It's an ordinary morning at nine-year-old Rafiq's school in rural Kashmir. Soldiers of the Kashmir Freedom Fighters raid the village in search of new recruits - they scrawl a line in chalk across the school room wall, and any boy whose height reaches the line will be taken to fight. Rafiq is tall for his age - the first boy to cross the chalkline into a life of brutality and terrorism. This is the story of Rafiq's transformation from child to boy soldier. But his family have not forgotten him, when he can no longer recognize himself, they remember the boy he was, and reach out a hand of redemption as he spirals towards a final act of atrocity.