The scent of wet mud hung thick in the air as rain lashed against the rusted iron window grills of a small one-bedroom flat in Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi. The ceiling fan squeaked on its axis, spinning lazily above a room barely big enough for a family of five—yet five had once lived here, and two still did.
Eighteen-year-old Deepak Rawat lay on the floor on a thin cotton mattress, his hands behind his head, watching tiny droplets race each other down the cracked windowpane. He was tall, a bit lanky, with slightly overgrown hair that curled at the edges. His face was calm but his eyes—deep, searching, tired—betrayed the storms inside. The faint hum of a mosquito coil mixed with the sound of an autorickshaw splashing through a puddle outside.
"Deepak, switch off that light if you're not studying," came a voice from the adjacent kitchen.
It was his mother, Sanno Rawat, cooking dinner over a small two-burner gas stove. She was in her forties, her hands tough from years of housework, her eyes kind but dulled by fatigue. Her bright yellow dupatta was stained with turmeric and steam rose from a pressure cooker beside her.
"Bas, mummy. Five more minutes," Deepak replied, eyes still glued to the storm outside.
His father, Rakesh Rawat, had not yet returned from his evening shift as a DTC bus conductor. Always punctual, always polite, Rakesh was the kind of man who never asked for much, only that his family sleep well and eat twice a day. Deepak admired him deeply, even if they rarely spoke much.
His elder sister Khushboo was in the corner of the room, head buried in a mountain of books, preparing for her SSC exams. Her dream was to become a government officer and move them into a bigger house, one with two toilets and maybe even a balcony.
Their eldest sister, Neha, was already married and lived in Kanpur with her husband and three kids—Diksha, Kshitija, and a baby boy. She called often, sent clothes and sweets during festivals, and spoke proudly of Deepak as the "tech genius" of the family, even though he had no job and no college degree.
But Deepak's mind tonight wasn't on college, jobs, or his modest life. It was on something else entirely.
---
The Storm Inside
He grabbed his old secondhand phone, the kind that still had bezels thick enough to cut a tomato. The screen was cracked, battery bloated, and the apps lagged like old men climbing stairs. But on it, he had YouTube, and on YouTube, he had the world.
Tonight, he wasn't watching comedy sketches or motivational speeches. He was watching an old Avengers: Endgame clip—the final battle scene. A scene he had seen a hundred times, maybe more. The clash of gods and soldiers. The swirling energy. The base with its sleek walls and infinite power.
"If I had just 1% of this tech…" he whispered to himself. "I'd change the whole world."
He paused the video on a frame showing Tony Stark's futuristic lab, lit with holograms, nanotech, auto-fabricators, and AI assistants. A world where ideas became reality.
"Why does it all have to be fiction?" he said softly, more to the thunder outside than to himself.
That's when he saw it.
A shooting star, blazing across the clouds, streaking right above the Yamuna.
He sat up, his heart thumping.
"I wish I could… I wish I had the power to change the world. Just once. Anything… anything that could help me build something that makes everyone smile."
He closed his eyes, the rain now louder than ever. A bright light filled the room.
---
The Light That Entered
The fan stopped spinning.
The lights flickered off.
A silence descended—unnatural, heavy.
Deepak opened his eyes, blinking.
In front of him floated a tiny orb of glowing light—no bigger than a marble, humming with a gentle energy. It shimmered with colors he couldn't name, and before he could scream, it shot straight into his chest.
His body jerked backward.
He didn't pass out.
He didn't burn.
Instead… a screen appeared in his vision. Not on a device—in his mind.
---
[Welcome, Deepak Rawat]
Digitization System Activated
🟢 Status: Fully Integrated
🎁 First Digitization Use Available — FREE
🔓 Future uses require Happiness Points
(Points are collected from people who experience happiness because of you.)
📁 Source Input: Any digital medium (games, movies, animation, blueprints, books)
---
Deepak stared at the floating interface, heart hammering. He looked around—everything else was still. His mom's voice came faintly from the kitchen. The fan spun again. The lights returned.
Was he hallucinating? Sleep-deprived? Had he finally gone mad?
No. This… was real.
---
The Whisper of Possibility
He didn't scream. He didn't laugh. He just sat there—still—sinking slowly into the weight of what had just happened.
Power.
The power to create anything from the digital world.
A lab. A game. A spacecraft. A medicine. A world.
And one free use.
But what to use it on?
---
In the kitchen, Sanno hummed a folk song from Unnao, unaware that just feet away, her son had become something that only gods or dreamers dared imagine.
Outside, the storm passed, and the moon slipped out from the clouds—watching, curious.
---