Warning: This chapter contains heavy and sensitive themes, including implied sexual violence, trauma, and emotional distress. Reader discretion is advised.
Darkness had begun creeping across the sky by the time the park fell silent.
The cheerful voices that had once filled the pathways slowly faded into distance, replaced by the rustling of leaves and the quiet, restless chirping of evening insects. One by one, people drifted back to their homes, until only the vast stillness of the park remained.
Near a secluded patch of grass, hidden from the main pathway by a cluster of trees, Chandni lay motionless. The world around her felt distant, almost unreal, as though she were no longer fully part of it.
The sky above had turned from gold to deepening blue, but she barely registered the change. Time had lost meaning; she could not tell whether minutes or hours had passed, and in truth, it no longer mattered.
Her eyes stayed fixed on nothing. The tears had stopped long ago, not because the pain had lessened, but because it had filled her so completely that there was no space left for them to fall.
Her body felt hollowed out, heavy and unresponsive. Each breath came with effort, as though even air had turned burdensome. Her fingers trembled faintly against the grass, but she lacked the strength to lift them, to move, to escape even slightly from herself.
A broken sound escaped her throat.
Not a sob, not a cry, something far more broken than either. Just pain, stripped of shape or voice. The memory would not loosen its grip.
Every time she closed her eyes, it returned without mercy. Every time she tried to breathe, it pressed back into her chest. Every attempt to think only led her straight into it again, as though there was no distance left between her and what had shattered her.
She curled inward slightly, instinctively trying to make herself smaller, as if disappearance might offer relief. The evening breeze brushed against her skin, gentle and indifferent.
For the first time in her life, Chandni wished she could be freed even from feeling itself.
A short distance away, Tara adjusted the cloth bag hanging from her shoulder as she walked home.
The market had been crowded as it always was at this hour. Normally, Mayank would have been beside her, and the thought of his absence still carried the same dull, persistent ache she was starting to learn to live with but never stopped feeling.
Her grip tightened slightly around the bag as she continued forward. Life had changed so completely that even ordinary walks felt unfamiliar now.
Her father was barely holding himself together. Her mother spent most days lost in a grief that seemed to drain the light from the house. Without meaning to, the responsibilities of the home had settled onto Tara's small shoulders, and so she walked alone, as she often did now.
She was about to take a shortcut along the edge of the park when something in the darkness pulled her attention.
At first, she thought it was discarded clothing left behind on the grass. Then she noticed a hand.
Tara froze. Her heart gave a sharp, uneasy jolt.
Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped closer, and with each step the unease in her chest deepened, turning heavier, colder.
"No..." The word slipped out before she could stop it.
The bag shifted on her shoulder as she dropped it in shock. A young woman lay on the ground ahead of her, motionless, frighteningly still.
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Barrister Babu
FanfictionBondita grew up to be a fine woman and returned to Tulsipur after getting her degree. Now, she has achieved her and Anirudh's dream-being the first female barrister. However, things are now crazier as Bondita has to focus on her career, manage the...
