The world says time heals everything. It doesn't.
For Dr Priya Sharma, time had only stitched the wound wider. Every calendar page turned like a quiet scream, each year passing without sign or truth. The image of that day in China still haunted her—the sound of explosions, the dust choking the air, her desperate cry echoing unanswered.
The tragedy that had taken me away had left her halfway between faith and science—between reason and hope.
People saw her as a miracle doctor, a woman of unmatched brilliance. The youngest polymath to master multiple medical fields, a figure cities respected, hospitals revered. But no one saw the woman who sat under the same stars every night whispering, "Mukul, can you hear me?"
Five years later, the rest of the family had turned their pain into action—my father's logical vow, my grandparents' secret searches, my uncle's political missions. But for my mother, the search was more than an investigation. It was a heartbeat.
Her love refused to stop believing. "If destiny took him," she told herself, "then destiny must leave something behind."
So she began to look for signs—not in maps, not in waves, not in governments—but in energy and life itself.
Publicly, Dr Priya Sharma devoted her life to healing children. She became the director of a new national health programme for child trauma survivors. It was her way of staying close to me, though no one else knew that.
Every child she saved reminded her of a possibility—that somewhere, I too was saved.
The press called her "India's Angel Doctor". But behind every smile during interviews, her heart carried a hidden vow: "If my son still breathes anywhere under this sky, I will sense it."
Quietly, she built a personal project inside her hospital research wing. Officially, it was labelled "Neural Energy Study on Paediatric Healing Patterns". The project studied how biological signals responded to emotional bonds—how energy between loved ones could influence recovery. But privately, it was her way of searching for proof that the connection survived even across worlds.
She installed sensitive neuro-radiation sensors—machines designed to scan unseen frequencies between heartbeats and brainwaves. When colleagues asked why, she answered, "Love, too, is an energy wave. Maybe one day we'll measure it."
At night, when the hospital lights dimmed, she would sit by the machines and whisper my name softly into the receiver. Sometimes the signal flickered faintly, vibrating at odd intervals—like a small answer tapping back through silence.
No one knew it was me she was calling for.
Her private room at home became a shrine of connection and science combined. My drawings still hung above her desk, the mark of seven stars traced on her lab notebook's cover as inspiration. Every wall held diagrams of brain frequencies, light spectra, and handwritten quotes: "Faith is the first form of intelligence."
Once, my father found her asleep at the desk, head resting beside sheets covered with numbers. When he lifted her gently, a tear-soaked page caught his eye. It read, in her precise handwriting:
"He's not gone. I feel him when I breathe. The same rhythm, the same pulse. Somewhere, my boy is alive."
He didn't disturb her after that. He simply kissed her forehead and turned off the lamp, knowing her science had become her prayer.
But beyond her lab and her gentle face, Dr Priya had begun what no one else had dared—a shadow network of her own.
Unlike her husband and father-in-law, her search did not rely on power or systems. Hers moved through people—the quiet ones, the unseen ones.
Years of medical service had earned her thousands of connections across hospitals in Asia and beyond. She reached out to select doctors, rescue volunteers, and nurses—those who owed her kindness from past lives she had saved.
"Keep an eye," she would write gently in private messages. "If you find a child with a mark that looks like seven stars, contact me directly. No questions asked."
Most thought it was sentimental charity. None realised she traced a missing piece of herself.
Her vow grew stronger with each night. She began mixing her medical knowledge with ancient traditions her patients' families offered her—Ayurvedic energy, Tibetan healing chants, and faith-based meditation. Every culture seemed to whisper the same truth: a bond between mother and child never breaks.
She began practising a method she called 'Heartbeat Communion'—a meditation so deep she could slow her pulse, imagining it syncing with mine across distance. Sometimes, in those silent nights, she would feel a subtle warmth on her skin, the air thick with quiet energy.
"Mukul," she whispered once, trembling, "if this is you, give me one sign."
At that moment, the lamp beside her flickered faintly before stabilising again. She laughed softly through tears. "That's enough. Just enough."
Whenever her pain became unbearable, she channelled it into saving others. Each patient she healed and each child she nursed back to strength added to her belief. "If I can bring life back through medicine," she often said to herself, "then maybe someday I can bring my son back too."
Five years turned into six, then seven—and still she waited, her eyes always finding the same constellation each night: seven stars forming the curve of destiny.
Her colleagues often wondered why she seemed so calm despite her loss. Once, a younger doctor asked timidly, "Ma'am, how do you still smile after losing… everything?"
She replied gently, "Because nothing truly lost stays gone. Sometimes, life just walks another path to return as a miracle."
That was her truth. Her faith. Her silent promise.
One summer evening, as a monsoon breeze swept over Delhi, her research computer displayed an unusual reading—pulses that matched the frequency signature she had labelled 'Code Seven'. The same faint vibration she'd once captured years ago returned—only stronger.
She stared at the monitor, her throat tightening. "He's there…" she whispered, tears falling freely. "He's alive."
The wave came not from land, but from the sea—somewhere beyond known territory, far beyond human radar.
Instead of fear, she felt clarity. She stored the coordinates secretly, printed them on paper, folded it, and placed it in her pendant—the same locket I had given her on my fifth birthday.
That night, under the seven bright stars, she stepped onto the veranda, clutching the pendant close and whispering a vow no one else would ever hear:
"My son, wherever you are—even if it takes my last breath—I will find you. Not by sight. Not by reason. But by heart."
And for the first time in years, she smiled—not as a doctor, not as a believer, but as a mother who had once again felt her child's heartbeat in the wind.