By Vedant Anshuman Singh
Once, a boy with trembling hands and stuttered speech,
A fragile voice drowned in hallways thick with laughter,
Found refuge in a friend—a quiet light
Who never mocked his broken sentences.
But fate, like an old cracked mirror, split them apart.
Different classrooms, different worlds—
The war was in the air, etched in their names.
Still, they stayed friends, faint lines across distant maps.
High school ended; so did their casual talks.
The friend’s group never quite accepted him,
Their words, sharp whispers, landed in his ears
On the last day, like glass shattering softly.
War came, silencing every voice.
Letters stopped, phone lines fell quiet.
Loneliness became his only confidant.
When peace bloomed like weeds in cracked soil,
They met again, older but carrying the same shadows.
University halls echoed with old laughter,
And a third joined their circle—a brother.
The brother’s friend, a girl with eyes like calm water,
Stepped into his life. He clung to her kindness.
But kindness isn’t always love—it doesn’t owe you affection.
His heart misread the script.
The brother learned of the letters,
And attention flickered, dimmed, faded away.
Home wasn’t home—an alcoholic ghost of a father,
A mother who saw him as a cursed reflection.
Overthinking ate him alive, hollowing his chest.
The brother confronted him, the girl turned silent.
An argument—sharp, unyielding—ended the thread.
The first friend, too, grew distant, busier each day.
Birthdays passed without invitations.
Excuses piled like bricks on a wall.
He felt nothing. Not anger, not sadness—just empty air.
Smoke-filled rooms became his world,
His mind cracking under pressure, his sanity slipping.
Then he learned she had loved him, once.
The knowledge sliced him open; old wounds bled fresh.
Desperate, he tried to talk, to explain.
But arguments rose again, louder this time.
His world shattered in a single heated moment.
He broke glass, faces, bodies—
A man died under his trembling hands and a bloodied stone.
Rain fell as he ran through corridors,
His chest heaving, his mind alight with chaos.
The taste of violence was bitter, but it lingered.
His family disowned him.
His brother slapped him, insulted him.
In a haze of regret and wrath, he struck back—
His brother’s lifeless eyes became another haunting.
Teachers, bullies—they fell under his growing shadow.
The scent of blood became his cologne.
Underworld doors creaked open, and he stepped inside.
He rose through the ranks, built his throne on ashes.
But betrayal came, as it always does.
His own men turned their knives.
He escaped—moved far, changed his face, his voice.
Money healed his tongue, but not his soul.
One day, he saw them—his old friend and the girl.
A market, ordinary, mundane, yet devastating.
He walked away, laughing and crying in a lonely corridor.
But fate doesn’t let go so easily.
A company pulled his strings, gave him a task:
Kill his old friend.
They met again, shared words and shadows.
Guns were drawn, feet stumbled, breaths were lost.
In an empty field, the friend spoke words that burned:
“You’re a curse to me. Chaos follows you.”
A gunshot echoed, but it wasn’t aimed at him.
The friend’s body fell, hollow and broken.
He screamed, but no one heard.
Weeks of silence followed, weeks of grief.
But grief doesn’t stay—it twists, sharpens.
He returned with vengeance.
Sent a man, a mirror image, into the lion’s den.
A grenade bloomed in fire and chaos.
The company was no more.
He stood on a bridge, scarred and heavy.
A sunset bled into the river below.
Childhood photos crumpled in his shaking hand.
He threw his gun into the water.
Time passed—his beard grew, his voice softened.
But peace was a ghost, fleeting and pale.
The brother came, rage and grief painting his face.
Their story was nearing its end.
A boy entered his life—a hungry child stealing food.
He saw something familiar in those wide eyes.
On the boy’s birthday, he bought him a drink—
Simple, meaningless, yet heavy with sentiment.
The past echoed—the same awkward warmth,
The same fragile attempt at connection.
In the end, he stood alone.
The same field, the same sky.
A gun in his hand.
But this time, there was no one left to blame.
The trigger clicked, and silence followed.
By Vedant Anshuman Singh
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