a second too long to process what he was seeing. Someone was sending him a message? He doesn’t have many friends…at least any friend who could text him! A picture. The sender, Unknown, had send him a picture which was still blur because of poor network connection.
Or at least, he thought it was.
The picture loaded. The image opened. A bloody mangled smashed body of a person on a railway track.
His chest clenched and his stomach turned.
“What the fuck god—” he threw the phone on the seat beside him with extreme disgust.
Bright lights exploded behind him.
A deep roar filled his ears—too close, too fast. His stomach dropped.
The second that roar hit his ears, something in Amitesh’s brain just snapped to attention. That deep, gut-punch kind of realization that oh shit, this is bad.
The second that roar hit his ears, Amitesh’s brain short-circuited. Oh, fuck.
Too close. Too fast.
His chest clamped up like a goddamn vice, breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat. His pulse went ballistic, slamming against his ribs like it was trying to break free. And then—his stomach fucking dropped.
Like that split-second terror when you miss a step going downstairs, except way worse. Like gravity straight-up noped out, leaving him hanging in that awful space where your body knows shit’s about to go down, but your brain hasn’t fully caught up.
His fingers dug into the wheel, knuckles turning bone-white. Cold sweat crept down his back, but his arms? Useless. His brain? Running on dial-up. His whole system? Lagging like hell.
Move, dumbass. Do something. Turn the wheel. Slam the brakes. Anything.
Nothing.
And that thing—that bloody-ass whatever-the-fuck in the image—was still just flashing on the screen there.
Watching.
No slow-motion, no dramatic flashbacks, no profound last thoughts. Just pure, chaotic, gut-wrenching destruction.
The moment of impact felt like getting sucker-punched by a wrecking ball. One second, he was gripping the wheel, frozen in terror, and the next—his whole world flipped. Literally.
The first hit ripped the air out of his lungs. The seatbelt yanked him back so hard it felt like his ribs were about to snap. His head slammed against the window, a white-hot explosion of pain bursting behind his eyes. For a split second, the whole world blurred—spun—tilted. He felt blood flood his mouth.
Then the car lifted.
His stomach twisted like he was on the world’s worst rollercoaster, but there was no track. No safety bar. No control. Just freefall.
Glass exploded. Metal shrieked. The crunch of impact rattled through his bones. His body was whipped around like a ragdoll, every nerve screaming as the car tumbled, flipped, and slammed into the pavement.
Pain—sharp, searing, then dull, like his body just gave up on registering it. His vision flickered, his ears ringing so loud…..flashes of yellow and white light crossed his half closed blurry eyes.
Then darkness. Darkness swallowed him. Fully.