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Light has always followed me, even into the darkest places.
My name is Kiran Singh. I didn't start out as a hero. I was just a girl who loved following my parents around dusty ruins in the Delhi sun. Mom and Dad were archaeologists—the famous Vijay and Rani Singh—and I grew up watching them brush away centuries of dirt to uncover buried treasures.
I loved those quiet moments. Dad's steady hands working on fragile pottery. Mom's excited voice when she discovered something new. In their careful work, I learned patience. In their passionate debates, I found my curiosity. And in how fiercely they protected history's stories, I was preparing for something I couldn't yet imagine.
The light came when I was twelve. It started as a warm glow in my chest that spread outward until my hands shone from within. I was terrified, but Mom and Dad weren't surprised. Somehow, they'd always known I was different. They taught me how to control it, when to hide it.
"Light reveals truth," Dad would tell me with his gentle smile, "but sometimes truth needs the right moment to emerge."
I had no idea how those words would shape my life.
The London museum was filled with echoing footsteps and hushed voices when I met her. While my parents presented papers at the Archaeological Conference next door, I wandered among ancient artifacts, feeling at home among objects that had witnessed centuries.
"You must be Kiran." A girl my age extended her hand, her smile confident and knowing. "I'm Cassie. Another archaeology kid."
There was something about her—like she carried secrets just beneath her skin. We clicked immediately, swapping stories about growing up with parents who spoke in academic jargon even at breakfast.
When the glass ceiling shattered above us and Lady Zand's stone creatures crashed into the exhibit hall, I watched in awe as Cassie transformed into Wonder Girl right before my eyes. Something awakened inside me—the power I'd kept hidden for years suddenly burning to break free.
Golden light burst from my hands, wrapping around me like liquid sunshine, forming a radiant costume of pure energy.
"Call me Solstice," I said, the name rising from somewhere deep inside me.
We fought side by side as if we'd trained together all our lives. When it was over and my parents found me standing in the wreckage with golden light fading from my fingertips, they didn't look shocked. Just proud, like they'd been preparing me for this moment my whole life.
I should have known that terrible day in Mohenjo-daro would change everything.
The Pakistani ruins felt wrong from the moment we arrived. Dark corners that seemed to swallow my light. Strange whispers that made researchers pack their bags and leave.
But my parents stayed.
"We're on the verge of something incredible," Dad insisted, his eyes bright with excitement. "History doesn't reveal its secrets to the faint-hearted."
When they entered that newly uncovered chamber and didn't return, my heart knew before my mind admitted it. The darkness had taken them.
Dr. Helena Sandsmark—Cassie's mom—called the Teen Titans. When they arrived, I felt a confusing mix of hope and terror. Cassie was there as Wonder Girl. The speedster Kid Flash couldn't stop staring at me, which would have been flattering if I wasn't sick with worry. The girl named Raven kept her distance, eyeing my light with distrust.
We discovered the truth—an ancient demon named Tataka had been awakened by our digging, and my parents were trapped in her otherworldly prison.
When we finally rescued them, I realized something important about myself: my powers weren't just about making light. They were about bringing hope to the darkest places.
"We could use someone like you," Robin told me afterward.
I never expected what joining the Teen Titans would cost me.
The pain is the clearest memory I have of N.O.W.H.E.R.E.
They took Kid Flash first. Then me. Their facility smelled like antiseptic and fear. Their scientists watched with cold eyes as they experimented on us.
I remember screaming until my throat was raw. Half my body turning to shadow while the other half exploded with uncontrollable light. I felt torn between two worlds, like I was being unmade one cell at a time.
When Kid Flash found me in that cell, I couldn't even recognize myself in the reflection of his eyes. My body had become black smoke threaded with blue energy. The girl from Delhi was gone.
We escaped thanks to Danny the Street—a sentient, teleporting stretch of road. In a life where I'd become something impossible, being rescued by a conscious street seemed almost normal.
After Kid Flash recovered, we joined the Titans against Superboy in Times Square. When Beast Boy was thrown into the air, I didn't think—I just moved, my new smoke-like body streaming upward faster than I'd ever moved before.
I still remember everyone's shocked faces when I sliced an aircraft carrier in half to save him. My powers had grown so much stronger, but I barely understood what I'd become.
During that time, Bunker became my closest friend. When I looked in mirrors and saw only a monster, he saw beauty.
"Light is light," he would tell me with that bright smile of his, "No matter what shape it takes."
There were dark days after that. The Culling, where we fought other young metahumans for survival. The betrayal I felt learning Red Robin had known about N.O.W.H.E.R.E. but hadn't acted right away. For weeks, I pulled away from everyone, wondering if I'd just traded one prison for another.
It's hard to process emotions when you're not sure if you're still human.
We faced countless enemies—the Secret Six, the Suicide Squad, Dr. Light who came hunting for me, drawn by powers similar to what he believed were his alone.
But it all led to Harvest.
He stood there, this man who thought he could control time itself, surrounded by his Time Destabilizer machine. The air hummed with stolen energy, reality itself bending around the pulsing core. I could feel it pulling at everything—past, present, future—threatening to tear apart the fabric of existence.
I was alone. No Titans. No backup.
Just me and the unstable light inside me that I'd never fully controlled.
If Harvest activated that machine, everything—including my timeline—would unravel into nothing.
So I made a choice.
I let go.
I didn't just use my powers—I surrendered to them. Every part of me flowed into that temporal core. It wasn't an attack. It was a sacrifice. A blinding nova of light against his darkness.
I thought of my parents' gentle hands. Cassie's infectious laugh. Bunker's unwavering hope. The fight I had with Mom that I never apologized for. Who I was. Who I tried to be.
And then—
Nothing.
Not darkness like night. Something deeper. A cold, crushing silence that swallowed everything. I floated in emptiness, in the forgotten space between heartbeats.
It was so complete, so absolute, that I wondered if even light could die.
Then I opened my eyes.
And he was there.
He stood there in the darkness, surrounded by color.
His silhouette was outlined in vibrant light—not soft like mine used to be, but bright and electric. Blues and reds painted his features, making his dark hair seem alive at the edges where it glowed neon blue.
His eyes caught my attention first—bright blue, alert, watching me with a calm intensity. His face was handsome but strange, like someone had carefully designed every feature.
He wore a formal jacket that seemed to change colors as he moved. Neon pinks, electric blues, yellows and greens all shifted across the fabric like spilled paint. The colors didn't just reflect light—they seemed to give off their own.
I stared, taking in the sight of him. It wasn't just that he was beautiful. He was different—like he belonged to another world where colors were brighter and more alive.
In that moment of stillness, I felt small but not afraid. Just aware that I was seeing something I wasn't meant to understand.
Sometimes I wonder what might have been if I'd stayed Kiran Singh, just an archaeologist's daughter from Delhi. Would I be cataloging artifacts now? Following my parents through dusty ruins? Living a normal life?
Instead, I became Solstice—a being of shadow and light, capable of tearing ships apart and soaring through the night. I've touched other dimensions, fought alongside heroes, faced death more times than I care to count.
Yet in quiet moments, I'm still that girl watching her parents work, learning that the most precious discoveries require the gentlest touch.
My powers let me destroy buildings and melt metal with a thought. But my real strength is what Dad saw in me long before the light appeared—the ability to find truth when darkness tries to hide it.
I am Kiran Singh. I am Solstice.
And even in my darkest hour, when half of me became shadow, I never forgot what my parents taught me:
Light always finds a way through.
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[A/N: WORD COUNT – 1600]
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