Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.

As unnamed narrator, who is later revealed to be the protagonist, Sashi Kulenthiren, says that she has written a letter to a terrorist she once knew. She also admits that she herself might once have been called a terrorist. She proceeds to question the very definition of what the word “terrorist” might mean. She hopes that, eventually, the words that will define her story are more innocent, like the word “home.”

Sashi describes an early encounter she has with another person who will go on to become a terrorist. Sashi is a teenager of 16, and she has just dropped scalding water on herself. K, who will later become a terrorist, is an older boy who lives in her neighborhood. He is walking by her home when he hears her screams of pain. He runs into the house and cracks eggs onto the burns on her stomach. When K returns with the doctor, the doctor is impressed by K’s ingenuity; the fat and protein in the eggs help to neutralize the burn. Sashi will not even have a scar.