𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒐𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆

PART-1

ℕ𝔸𝕃𝔸ℕ𝔻𝔸, 𝔹𝕀ℍ𝔸ℝ

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Under the streetlight, a girl moved slowly down the deserted road. Her head hung low, eyes fixed on the ground as if shielding them from the world. The smile that once lit her innocent face was now buried beneath the veil of exhaustion and failure. Her eyes, swollen and red-rimmed from weeks of relentless crying, told a story of their own.

The loose, simple white kurti she wore billowed in the evening breeze with each heavy step. A mischievous gust of wind clung the fabric to her petite form, mocking her underweight frame. Her hair, once neat, now battled the wind, framing her worn face in a tangled mess.

A loud, heart-wrenching voice echoed inside her: Why?! The questions of self-doubt and pain swirled within her, so heavy that even her sobs could no longer suppress them.

Faded childhood memories flashed before her eyes, and her chest tightened. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks uninvited. She saw her parents: their bitter arguments, the cruel fights, the silence afterward that had always felt louder than any yelling. Home had never been a place of safety. Neglect had grown in her heart like weeds in a wheat field, and indifference had wrapped itself around her mind like a suffocating snake.

And then there was the world outside. The country she was born into, run by leaders who made promises they never seemed to keep after winning elections. Greedy people in power, and fools in public. Everything felt too much. She didn't know when the line between anger and despair had blurred.

"Where is my fault?" Her face contorted, body trembling as another wave of sobs escaped her chest. Is it my fault I was born into this family? Into this country? Is it my fault I couldn't see the future? Her hand reached out to wipe the tears, but her cheeks seemed to cling to the wetness.

"I did what I thought was right at the time. I did what I could." Her voice broke between gasps, but she kept walking, lost and alone. The darkness thickened, curling around her like a maze with no exit.

Her legs carried her to the riverbank, as if drawn by some invisible force. The leaves from nearby trees rustled gently in the breeze, carrying a faint scent of mud and water. She settled quietly among the bushes and gazed up at the moon.

It hung low and hazy, casting a sparkling glow on the river below. The silence soothed her frayed nerves, but questions still hummed beneath the stillness, refusing to fade. For a moment, she wondered if she would ever feel alive again? If she would ever escape this loop?

With a somber expression, she pulled out the result card from her pyjama pocket and stared blankly at it. Four attempts. Four failures. Her dream of becoming a doctor, the only career she had ever truly envisioned, now felt impossibly distant. At twenty, she should have been on the cusp of something solid, yet instead, she felt directionless, unsure where to go next.

She looked out at the water, its surface shimmering with moonlight. But her mind kept spinning in a loop of grief, loss, and a faint ray of hope that seemed impossible to grasp.

It wasn't as though she was the only person who had faced failure. Many students had, and some didn't even have a fallback. She still had one. But could that really make a difference? She had still wasted three precious years of her life.