CHAPTER 39: THE IRON GRIP

Chapter 39: The Iron Grip

Raghav’s room was dark, but not silent.

From the living room, he could hear the scrape of a chair, followed by a long, quiet, broken sigh from his father. It was the sound of a man hollowed out.

That sigh became the metronome for his task.

Squeeze.

His forearm, pale and thin from weeks in a cast, erupted in a sharp, fiery protest. The muscles, atrophied and weak, felt like they were being torn.

Release.

His fingers, slick with sweat, uncurled.

Squeeze.

He gritted his teeth, his jaw aching.

[Rep Count: 247 / 1000]

He wasn’t thinking about his uncle. He wasn’t thinking about his father’s shame. He had processed that.

The 42-year-old mind had analyzed the data—the humiliation, the anger, the fifty-thousand-rupee gap between his family and "power"—and had converted it all into a single, cold, efficient fuel.

This was just work.

Squeeze.

The pain was no longer sharp. It had become a dull, roaring blaze, a hot wire running from his knuckles to his elbow.

Release.

[Rep Count: 419 / 1000]

He ignored the system. He ignored the pain. He just continued. His world shrank to the small, red rubber ball, the sound of his own breathing, and the steady, rhythmic pulse of his failure.

At seven o’clock, his mother’s voice, strained and quiet, called him for dinner.

The small dining table was a theater of tension.

His father, Umesh, was already seated. He wasn’t reading his accounts.

He wasn’t looking at the newspaper. He was just staring at his empty plate. His face was a mask of gray exhaustion.

Priya, his sister, sensed the atmosphere. She sat down slowly, her eyes darting between her father and the empty doorway to the kitchen.

"What’s wrong with everyone?" she whispered.

Raghav said nothing. He sat down, his face calm.

Nirmala brought out the food. Rice, lentils, a simple vegetable dish. She placed the bowls on the table, the clink of the ceramic loud in the suffocating silence.

Umesh picked up his spoon, but didn’t eat.

Nirmala sat. "Priya, how was your college today?" Her voice was brittle, an obvious attempt to stitch the silence back together.

"It was fine," Priya said, her gaze fixed on her father. "Papa? Are you... are you feeling alright?"

Umesh looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed, unfocused. He seemed to look through her.

"I am fine," he said. His voice was a flat, dead thing. "Eat."

He put a spoonful of rice in his mouth and chewed, slowly, as if it were ash.

The family ate. No one spoke. The only sound was the scrape of spoons on steel plates.

Raghav ate with his left hand.

His right hand, hidden beneath the table, was a knot of agony.

Squeeze.

He held it for five seconds, his leg twitching under the table from the strain.

Release.

Priya, sitting next to him, felt the movement. She looked down, confused.

Raghav met her gaze. His eyes were cold, focused. He offered no explanation.

He picked up his glass of water with his left hand. And under the table, his right hand closed again.

Squeeze.

He was detached from their drama. He was no longer a part of this quiet, sad family scene.

He was a machine, in his room, on the bus, and now at the dinner table. He was a machine with a single, repeating function.

His father had built a wall of pragmatism to protect himself from the world.

Raghav was building a weapon.

By 4:00 AM, the pain was no longer a fire. It was a white-hot, chemical numbness.

Raghav was sitting on the floor of his room, his back against the bed.

His right hand was a claw.

[Rep Count: 789 / 1000]

He tried to squeeze, but his fingers wouldn’t obey. They were locked in a rigid, cramped paralysis. He stared at his hand, frustrated. It looked like a stranger’s.

He used his left hand to physically pry his fingers open, one by one, the joints cracking.

He massaged the spasming, rock-hard muscle of his forearm. It felt like a stone.

’Come on,’ he thought, his voice not a plea, but a cold command. ’Work.’

He forced his fingers closed again.

Squeeze.

[Rep Count: 790 / 1000]

He fell into a rhythm. Squeeze. Pry open. Massage. Squeeze.

It took him two more hours to get to the end. The sky outside was a pale, sickly gray.

[Rep Count: 998 / 1000]

He took a deep, shuddering breath. His entire arm was trembling violently, a leaf in a storm.

Squeeze.

[Rep Count: 999 / 1000]

His vision grayed out for a second. The pain was absolute.

He let his fingers uncurl, one last, agonizing time.

He made a fist.

Squeeze.

[Rep Count: 1000 / 1000]

He held it, roaring silently, his face a mask of effort, as the system’s blue light flooded his vision.

[QUEST COMPLETE: ’The Squeeze’]

[Reward: +0.2 Strength (Permanent) added.]

[Reward: 1x [Minor Skill: ’Iron Grip’] (Passive) acquired.]

The moment the notification cleared, the pain changed.

The hot, searing, wire-like agony that had consumed him for hours suddenly cooled. It didn’t disappear. It solidified.

The fire was replaced by a deep, dense, pulsing throb.

He felt the +0.2 Strength. It wasn’t a magical infusion.

It felt like his muscle fibers, torn and ravaged, had been instantly healed and replaced, not with muscle, but with something denser. Something stronger.

He looked at his hand. The trembling had stopped.

He slowly closed his fingers into a fist.

It felt... different.

His grip had always been a 12-year-old’s grip. Weak.

This new fist felt heavy. It felt solid. The tendons in his wrist, the small muscles in his hand... they felt like bundled steel cables.

[Iron Grip (Passive): Your grip strength and wrist stability are permanently enhanced. Reduces muscle fatigue from repetitive impact (e.g., bowling, blocking with bat).]

He smiled. A cold, thin smile in the pre-dawn gloom.

It was 5:15 AM.

At 5:30 AM, he was dressed. His old, slightly-too-small school practice uniform. He picked up his kit bag with his left hand.

His right hand, the new, heavy tool, was just at his side.

He walked into the living room.

And stopped.

His father was in his chair. Sitting in the dark.

He hadn’t slept.

He was just sitting, a dark shape in the gray light, staring at the wall where his brother had sat.

"You are going," Umesh said.

His voice was hollow. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of defeat.

Raghav stood at the door. "Yes."

A long silence filled the room. The only sound was a crow cawing outside, greeting the new day.

Umesh turned his head.

His eyes, in the gloom, were just dark, tired shadows.

"Do not," he said, his voice a low, rough whisper. "Do not come back... hurt."

He was not talking about cricket. He was talking about the loss. The humiliation.

He was talking about the pain he felt, sitting in that chair.

Raghav looked at his right hand. He slowly, deliberately, closed it into a fist.

It felt like a piece of iron.

"I won’t," he said.

He opened the door and walked out, leaving his father alone in the dark.

5:55 AM.

Raghav walked through the gates of Shanti Vidya Mandir.

The air was cold, damp. The dew on the grass was thick, sparkling like diamonds in the first, weak rays of the sun.

The field was empty.

Almost.

Coach Sarma was already there. He was at the far end, a bucket in his hand, tamping down the earth on a practice net. He was a dark, solitary figure, performing his ritual.

Raghav walked onto the grass, the swish-swish of his trousers loud in the silence.

He didn’t call out. He just walked up, stopping a respectful ten feet away.

He dropped his kit bag.

Sarma didn’t look up. He just kept tamping.

"You’re here," he grunted.

"You said 6 AM," Raghav replied.

Sarma nodded once. He finished his work, picked up his bucket, and turned.

He looked at Raghav. His eyes were sharp, analytical. He looked at Raghav’s pale, thin arm, and then at the hand, which was clenched at his side.

"The others will be here soon," Sarma said.

As if summoned by his words, Raghav heard a sound.

A hiss.

A sound he viscerally remembered. The hiss of air brakes.

He turned.

A new, white, air-conditioned bus was pulling up to the gates. The Kamrup District Cricket Association logo was painted on the side.

The doors hissed open.

Boys started to file out.

They were loud. They were confident. They were all wearing matching blue Kamrup District practice kits. They were the elite.

And leading them, his own kit bag slung over one shoulder, laughing at a joke, was Rohan Sharma.

He stepped onto the grass, the captain. He saw Coach Sarma and gave a respectful, confident nod.

Then he saw Raghav.

Rohan’s laugh died in his throat. His confident smile faltered, just for a second. His eyes narrowed.

He wasn’t looking at a rival. He was looking at an anomaly. A ghost from a game he should have dominated, but hadn’t.

Raghav just stood there, unmoving.

He met Rohan’s gaze.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t nod.

He just... squeezed his new, iron fist.

The stage was set.

(To be Continued)