I don’t come here often.

Not because I don’t care.

But because I do.

Too much and too deeply. In the kind of way that wraps itself around your lungs and chokes the air from your chest when you least expect it. Like a phantom hand tugging at you from beneath the soil.

The cemetery is quiet today but not the comforting kind of quiet. No, this is the kind that clings to your skin. Heavy. Dense. Like the earth is holding its breath. Like the sky knows something is coming and just hasn’t told us yet.

Maybe it’s not the cemetery at all.

Maybe it’s just me.

Cracked from the inside and too good at pretending otherwise.

Gravel crunches beneath my heels as I walk, weaving between headstones carved with last words and polished lies. So many epitaphs, each trying too hard to mean something. Cherished father. Beloved wife. Gone too soon. Neat summaries for messy lives.

No one ever writes the truth.

He was cruel but paid the bills.

She loved her son but never left the man who hurt her.

They died with secrets in their mouths and regret in their veins.

I wonder how many truths are rotting beneath these stones. How many confessions the soil has swallowed whole. Probably all of them.

The ground’s still damp from last night’s rain. My heels sink slightly into the soft earth with each step, like the world wants to hold me in place, keep me here. But I don’t stop. I never stop here.

I just keep moving until I reach the place my body seems to know better than my mind.

Like grief built a compass inside me. Like it’s the only thing I never lost.

Maya Oberoi

Arjun Oberoi

Beloved parents. Forever remembered.

I hate that phrase.

“Forever remembered.”

As if remembering ever feels like enough.

As if remembering can bring them back.

It can’t.

All it does is slice me open in new places, every. single. time.

I kneel slowly, brushing away the wilted petals from the base of the headstone. Some part of me hopes they’ll still be fresh. They never are.

My fingers graze the marble.

Cold. Damp. Indifferent.

The kind of cold that doesn’t care how long you’ve mourned.

The wind stirs, whispering through the trees like a secret too old to matter. But I still hear it— soft, persistent, eerie. Like it knows something I don’t.

Or worse... like it remembers something I’ve tried to forget.

“Hi,” I murmur, like it hasn’t been five damn years.

Like I didn’t bury half my soul with them.

Like some part of them still lingers in the air, just out of reach.

Maybe that’s the cruelest part.

That I still hope.

My throat tightens.

The words I came here to say curl on my tongue and die there, heavy and unspoken.

I swallow them down like I always do.

I’ve become good at that— choking on silence.

God, I hate how much I still miss them. How much of them is stitched into the fabric of who I am. How I still reach for the phone some mornings before I remember there’s no one on the other end.

I remember Mum’s voice in the mornings— always calm, always composed, but sharp enough to cut through my lies. She could smell trouble before I even stepped through the door.

Her love wasn’t loud. It was steady. Relentless. The kind that kept you upright even when the world tried to break your spine.

And Dad...

Dad with his ridiculous off-key humming while making tea. Claimed it made the tea taste happier. He was a terrible singer.

But he was mine.

Ours.

And now they’re both just names on a stone and memories that hurt more the harder I hold on.

The irony?

They both died before I ever learned to drink tea without sugar.

Before I understood that bitterness isn’t just a flavor. It’s a lifestyle. One you never asked for but learned to wear like armor.

I stare at their names, the letters smooth and heartless beneath my fingertips.

My nails dig into my palm.

Pain sharpens me. Wakes me up. It’s the only thing that makes me feel real these days.

“You were right,” I whisper. “About everything. About him. About what was coming.”

My voice cracks. “I just... I didn’t listen fast enough.”

The silence that answers me feels almost sentient.

Like it’s watching. Judging.

A part of me is still that nineteen-year-old girl— shaking, broken, covered in bruises no one ever saw.

But another part of me?

She’s evolved. Hardened. Risen from the ashes of that night.

Now I wear power like perfume— expensive, sharp, and toxic if you get too close.

I’m not here to cry. I’m here to promise.

“I’ll find,” I breathe. “The truth. And when I get it...” I pause. The rage in my chest tastes like rust and ash.

“They’ll pay. Every single one of them.”

The wind shifts again, curling around me like it heard every word. Like it’s bearing witness.

I rise slowly, brushing the dirt from my jeans, but my fingers linger on the stone a second longer.

A silent vow. My own kind of prayer.

I don’t believe in gods anymore.

I believe in retribution.

I believe in fire.

I turn to leave, and I don’t look back.

Because grief may have carved its initials into my bones—

But vengeance? It’s the only thing keeping them warm.

Sometimes, I wonder if they died because of me.

I know that sounds irrational. I know I didn’t drive the truck. I wasn’t behind the wheel.

But guilt doesn’t care about logic. It doesn’t care about facts. It seeps into the cracks, molds itself around memory until even the truth feels suspicious. Until you start to ask yourself the kind of questions that ruin you.

Because I wrote about it. In that damn diary. And Mum found it.

She never said anything outright— but that week before they… before it happened… something shifted.

Her eyes lingered longer. Not in judgment— no, worse. In knowing.

Her voice softened at the edges, like she was trying to be careful with me, like she’d already guessed the shape of the storm inside me.

But her questions?

Sharper than they’d ever been. Surgical. Like she was trying to cut the truth out of me without breaking me open. “What aren’t you telling me, Princess?” she’d asked one evening as I stood in the doorway, pale and shaking from another run-in with him.

I’d lied to her.

Because I thought the truth would break her. Turns out lies break people, too. Just slower. Quieter.

Like water dripping through stone.

I sit down on the stone bench across from their grave, the cold biting through denim and skin, sinking into bone.

I don’t shift.

Maybe I like the way it hurts. Maybe I need something to remind me I’m still here.

From my bag, I pull out the journal.

Old. Worn. The corners bent, spine cracked, leather soft like old sin.

It feels heavier now than it did back then. Or maybe I’m just weaker.

My confession book.

The place I bled in silence.

I flip through the ink-stained pages, the scent of paper and rain and guilt folding around me like fog.

Then I stop.

October 14th.

I don’t even need to read it. I already know what it says.

But I read it anyway because some wounds deserve to be looked at, even if they’ll never heal.

He touched me again and I froze... again. The thing is, I’ve become good at it.

At pretending it doesn’t hurt. That I’m not dirty. That I can still look in the mirror and not see a girl I hate.

My fingers tremble as I trace the words, the faded strokes that still carry the weight of the girl I was when I wrote them.

I remember that day—

Tucked into the back corner of the college library, knees drawn to my chest, hands shaking so hard I could barely hold the pen.

I wrote like I was running out of time.

Like if I didn’t get it down, the truth would rot inside me.

I remember staring at the bookshelves, praying no one would hear the way my heart was thundering. Praying no one would look at me too long.

Because if they did, they’d see it.

The filth. The failure. The fear.

I was nineteen. Brilliant. Ambitious. And breaking.

Quietly. Violently. Invisibly.

The kind of breaking you don’t notice until one day, your reflection doesn’t blink back.

The wind tugs at the hem of my sweater, cold and insistent, scattering dry leaves at my feet.

The world keeps spinning. Traffic keeps humming. People keep breathing.

No one pauses for trauma. No one stops for screams that only live in your head.

Suddenly, I hear footsteps behind me.

I don’t turn. Not right away.

Part of me still clings to that old trick— stay quiet, stay still, become invisible.

Maybe the danger will pass you by.

But the air changes— tightens.

That shift in energy. The subtle shift when you realize you’re not alone anymore.

I turn slowly.

A man.

Sixties, maybe older. Silver hair, slouched shoulders, and eyes that look like they’ve forgotten how to hold joy.

He’s dressed simply— creased shirt, worn shoes, a faded coat.

He didn’t come here to impress. He came to grieve.

And I respect that.

“Sorry,” he says, voice low and almost apologetic. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You didn’t.” My voice comes out flat, automatic but not unkind.

I don’t have the energy to be cruel. Not here.

He nods toward the headstones. “Family?”

“My parents.”

His gaze softens. A flicker of shared pain. “I came here for my wife. Cancer. Took her fast.”

I nod. “I’m sorry.” And I mean it.

A stranger’s loss shouldn’t touch me— my grief should be enough to drown in on its own.

But sometimes pain recognizes itself, like a mirror you didn’t ask to look into.

He gives another small nod, slow and tired, the kind that comes from carrying something heavy for too long.

Then he looks at me—really looks—and says, “Take care of yourself. Sometimes, grief grows roots. Don’t let it turn you into stone.”

I want to tell him it already has.

That most days I don’t feel like a person anymore. I feel like a monument. A relic made of ice and silence.

But I say nothing.

Because what would be the point?

He walks away without waiting for an answer, his figure disappearing into the trees like a ghost.

And I just sit there, staring at the space he left behind.

Still.

Numb.

Wondering if it’s already too late.

If grief didn’t just grow roots in me but built a garden.

One made of thorns and rot. Where nothing soft can grow anymore.

Where even love dies before it has a chance to bloom.

☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★

Later, I drove through the city in a haze.

The world moved around me— horns blaring, people rushing, fragments of conversation drifting past like static— but none of it touched me.

It was like I was underwater. No— smoke. Thick and clinging.

Everything was distorted, dulled.

And I couldn’t feel any of it.

The sounds faded. The color drained. And my mind drifted… backward.

Somewhere darker.

Somewhere I’ve tried too damn hard to leave behind.

But it’s always there, isn’t it? Waiting. Just under the surface.

The past.

That room.

“You’ll ruin everything if you speak, Sara.”

“No one will believe you. You’re not special.”

“You were asking for it.”

His voice still lingers like mold in the walls— deep and sticky, clinging to corners I thought I’d scrubbed clean.

It doesn’t fade. It festers.

Some nights, I still hear it in my own voice. Whispering doubts I didn’t invite in.

And the worst part?

A part of me believed him.

Still does, if I’m being honest.

Not always. Just… on the bad days.

The quiet ones. The ones where silence feels heavier than the truth. The ones where I can’t tell if I’m surviving or just pretending again.

By the time I reached my apartment, I didn’t even remember how I got there.

Autopilot. A trick I perfected years ago.

My fingers moved on their own— locking the door, kicking off my shoes, brushing my fingertips against the light switch just to prove I’m still real.

And then, I went where I always go when the world becomes too loud.

My room. The one place that hasn’t betrayed me yet.

I locked the door behind me, needing that sound— the click of control, even if it’s a lie.

Then I slid down onto the floor, my back pressed against the edge of the bed like maybe the wood and fabric could hold me together.

The journal rested in my lap, heavier than it should be.

Like it knew. Like it wanted me to open it. To bleed again.

I flipped it open with the kind of reverence you give to something holy— or cursed.

Sometimes, I wonder if anyone would believe me if I screamed. Or would they say I’m lying for attention? Would they look at me and say, “But you were always smiling, Sara”?

My chest tightened.

That line used to feel like a question. Now, it reads like a warning.

People only see what they want to. And I was too good at performing. Too practiced in hiding.

I swallowed hard.

I wasn’t always smiling. I was surviving. There’s a difference.

I built my mask with precision— polished grace, a razor-edged spine, tailored suits and steel in my voice.

But underneath?

Just skin. Just scars. Just a girl begging not to be seen.

They never looked close enough to see the cracks.

I closed the journal.

Not forever. Just for now.

Even poison has to be rationed.

And then it came— the knock.

Sharp. Clean. Controlled.

Not frantic. Not friendly.

Like a scalpel tapping against glass.

“Ma’am?” Priya’s voice, clipped and professional, as always. Too polished for this hour. “There’s a package for you.”

My pulse jerked.

A package?

Why now?

My legs moved before I could stop them.

Habit. Fear in a power suit.

I opened the door and took it from her hands in silence.

Small. Nondescript. No return address.

Just weight... and dread.

I shut the door and walked to the center of the room, setting it on the dresser like it might detonate.

My fingers hesitated at the edges of the seal. Then I opened it.

A photograph.

I froze.

Me. At the cemetery.

Taken today.

My breath caught halfway in, chest locking. I couldn’t exhale. Couldn’t think.

I scanned every corner of the photo— my body kneeling at the grave, bouquet of lilies trembling in my hands, head bowed.

My face— vulnerable. Unmasked. Exposed.

The angle. The distance.

Whoever took this… was close.

Close enough to hear me. Close enough to know.

Then I saw the note.

You look just like her when you cry.

Something inside me ruptured.

My knees gave out. I grabbed the edge of the dresser to stay upright, knuckles whitening as the room spun.

What the fuck…?

I tore through the envelope like there might be a second message hidden somewhere, something that would make this make sense.

There wasn’t.

No fingerprints. No address. No logo.

Nothing.

But the message was already loud enough.

This wasn’t random. This wasn’t a prank. It wasn’t press. It wasn’t paranoia.

It was personal. Calculated. Intimate in the most horrifying way.

Someone was watching me. Someone knows.

And in that moment— every layer of armor I’d spent five years perfecting— every wall I’d built brick by brick with silence and control— It cracked.

Not shattered. Not yet.

But enough to let the past through.

The past wasn’t whispering anymore.

It was screaming.

I stared at the note again, my eyes tracing every single letter like they might suddenly shift.

Like maybe—just maybe—I’d read it wrong. Misinterpreted it. Twisted it into something worse than it was.

“You look just like her when you cry.”

Her. My mother.

The words didn’t just sting. They punched the air out of my lungs like a fist I never saw coming.

Not just because they were cruel. But because they were true. And whoever wrote them knew it.

My fingers clenched around the photo as I brought it closer to the light, squinting as if the bulb above me could somehow burn away the chill coiling in my spine.

I studied every edge of it— every shadow, every line. Like it held a secret. A face hiding in a reflection. A mistake. A clue.

But there was nothing.

Just me, kneeling at the grave I’ve avoided for months, a bouquet of white lilies cradled in my hands like an offering. Head bowed. Shoulders curled inward. Grief printed across my posture like a headline.

It looked like a moment I shouldn’t even remember.

But someone else remembered it for me.

The angle wasn’t accidental. It was deliberate. Calculated.

No blur. No motion.

Crystal fucking clear.

They didn’t just see me. They studied me.

And worse— they waited for me to break.

A sharp breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped breathing properly. My chest moved in shallow bursts, as if something invisible had coiled itself around my ribs and was tightening. Slowly. With intent.

Like someone still was.

I forced myself to focus.

Think, Sara.

This is what you do. You handle pressure. You wear panic like perfume— undetectable, elegant, deadly.

You’ve walked into boardrooms filled with predators and walked out with their signatures and their respect. You’ve stared into the eyes of men who thought they owned you, and made them flinch.

You’ve buried worse.

But this? This felt different.

Colder. Closer.

I shouldn’t panic.

I should be rational. Make a list. Call someone. File a report. Do all the things the strong version of me would do.

But the truth is, I don’t even know who to call anymore.

The police? And say what?

“Hi, someone mailed me a photo of myself crying beside my parents’ grave and left a note comparing me to my dead mother.”

They’d nod, maybe look appropriately concerned, maybe not. Ask questions with clinical interest. Scribble it down on some form that will live in a drawer somewhere collecting dust.

They’d probably write it off as a journalist. A stalker. A fan turned creep.

Maybe they’d even smirk behind my back.

‘The Ice Queen’s cracking,’ they’d whisper.

But this isn’t press. This isn’t gossip.

This is personal.

This was crafted— not captured.

And no one even knew I was there today.

Not Rashi.

Not my assistant.

Not a single person.

Unless... My stomach clenched.

The old man.

The one with the faded jacket and broken voice.

But no. No, his grief was too real. His pain wasn’t watching me— it was burying someone else.

And this? This was something else entirely.

This was targeted.

Intentional. Intimate.

It didn’t just know where I was. It knew how I looked when I broke. It knew the precise second the dam cracked.

When the air trembled. When my voice dropped to a whisper I didn’t even want the wind to carry.

And worst of all?

It knew who I looked like when I cried— My mother.

That one sentence did more than unsettle me— it cracked something old and buried and still bleeding.

It said: I see you.

Not the version I show the world. Not the tailored, unshakeable CEO with the clipped tone and thousand-yard stare.

But me.

The girl who curled up with a diary full of confessions and hoped ink could hold what her mouth couldn’t say. The daughter who still hears the sound of brakes in her nightmares and wakes up wondering if blood can remember.

The truth, the terror, the tenderness.

My hand trembled around the photo— not from fear.

From fury.

Because if they were trying to rattle me, trying to dig through the walls I spent years building... They should’ve done their research.

I don’t crack quietly. I don’t cry politely. I don’t beg.

I burn.

And if someone thinks they’ve caught me bleeding?

They better pray they didn’t leave fingerprints behind. Because I will find them. And I will make them regret ever thinking I was prey.

I swallowed the scream crawling up my throat and shoved the photo and note into the drawer of my nightstand, locking it with a soft, deliberate click.

Not to hide it.

To contain it.

To trap whatever this was— this sickness curling at the edges of my reality— like sealing a curse you don’t know how to lift.

Like pretending if you close the drawer fast enough, it won’t follow you into the dark.

☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★

An hour later, I was still pacing my living room like a caged animal— barefoot on cold, polished hardwood, my pulse a frantic drumbeat that refused to settle.

No rhythm. No sense.

Just a relentless thudding, like my heart knew something my mind was still too proud to admit.

The soup on the table had grown cold, a thin film forming on top like a layer of skin.

Congealed regret.

I hadn’t eaten. Couldn’t.

My stomach clenched at the thought of food, recoiling like it knew there wasn’t room for nourishment— only dread.

But I didn’t want to admit it. Not out loud. Not even in thought.

Because to admit it would be to name it.

The feeling.

That feeling.

That hum beneath my skin. That silent scream that starts at the base of your spine and doesn’t stop climbing.

Watched.

I’ve felt this before. Not often. But enough to know I wasn’t imagining it.

It started three years ago. Barely a flicker back then. Easy to dismiss.

A shiver in the back elevator when no one else was on the schedule. The sensation of eyes following me in a boardroom, even when every face was buried in numbers. A pause in front of a mirror— seeing not a stranger, but a shadow just behind my shoulder.

I told myself it was stress. Overwork. I blamed fatigue. Insomnia. Ghosts I hadn’t exorcised properly.

I told myself if I just focused harder, if I just moved faster, it would go away.

But some things don’t leave.

They wait.

And today?

Today, I knew I wasn’t paranoid.

I walked toward the window like I was moving underwater— slow, cautious, every step careful, like the floor might break beneath me.

My heartbeat trailed me. Louder than ever now.

I reached for the curtain, pausing at the edge. My fingers hesitated.

Because what if something was really out there?

What if pulling it back changed everything?

Still, I peeled it aside. Just a fraction.

The day outside stared back— empty, cold, detached. A flickering lamp post. An idle breeze.

The street silent, blank as a lie.

No movement.

No threat.

Nothing visible.

But absence doesn’t equal safety. Darkness doesn’t mean no one’s watching.

It just means they know how to hide.

I dropped the curtain and stepped back quickly, suddenly uneasy with the reflection staring back at me in the glass.

She looked… too calm.

Like someone pretending not to be afraid. Like someone playing the role of herself too well. Like me.

I turned away.

I needed to ground myself. Anchor the pieces before they drifted too far to gather.

I grabbed the journal again.

Not to read. To write.

To witness myself.

To stop lying— if only on paper.

July 17th

Something’s wrong. Someone is watching me.

They left a photo. Of me. At the cemetery. And they knew I cried.

I don’t know who. I don’t know why. But this isn’t a coincidence.

It’s a warning.Or a message. Or maybe a game.

I don’t feel safe. Not even in my own home.

My pen paused at that last word.

Home.

Even seeing it written down felt absurd.

Walls and doors don’t make you safe. Locks don’t keep the past out. Not when it has a key. Not when it knows where to find you. Not when it made you.

I closed the journal. My hand trembled as I slid the pen back into the spine.

Like sealing a wound. But I knew better.

Wounds don’t close just because you say they’re healed.

They fester. Quietly.

Until something rips them open again.

My gaze drifted to the fireplace mantle. To the photo I kept of them.

The only photo I let stay.

Mum in that navy-blue silk dress she wore like second skin— soft, powerful, timeless.

Dad with his crooked tie and lopsided smile— charm personified, but only for her.

Her hand rested over his heart like she knew exactly how to calm it.

I used to believe that. That love could be enough. That love could protect.

But it hadn’t. Not then. Not from him.

“I’m trying,” I whispered to them. “I really am. But something’s slipping.”

And it was. I could feel it, deep beneath the surface—.like fine cracks in glass, spreading and spreading until one touch would make it shatter.

I thought I built myself high enough to outrun the past. To become someone untouchable.

I thought billion-pound deals and twenty-hour days would make me bulletproof. That red lipstick and razor words could replace real armor.

But none of that prepared me for this.

This slow bleed. This knowing.

That something I thought I buried has been crawling back. Quietly. Faithfully.

Like rot beneath the floorboards.

Not just grief. Not just trauma.

Something darker.

Something unfinished.

I dream of blood every night.

Mum’s hands through the broken window glass, reaching for me. Her eyes wide with something I still haven’t named.

Not fear. Not pain.

Something deeper. Something like warning.

The sound of brakes. The shatter. The stillness.

Like the world stopped breathing with them.

I wake up gasping, lungs begging for air I don’t trust anymore. And in that space between dream and waking— where the walls feel thinner and truth leaks through—

It’s not the photo that haunts me most.

It’s the question I’ve tried to kill a hundred times. The one that never stays buried.

“What if their deaths weren't an accident.”

☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★

The crash had always felt too... convenient.

Too sudden. Too clean. Too perfectly timed.

Like the kind of tragedy that didn’t just happen— the kind that was made.

It was right after Mum found my diary. Right after I started noticing the way her eyes lingered when I entered a room.

Like she was trying to see me. Like she already knew something was wrong and was just waiting for me to say it out loud.

Right after her questions turned soft— but surgical.

I always lied. I always smiled like a well-trained doll and said I was just tired. That finals were brutal. That I’d skipped lunch.

And she’d nodded. Slowly. Silently.

But her eyes said she didn’t believe me. Her silence said she was waiting for the truth.

And I—I was a coward.

Because I thought the truth would shatter her. I never imagined silence could shatter everything else.

I never said it out loud. Not to Rashi. Not to the world. Not even to the version of myself that sometimes stares at me in the mirror with too much pity in her eyes.

But now?

The whisper’s too loud to ignore.

It’s not a thought anymore. It’s a pressure. A pulse.

It lives in my ribs. In the hollow just beneath my breastbone. It beats like a second heart.

Could someone have wanted them dead?

And if so...

Was it because of me?

The question stings more than it should. Not because it’s new. But because it’s always been there.

Dormant. Quiet. Crouched like a shadow at the edge of everything I’ve become.

I reach for the drawer again, my hand moving slower this time. As if the photo might bite.

Or worse— whisper a truth I’m not ready to hear.

I unlock it. Pull it open.

Fingers brushing the edge of the picture like it’s a relic. Or a weapon.

I stare.

Me— kneeling. Back curved. Head bowed. White lilies clutched in trembling fingers.

Mourning. Exposed. Seen.

I didn’t even cry loud enough to draw attention. But someone heard it anyway.

Someone stood there, unseen, while I broke in front of marble and wind.

And they captured it. Not for art. Not for memory.

For control. A message.

I always believed pain left marks— things you could measure.

Bruises. Scars. A shake in your hands. Nightmares that crept in on bad days.

I thought healing meant learning how to live with those marks.

But this? This is different.

This feels like someone just pressed a bloody fingerprint onto the surface of my life.

Red. Smearing. Claiming.

Not pain you remember. Pain you owe.

A cruel, quiet reminder.

You’re not done bleeding yet. You thought you survived. But you didn’t.

You just paused the damage. And now it’s back to finish what it started.

☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★

So, here's the today's update.

hope y'all loved it.

Drop your thoughts or questions— I love hearing from you. And trust me, things are about to get even more intense. Stay close.

— Until next time, keep your secrets close and your fire closer.

vote and comment, sweeties.