Ehan
Ehan woke at 5:45 AM.
Not out of discipline. Not for the sunrise or meditation. Just because sleep never lasted longer than that anymore. The mornings were quiet, and so was his flat—one of those boxy, pale government quarters in a narrow lane lined with similar buildings. He lived alone. He preferred it that way, or at least, that's what he told himself.
The water heater still made that rattling noise when switched on. The curtains were too plain, and his mother would've teased him for it. "You've no sense of colour, beta," she used to say, fluffing pillows and lighting incense.
She had died with the rest of them. All three of them—his mother, father, and younger sister. Gone in a flight crash four years ago. One day they were planning a trip to the hills, and the next, he was identifying charred belongings.
Since then, life had just... existed. He kept working—dealing with files, applications, stamps, transfers. He was dependable, the kind of officer who never missed a deadline and never got too personal. He smiled politely. Helped people. Wrote reports.
But his soul lived on that emergency call. On the final text from his sister that said, "See you soon, bhaiya."
A friend had once told him gently, "They wouldn't want you living like this. Find something that makes you feel alive again."
Ehan had tried.
He had taken long walks. Volunteered for extra assignments. Even once sat through an entire festival gathering.
But nothing filled that void.
And some evenings—like the one before it all changed—he walked to the bridge. Not to die. Not really. But to think. And wonder.
And maybe, to let go just enough to feel something.
Iraaya
By day, Iraaya dealt with balance sheets and fixed deposits.
Her job at the bank was not what she had dreamed of, but it paid the bills. She was polite with customers, precise with calculations, and the kind who followed rules to the dot. Safe. Reliable.
But once the day ended, and the world stopped expecting smiles and formalities, she became someone else—Arpayati. A quiet writer tucked away behind a pen name, known only to a small but loyal group of online readers who devoured her emotional, healing prose.
Her stories were not loud. They didn't have scandal or glamour. But they had truth—raw and aching and soft. She wrote of people finding hope in the middle of pain. Of silences that meant more than words.
No one knew that her stories were born from real shadows.
When she was a child, someone she trusted took away the safety of her body. Took away her ability to trust touch. It left her growing up in silence, carrying wounds that didn't bleed on the outside.
She told someone once.
They told her to forget it ever happened.
So she wrote instead.
It was easier to pour it all into fictional characters—girls like her who clawed their way back to safety, who were held gently by people who never hurt them. Writing was her rebellion. Her therapy. Her prayer.
She lived alone in a rented flat with white walls and too many books. Nights were spent curled up in a blanket, reading or typing into the blue glow of her laptop, her fingers moving faster than her thoughts.
Sometimes she ached to be held.
But when someone came too close, her body remembered the past and pulled away.
Her therapist said healing would take time.
And Iraaya believed it.
She didn't know how long it would take.
But she hadn't given up.