Saaisha’s POV
I'm sitting in a room or my room as they call it.
It still feels unreal sometimes.
This comfort. This silence. This safety.
I look around again, like I always do, trying to remind myself that this place exists—that people like them exist.
A family that has seen me broken, scarred, shattered… and still never asked me for explanations.
They know.
They know what happened to me.
And yet… they didn’t question me.
No "Why were you out so late?"
No "What were you wearing?"
No "Did you say no loud enough?"
Just silence. And safety. And warmth.
My vision got blurry while thinking this.
Because I know that if this had happened in my world. The world I came from, I would’ve been put on trial instead of the monsters who hurt me.
In that world, I would’ve had to prove.
That my clothes were decent.
That I wasn’t out looking for attention.
That I wasn’t drinking.
That I wasn’t smiling too much, or too little.
That I wasn’t asking for it.
That I was just… human.
But even that wouldn’t have been enough.
That world would’ve picked apart my pain and dressed it up as my fault.
Here, though… in this home…
I’m not a case file.
I’m not a scandal.
I’m not what happened to me.
I’m just… Saaisha.
And that is enough.
Still, the trauma is stubborn. My breathing grows shallow. My hands begin to tremble.
I curl my fingers into the blanket and whisper to myself,
“You’re here. You’re safe. This is your room. You are not in that world anymore. Breathe, Saaisha… Breathe. You’re strong. Stronger than you know.”
I inhale. Exhale.
Once. Twice. Again.
Slowly, the fog lifts.
And then I see it.
The mirror.
And I hear his voice again, low and steady in my ears:
"Ab tak khud ko sahi se aaine mein dekha hai? Nazar se nazar mila kar dekha hai tumne khud ko? Kisi aur se ladhne se pehle, apne aap se nazrein milana sikho. Phir aajana academy."
There was no blame in his voice. No pity. Just a truth so piercing, it still lingers.
Because he was right.
I don’t look at myself anymore. I avoid mirrors like they might shatter me all over again. Because I don’t know who the girl in the reflection is.
I don’t recognize her.
But if I ever want to take my life back, I need to meet her again. I need to face her.
Not for the world. Not even for him.
But for me.
Because the people in this home, this family, they already see something in me.
They believe I can bloom again.
They treat me like I never stopped being human.
Like I never stopped being whole.
I glance at the bookshelf. It’s filled with empty journals. Blank pages waiting for a new beginning.
I reach for one.
Take a pen in my hand.
And sit down.
It’s time to write.
It’s time to heal.
It’s time to fight back—this time, for me.
I began to write.
Hey, Diary.
So now you're going to be the keeper of all the things I can't say out loud…
All the thoughts I hide behind my silence, and the pain that even tears have stopped expressing.
Let me start with the basics—
My name is Saaisha Sharma. I'm 22. I completed my BFA five months ago.
But that's just the surface.
The truth?
I don’t really know how to introduce myself, because somewhere along the way, I stopped recognizing the person in the mirror.
I lost my parents when I was just ten.
Too young to understand what “death” truly meant, but old enough to feel the emptiness it left behind.
I remember the silence after their funeral.
People came, cried, whispered… then left.
But I stayed.
With questions no one answered, with toys that suddenly felt too quiet, and with a heart too small to carry so much loss.
I don’t remember their faces clearly anymore. Isn’t that cruel?
The two people who gave me life…
And my mind struggles to hold on to their voices, their laughter.
Sometimes I wonder, did I ever make them proud?
Would they have loved the woman I'm becoming?
Or… would they have seen the cracks I try so hard to hide?
After them, I had only one person—my dadi.
She was my anchor, my shadow, my entire world.
She had this way of making everything feel okay, even when it wasn’t.
When the nightmares came, her lap was my safe place.
When school made me feel small, her voice reminded me I mattered.
She was the only one who called me “meri jaan” and meant it with her soul.
But life...
Life doesn’t wait for you to heal.
It just keeps taking.
A year ago, she left me too.
It wasn’t sudden. She was sick. I saw her fading... slowly, painfully, right in front of me.
And still, when her heart stopped beating, it felt like someone had ripped the ground from beneath me.
After her, I moved out of chacha-chachi's house.
Not because they were cruel.
They were just… not mine.
They had their own children, their own world.
I didn’t belong. I was just the extra spoon at dinner.
So I left.
Got a job. Rented a small flat.
And told myself: I’ll manage.
Because that’s what I’ve always done—manage.
Even when my heart was breaking, even when loneliness crawled into bed with me every night.
Even when I cooked for one, laughed alone, cried into a pillow that never asked why.
But that day…
The day everything changed....
My fingers began to tremble. Sweat gathered at the nape of my neck. I slammed the diary shut.
I hate this feeling.
I hate feeling this helpless.
“Breathe saaisha. You're strong” A mantra which I have to give myself everyday.
Shaurya’s POV
I sat alone in my room, the night outside was silent, but inside me, a storm raged. My fingers flicked the lamp switch on and off, rhythmically—like a ticking bomb counting down to something inevitable.
“Saaisha Sharma.”
The name didn’t shock me. It should have. But it didn’t.
What shocked me was that she didn't tell her name to us first, I thought maybe... maybe she didn’t trust us enough. That somewhere, we still hadn’t earned her faith.
But then her explanation, “You already gave me nicknames”.. Like seriously
And just like that, she made me question everything I thought I knew about trust.
But what she doesn’t know is...
We already knew.
Because my sister doesn’t let mysteries breathe too long.
Yesterday, her message was short and sharp: “Meet me in 10 minutes.”
That’s all it took.
Saaisha had casually mentioned her love for painting once. Just once. But Siya... Siya picked up the thread like the genius she is and unraveled the entire fabric.
She tracked every art college. Every institute. And there it was.
Lucknow Institute of Arts. Topper. Saaisha Sharma. 22 years old.
And with that, the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.
Siya told us everything.
About her background, her so-called family(chachi-chacha), the absence of any FIR.
She lost her parents when she was young. And her grandmother, the one person who loved her unconditionally, the one person who gave her the warmth of a family... She's gone too.
Suddenly, everything made sense.
Every little thing I'd noticed but hadn't fully understood until now.
That’s why she froze when Siya casually asked her about her family.
That’s why she stiffened awkwardly when Mom hugged her, like the warmth was unfamiliar.
That’s why her hands trembled when Dad handed her the phone and laptop, calling her "like his daughter."
That’s why she never tried to reach out, never tried to hold on.
That’s why, even after getting a phone, she didn’t call or contact anybody... because there was no one left to call.
After knowing she has left her chacha chachi house and shifted to a rented apartment. A strange emotion settled in my chest, something between admiration and protectiveness.
A girl who lost everything, who had no one to lean on, still chose dignity over pity. She walked out of that house, not because she had anywhere to go, but because she refused to stay where she wasn’t wanted. She created a life for herself, brushstroke by brushstroke.
My heart swelled with pride.
I was right—she is a lotus.
Nobody tried to find her. Nor her chacha chachi. Nor her neighbours
Thinking about it the rage hit me, burning like wildfire under my skin.
How could they?
She was just a girl.
Just 22 years old.
Alone. Abandoned. Forgotten.
No one... not a single fucking person tried to find her.
I clenched my fists so tightly my knuckles turned white.
I wanted to find every single one of them.
And make them pay.
But there’s still one thing that haunts me.
The monsters.
The people who stole her innocence, her safety.
There’s no CCTV footage.
The only evidence of her leaving that apartment? One shot. Just one. And then, nothing.
No trails. No clues. Just darkness.
Who are they?
Who. Are. They?
And when I find them. When I track them down, I swear to you, I will make them beg for mercy.
But I’ll never give it.
They will know pain beyond imagination.
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