"Life is either poison...or...death."
It was a scorching afternoon. Most of the men were out in the fields, while the women stayed inside, preparing the day's meal. I lay motionless on the hard floor, my eyes fixed on the ceiling fan. It circled slowly above me like a vulture, patiently waiting for its prey to die—a fate that didn't feel far off.
Meera was gone. That brutal reality cursed my soul with every breath I drew. If only I had arrived a few minutes earlier. If only I had fought harder. If only she hadn't... died. I didn't know how I was supposed to keep living, or if I was even truly alive at all. I searched for answers in the faces of those around me, but all they offered was pity.
Meanwhile, Sarla was still breathing out there, no doubt laughing at my misery—calling me a coward, a total failure. And he was right. I was a failure. Every single time, I failed to protect the people I loved.
Sumeet pushed the door open and stepped inside. His face was flushed red, drenched in sweat and dirt. He had lost all the muscle he'd built up during his brief illness, leaving him lean and weathered. I, on the other hand, had only grown thicker—heavy with grief and stagnation.
He walked up to me and delivered a sharp kick to my side. "How long are you going to lie there lamenting for your deceased lover, bro?" His voice was cold, stern, and entirely stripped of sympathy.
I offered a bitter, faint smile. "Until I strangle the life out of Sarla."
Sumeet let out a harsh laugh. "Then lying here like a useless carcass isn't going to pull the trigger."
He was right. But I wasn't just rotting away, and neither was Sarla going anywhere. Ms. Maria and Sir Lorenzo had already sent word for my immediate return, which should have been my way out. Yet the heavy debt I owed Meera anchored me to this dirt floor.
Met by my silence, Sumeet kicked me again. I simply turned onto my side and closed my eyes. He landed a few more frustrated blows before finally barging out, letting the door slam shut. I couldn't bring myself to care about his urgency. To him, this wasn't a crusade for vengeance; it was a completed contract. The job was done long ago, and we were merely overstaying our welcome in a dead town.
Eventually, I dragged myself up and walked outside. Dusk was falling, casting long, bruised shadows across the dirt roads. The local field workers were trudging back to their homes, returning to wives and houses brimming with children. I moved slowly toward the creaking wooden gate. My gait had deteriorated badly—partially from untreated injuries, partially from sheer sluggishness. Unlike Sumeet, I had always refused to rely on a cane, a prideful decision I was now immensely beginning to regret.
I had barely reached the boundary when Ranjan came sprinting toward me, breathless. His hands were caked in a thick mixture of dried blood and topsoil—an ancient, local remedy for gunshot wounds, usually the self-inflicted kind. Ranjan's idea of "hunting" involved taking shots at clay pots, empty bottles, and the occasional defenseless scarecrow, though few of his hits were ever clean. The gun had clearly taken a heavier toll on him than it ever had on his targets.
He skidded to a halt in front of me, his eyes wide and eager. Reaching into a frayed jute bag, he pulled out a limp, dead pigeon and held it up like a prized trophy. I didn't have the heart to point out the fresh cat bite marks puncturing its neck. Instead, I clapped with deliberate drama and nodded in silent approval.
Pleased with himself, he tossed the carcass at my feet. "Make it your dinner, fatso."
He turned on his heel and strode away with a proud, puffed-out chest. I picked up the small, battered bird and buried it quietly near the fence with full respect.
The day I had dreaded for so long had finally arrived. Sumeet had given up on me. Ranjan mocked what I had become. I watched Ranjan's retreating silhouette disappear into the twilight—a hollow figure striding through a shallow, unforgiving world.
"I need this. It is my life. My heart doesn't pump blood through my veins—it pumps the poison Sarla pushed into them," Ranjan roared.
I stood near the door frame, leaning weakly against the wooden beam for support. I offered him a pale, weary smile. "This is not your war, Ranjan. You are a healer, not a killer. Violence never brings peace."
Ranjan turned to me, his eyes burning with every drop of rage left in his body. "You don't understand my pain. No one does! I need to be the one to end Sarla."
I glanced over at Sumeet, only to find him already watching me with a cold, knowing glare. I turned back, walked slowly toward Ranjan, and placed a heavy hand on his trembling shoulder. "Do you truly think whatever pain is eating you alive inside will just vanish with Sarla's death?"
Ranjan violently shoved my hand away. "Yes!"
I lowered my head, letting out a long, shuddering sigh. "Fine. If that's what you want... then I will help you."
Ranjan stared at me. For the first time since the day we met, the darkness in his eyes gave way to a sudden, blinding flicker of hope. A raw, uncharacteristic smile broke across his face as he threw his arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug.
Over Ranjan's shoulder, Sumeet burned a hole through me with a furious, stern look. And he had every right to. I had been a fool to entertain Ranjan's madness in the first place, and agreeing to feed his suicide mission now was beyond all levels of insanity.
But on one fundamental matter, Sumeet was dead wrong. Ranjan wasn't mad.
He was brave.
"How can you be so childish, Harsh?" Sumeet bellowed, his voice echoing off the bare walls. "Don't you realize what a liability Ranjan is going to be? He's an unwanted burden!"
I poured myself a glass of water and gulped it down slowly, letting the cold liquid settle in my stomach.
"Why aren't you taking this seriously, brother?" Sumeet slammed his open palm onto the wooden table, making the glass rattle. "This isn't some film where everyone gets a happy ending no matter what. In the real world, people die!"
I looked up at him and rolled my eyes. "It's useless to cry over spilled milk, Sumeet. Ranjan isn't wrong to feel the way he does. He lost something precious to Sarla. Shouldn't we be glad to have another man standing with us?"
Sumeet clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. "We're leaving, Harsh. I've had enough of this nonsense. Sarla has gone to ground—who knows how long it'll take for him to surface? Are we supposed to rot here until that fateful day comes?"
"That's precisely what I'm saying," I replied calmly. "We take Ranjan with us."
Sumeet let out a loud, frustrated sigh, rubbing his temples. "Are you even dumber than I thought? The U.C.I.D. isn't the Boy Scouts—it's not a matter of 'the more, the merrier.' There are strict protocols and endless red tape just to consider an applicant, let alone drop a civilian into a high-priority operation!"
I walked over to him, standing my ground. "Passionate people make the best assets for the U.C.I.D. I was just a doctor once, too—look where I am now."
Sumeet narrowed his eyes, studying my face. "So... you see your past in him."
"No," I said quietly. "I see the future."
Ranjan sat by the lake, puncturing the water with mindless throws. I walked over and sat beside him.
"Aren't you happy now?" I asked, looking at him and expecting a smile. Finally.
Instead, his expression darkened. He looked at me, then back at the expanding ripples. "You know what? I should be happy. I'm getting what I want. But... it feels like something is still missing. The dream of mercilessly stabbing Sarla kept me alive all these years. What do I do when that dream ends? You were right. I'm a healer, not a killer."
I smiled proudly. "At least you realized the truth in time."
Ranjan shook his head. "Nah. That's not what I realized. In fact, there's been no realization at all. Tell me, how did you find peace?"
I sighed heavily. "Peace? Who told you there's peace at the end of the road? Violence never brings peace. A brief silence, maybe. But never peace. I'm not guilty or ashamed of what I did—it was necessary, and I'd do it again without a second thought. But expecting peace is a fool's errand."
Ranjan looked toward the sun dipping behind the trees. "If Meera were alive today, would that have brought you peace?"
I picked up a flat pebble. It skipped twice before plunging into the depths. "No. You can't expect to find peace in a loved one's arms when you're soaked in blood. Meera might have understood my dilemma, but no one truly wants to sleep next to a bringer of death."
Ranjan stared at the spot where the pebble sank, the concentric rings expanding until they dissolved into the still water.
"So we're just ghosts moving from one fight to the next," he said softly, his voice barely carrying over the rustle of the evening breeze. "No absolution. No quiet ending."
"Absolution is a story weak men tell themselves to sleep at night," I replied, feeling the rough texture of another stone between my fingers. "You wanted revenge on Sarla because you thought it would close a circle. But blood doesn't draw circles, Ranjan. It just spills. You kill him, and the room in your head doesn't get quiet—it just gets empty."
Ranjan rested his forearms on his knees, staring down at his dirt-stained knuckles. "An empty room is better than one filled with his voice."
"Is it?" I turned to face him, the fading sunlight catching the tired lines around his eyes. "When Sarla is dead, the rage that drove you for years dies with him. That rage was your engine. Without it, you're just standing in the dark, holding a cold blade, wondering who you are when you're not hating him."
He didn't answer right away. He grabbed a handful of fine gravel and let it slip through his fingers, bit by bit.
"I thought if I destroyed him, I'd finally feel like I saved myself," Ranjan whispered.
"You can't save the man you were before the fire started," I said, tossing my pebble into the dark shoreline. "You can only decide what the man who survived is going to do with the ash."
Ranjan picked up a small twig, snapping it in half with a dry, sharp crack that seemed to echo across the quiet water.
"Then I guess I'm just deciding what to burn next," he said, throwing the pieces into the mud. "Because I don't know how to build anything out of ashes. You talk like a man who has made his peace with being damned, but I still remember what it felt like before Sarla took everything. I remember what it was like to heal people, to touch a life and actually make it better."
I watched the twin splinters float aimlessly near the shore. "Memory is a dangerous thing, Ranjan. It tricks you into believing you can walk backward."
"I don't want to walk backward," he snapped, his voice finally cutting through the gloom, tight with a sudden, sharp edge. "I just want to know if there's anything left of me that isn't made of hate. You tell me blood doesn't draw circles—fine. You tell me there's no absolution—fine. But if I don't kill Sarla, he keeps walking. He keeps breathing. He keeps making more ghosts. So don't sit here and lecture me about empty rooms when he's still out there building graves."
I didn't answer right away. The sun had finally dipped beneath the horizon, leaving only a bruised streak of purple across the sky. The cool night air began to settle over the lake, pulling the mist off the surface.
"I'm not telling you to let him live," I said softly, the stone in my palm feeling colder now. "I'm telling you not to expect a miracle when he dies. Kill him because he deserves to die. Kill him so he can't hurt anyone else. But don't do it expecting to wake up clean tomorrow morning."
Ranjan slowly stood up, brushing the dirt and gravel from his palms. He stood tall against the twilight, looking down at me, his silhouette sharp against the darkening water.
"I stopped caring about being clean a long time ago," he said, turning his back to the lake. "I just need the noise to stop."
The dusk was bleeding out, letting the dark crawl from the treeline and swallow the quiet road. I left the lake behind and walked the gravel path back to my house.
Sumeet was waiting near the porch, tapping his shoe against the cracked step—a restless, agitated rhythm that betrayed the feigned indifference on his face. When he caught sight of me, he trudged across the yard and blocked my path. His eyes were dead and blank, but the tension coiled in his shoulders radiated pure, unadulterated anger.
"I saw Ranjan leaving," Sumeet said, his voice dangerously low against the hum of evening insects. "He looked happy."
I narrowed my eyes, meeting his hard stare. "So you have a problem with the man finding a shred of happiness?"
Sumeet clenched his fists, bringing one up to point a rigid finger at my chest like it was the barrel of a loaded gun. "Look, Harsh. I'm not the type of guy who preaches about regulations all day. But I have a responsibility, and so do you. Ranjan is a civilian. It is our duty to protect his life. Why is a simple concept like that so hard for you to grasp?"
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I shoved his arm aside, unlatched the heavy wooden door, and pushed it open.
"I've given him that speech a hundred times," I said, lingering on the threshold. "But he is adamant. He refuses to back down and swallow the trauma Sarla forced down his throat. And to be perfectly honest? I fully support him. He is morally right. As an enforcer for the U.C.I.D., my oath isn't just to keep people breathing. It's my right to stand by those who have been wronged."
A dry, humorless chuckle scraped its way out of Sumeet's throat. "Right. Stand by them. Just like you stood against the people who killed Cathy?"
I froze, my hand tightening around the door frame until my knuckles turned white. I turned slowly, feeling a familiar, suffocating weight press down on my chest.
"I was helpless then, Sumeet," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "My cowardice made me helpless. And I will never be a coward again."
I stepped inside and slammed the door shut in his face, the wooden panels rattling in the frame.
Outside, Sumeet's voice rose into a furious shout, echoing down the empty lane. "Time will tell, Harsh! We'll see who survives this—your bravery, or my wisdom!"
I stood on the other side of the bolted door, listening to Sumeet's footsteps fade within the emerging darkness. His anger was justified—I knew that better than anyone. He was clinging to the rulebook because structure is the only thing that keeps men like us sane when the world goes sideways. But he couldn't see the full board. He was looking at protocol; I was looking at a powder keg.
Ranjan wasn't just a civilian seeking closure. He was a live wire sparking in a room full of gasoline. If I left him to his own devices, or tried to box him in with red tape, the ensuing explosion would swallow far more than just Sarla. Control wasn't about reining him in with laws—it was about steering the weapon before it detonated in the wrong direction.
I leaned my head against the cool wood of the door, taking a slow, steadying breath. I didn't ask for this badge. I didn't join the U.C.I.D. out of some noble ambition—Sir Lorenzo dragged me into this life himself. He saw something in me when everyone else saw a liability: an unyielding, dangerous bravery in the face of absolute ruin. He trusted me to make the calls that other agents were too terrified to dream up.
I won't let Sir Lorenzo down. If keeping his faith means tearing up the U.C.I.D. manual, defying Sumeet, and walking straight through the fire with Ranjan at my side, then so be it. Rules protect the institution, but bravery protects the cause. And when the smoke finally clears, they can judge my methods all they want—as long as the job is done.....