The room smelled of incense, wilted marigolds, and silence.
Three-year-old Akshay sat cross-legged on the cold cement floor, his small fingers clutching the end of his aunt's sari as if it were the only anchor keeping him from slipping into the void. The house, once alive with his mother's laughter and the rhythm of her bangles clinking as she cooked or cleaned, had been transformed into something unrecognizable. The walls, once warm with color, felt gray. The air was heavy, carrying the weight of grief that even his young heart could sense, though he did not understand it.
Relatives filled the living room, their faces pale, their whispers blending into a low hum. Some avoided his gaze, others stared at him with pity. Neighbors had crowded in too, their voices low but urgent, as though volume might disturb something sacred. To everyone else, the night was finality. But to Akshay, it was confusion, a puzzle missing its pieces.
On the bed draped in white lay his mother.
Her face was calm, as if she had drifted into a long, uninterrupted sleep. Her lips, once quick to scold and quicker to smile, were still. Her arms, which had always been open to him, remained folded across her chest. For a child who still believed in miracles, who thought every wound could be kissed away, this looked like nothing more than rest.
Akshay crawled closer, tugging at her cold hand. "Amma…" His voice, thin and breaking, sliced through the murmurs in the room. "Wake up. I promise I won't trouble you today. I'll eat all my food. Please, Amma."
Gasps echoed. A woman covered her face. His aunt's hand trembled as she reached for him, but Akshay wriggled free, desperation filling his tiny limbs. Tears welled in his eyes, blurring her still face.
"Amma, please." His words tumbled out, frantic bargains. "I'll sleep without crying. I'll be good. Don't leave me."
But the silence was heavier than his pleas.
His aunt finally pulled him into her lap, her sari brushing his cheeks, her voice cracking as she whispered, "Akshay, enough… come here, kanna." He struggled against her, his sobs muffled against the fabric that smelled faintly of sandalwood and sweat. The rituals continued around them, the chants rising, but all he could hear was the hollow thud of his heart breaking.
That was the night his world cracked.
Shadows That Followed
Akshay didn't remember every detail of that night he was too young but fragments clung to him like scars. The smell of incense and kerosene lamps. The weight of his aunt's sari in his grip. The sharpness of relatives' whispers when they thought he couldn't hear. The silence after everyone left, when the house returned to stillness but felt like a stranger's home.
It was a silence that followed him for years.
His mother's elder sister took him and his brother in. She fed them, clothed them, and scolded them when they strayed. Her care was unwavering, but distant. She refused to let him call her "Amma," insisting she was only Chithi an aunt. Perhaps she feared betraying her sister's memory, or perhaps she could not carry the weight of being mother to children who weren't her own. Whatever the reason, Akshay grew up knowing he was loved but not enveloped, cared for but not cocooned.
In that gap, loneliness quietly took root.
He learned early to stop asking certain questions. He stopped tugging at sleeves when he woke from nightmares. He stopped waiting for a warm hand to hold on the walk to school. Instead, he learned to hold silence like a companion, to bury ache behind a straight face.
But silence, though heavy, also gave space. And in that space, he found something else.
Discovery
It began with curiosity.
At first, computers were nothing more than blinking machines at a cybercafé near his school. He and his brother would sneak in a few rupees to play pirated games, their pixelated graphics flickering on bulky monitors. The whir of processors, the click of keyboards it fascinated him. Soon, he wasn't just playing games; he was poking into system folders, clicking through files he didn't understand, wondering what made the magic work.
By the time he wrote his first "Hello, World!" at school, it felt like he had created life itself.
In a world where people left, computers stayed. Commands obeyed. Logic bent to his will. Code never walked away. For the first time since his mother's absence, he felt control not over grief, not over fate, but over something. That sense of power was intoxicating. It grew into obsession.
At night, when loneliness pressed down hardest, he would imagine his mother watching over him, smiling as he typed. "See, Amma?" he would whisper to the empty air. "I'm making something."
Twelve Years Later
The dorm room smelled of coffee, instant noodles, and worn-out mattresses. Ceiling fans hummed lazily, their rhythm blending with the steady clack of a keyboard.
Akshay sat hunched over his laptop, its pale blue glow reflecting off his tired face. Dark circles had carved themselves beneath his eyes, but his focus never wavered. Around him, his roommates slept soundly, their snores mixing with the night's drone. For Akshay, nights weren't frightening anymore. Nights gave him space the same space that had once been filled with silence.
It was 2:04 a.m.
On his screen, lines of code scrolled endlessly. Compiling… error. He sighed, pressed a few keys, ran it again. Error. His teeth dug into his lip as he rewrote functions, patched logic, debugged with weary precision.
In the corner of the screen sat a folder titled:
DreamCompiler_v0.1
It wasn't for a class assignment. Not for a hackathon. Not for anyone else's eyes. This was his vision. A tool that could one day automate developer workflows, predict failures before they happened, maybe even save thousands of hours worldwide.
To anyone else, it was just messy Python scripts. To him, it was a promise.
The compiler spat another error, red text filling the terminal like an enemy mocking him. He leaned back, rubbing his temples, whispering to himself.
"One day… this will change everything. I'll make you proud, Amma."
A Voice in the Silence
"Still awake?"
The voice startled him. He froze mid-keystroke, turning slowly.
At the doorway stood Monisha, balancing two cups of steaming chai. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, glasses slightly askew after hours of study. She looked as exhausted as he felt, yet her smile carried a strange brightness, as though fatigue never dared to dull her spirit.
She stepped inside, setting the cups gently on his desk. "You'll burn yourself out, Akshay. No system can run without sleep. Not even you."
He smirked, shaking his head. "Tell that to the compiler."
"Tell that to you," she countered, rolling her eyes.
Her presence filled the room with a warmth the fan's hum could never provide. For a while, the only sounds were the tapping of keys and the occasional clink of chai cups. But this silence was different. It wasn't the silence of mourning it was the silence of comfort, of someone saying I'm here, even if you don't ask.
Akshay stole a glance at her. She leaned on her palm, eyes fixed on the screen, not because she understood the code but because she understood him. And somehow, that mattered more.
A Foreshadowing
By the time the clock edged past 2:30, Monisha had rested her chin on the desk, eyelids heavy. In a drowsy murmur, her voice slipped into the night.
"One day, this code of yours… it'll change everything. And when it does, I'll be right there, cheering for you."
Akshay's fingers froze above the keys. He looked at her really looked. For years, the ache in his chest had been a constant companion. But in that moment, it felt lighter, as if her words had patched a hole in his soul.
The silence wasn't hollow anymore. It was alive.
And maybe, just maybe, life was compiling a new dream for him one not of loss, but of love, resilience, and a destiny waiting to be coded.
End of Chapter 1