(Flashback – Two Years Ago)
The old mansion stood quiet, yet the air was anything but still.
There was a heaviness in the silence—a kind that presses against your lungs and doesn't let go.
Sanya stepped in quietly through the side door. Her college bag still hung from one shoulder, her mind still half in a literature lecture, when she paused in the hallway.
Laughter.
A man's deep chuckle and a woman's low, drawn-out voice.
It came from the study.
The forbidden study.
Her heart picked up pace. That room had always been off-limits. Locked. Guarded by her father's glare whenever she even walked past it.
But the door… today… it was open—just a sliver.
Drawn in like a moth toward something too dangerous to understand, Sanya crept closer.
And then—
"Once the blast happens," said a woman's cold, polished voice, "there won't be a single Rathore left to haunt us."
Sanya's blood froze in her veins.
She peeked in.
Her father lounged on the leather chair, a glass of whisky in his hand. Across from him, legs elegantly crossed, was Madam Kareena. Aarush's aunt. Regal. Ruthless. And smirking.
"The company will crumble. The bloodline will burn. And Aarush… oh, that boy will wish he was never born," she said, almost laughing.
"Let's make sure the world thinks it was an accident," her father added, swirling the amber liquid. "The glorious Rathores, gone in one perfect tragedy."
Sanya's breath hitched.
What was this?
This couldn't be real. It couldn't be—
Her fingers trembled around the doorframe. Her lips parted but no sound came. Her heart felt like it was clawing its way out of her chest.
Aarush. His family. They were planning to—
She staggered back a step, her shoes brushing against the wood. Just a small sound. Barely a whisper.
But it was enough.
"Who's there?"
Her father's voice snapped, sharp and poisonous.
The door yanked open.
There he stood. Towering. Cold. Eyes darkened like a storm. Her father. The man who raised her. The man whose blood ran in her veins.
"Sanya?"
She stepped back instinctively. "I-I wasn't—I didn't—"
"You heard it all, didn't you?" he hissed.
Silence.
She didn't nod. She didn't speak. But her silence was louder than a scream.
And then his hand struck her across the face.
Pain bloomed across her cheek like wildfire. Her world spun.
"You filthy, ungrateful brat!" he bellowed. "Spying on your own father?! You want to ruin everything I built?! For that boy?!"
Tears stung her eyes but she stood frozen.
"Papa… please…"
"DON'T call me that."
He grabbed her wrist and dragged her through the hallway. She kicked. Struggled. Begged.
But he was stronger.
He flung her into her room and slammed the door.
Click.
Locked.
"You'll rot in there. No food. No water. Let's see how much you care about the Rathores when your own stomach cries louder."
She pounded on the door until her hands bled.
She screamed until her throat gave out.
But no one came.
Not that night. Not the next.
Three days later—starved, broken, desperate—Sanya climbed out the small window and ran barefoot onto the road, her clothes torn, her body weak.
And that's when she heard it.
The blast.
The sky lit red.
She dropped to her knees on the side of the road, a scream caught in her chest.
By the time she reached the hospital, it was too late. The Rathore mansion was rubble. And Aarush… was ash in human form.
He stood in the corridor, blood on his hands, soot on his shirt, his eyes empty as a grave.
And then Kareena's voice—sweet, like poison dipped in sugar:
"She knew. She was there. She heard everything and never warned anyone."
Sanya stumbled forward. "No—Aarush—please—"
But he had already turned away.
And she never got the chance to explain.
Not to him.
Not to herself.
The room was dimly lit, the curtains drawn halfway, letting in a soft amber glow that made the dust in the air look like forgotten stars. Sanya sat curled on the edge of the bed in Aarush's guest room, knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them as if her own embrace could stop her from breaking apart.
Her lips trembled.
She didn't cry loudly—her pain was silent, buried deep, the kind that weighed on your chest and made breathing feel like a crime.
Her fingers moved absentmindedly over the fresh bandage on her arm. She could still feel the remnants of the rain in her bones. Cold. Shivering. Empty.
The doctor had said she could've died if she'd stayed longer in that downpour. Hypoglycemia. Fever. The storm outside hadn't been half as ruthless as the storm that lived within her.
And now she was here.
Back in a house that once held warmth. That once held him.
But now?
It was just a body with no soul.
Just like her.
Her thoughts drifted backward, uninvited but relentless—like ghosts that never stayed buried.
Her father's hand clenching her wrist hard enough to bruise.
His belt cracking through the silence of the house.
Her pleas. Her broken voice begging—"Papa, please... I didn't do anything."
The mocking in his eyes. The hatred.
"You think that boy will save you? You think you're worthy of anyone's love?"
Sanya bit down on her lip to stifle the sob rising up.
She never wanted anything extravagant in life. Not wealth. Not luxury. Just… someone.
Someone who would protect her from the world. Hold her when it was too much. Tell her she mattered.
And once—just once—she thought she found that in Aarush.
Back then, when they were teenagers, he used to shield her from bullies at school, offer her half his lunch, and tease her until she smiled. He was the only one who looked at her without disgust or judgment. She used to watch him from across the corridor and dream of a world where she could be loved like that.
But that world shattered the night the Rathores burned.
He hadn't looked at her the same since.
"Don't get your hopes up," he'd said coldly, barely hours ago. "Just because I brought you home doesn't mean I've forgotten what you did. I'm not a murderer, Sanya. But don't mistake kindness for something it's not."
She clutched her chest.
That word.
Murderer.
Did he really think she could ever hurt him?
Her Aarush?
The boy who once fixed a ribbon in her hair during a school play because she was too shy to ask anyone else.
The boy who once stood up to her father at a school event when he shouted at her in public.
That Aarush.
She shut her eyes tight.
God... please...
Let this be a nightmare.
Let her wake up in her small childhood room, the light from the window falling across her old diary.
Let her hear her phone buzz with Aarush's name again.
Let him laugh with her like he used to.
Let him fight with her, tease her, but never let go of her hand.
Let her go back—just once—to that life where love hadn't turned into punishment, where eyes hadn't turned to knives.
But when she opened her eyes…
It was the same empty room.
A faint ticking clock.
Silence.
Aarush wasn't hers anymore.
He probably never had been.
But even now…
Even now…
"I will love you, Aarush," she whispered brokenly, "even if you hate me. Even if you never believe me. Even if I have to walk away from this place, this life, and from you… one day… I'll still carry you in every breath."
She looked out the window, the city lights blinking back at her like a thousand little heartbreaks.
"But I promise you this…" she added softly, voice shaking but resolute.
"The day I get evidence to prove I wasn't the enemy… the day I clear my name…
I'll leave.
Forever.
Because I may have survived my father…
But I don't think I can survive you not loving me."
"All I ever did was love. I was scattered—like dry, lifeless leaves—hoping that one day, he would gather me. But even when he did… it was only to burn me. And when I was finally ready to burn… he left, as if even my ruin wasn't worth witnessing."