The Voice Behind the Mask
The story truly begins seven years ago.
Following the accident that claimed both of my parents, I was taken in by distant relatives—the Bansals. It was a transition that could have been cold and lonely, but back then, the kitchen always felt like the warmest place in the house.
I had a habit of singing while I prepped dinner, lost in my own world, gripping a wooden spoon like a professional microphone
"Abhimanyu, you're so good at singing!"
Ishita's voice would break through my performance, her tone carrying that familiar, playful compliment. I'd stop, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks, and ask the same question I always did.
"Y... You think so...?"
"You can definitely be a famous singer when you grow up!" she'd declare with unwavering confidence, her eyes shining with a sincerity that made me want to believe her.
"I don't know if I'm that amazing," I'd murmur, looking down at the spoon. "But if you say so... maybe I should try going for it?"
"Yeah! And then I'll marry you and we'll live happily ever after!"
Ishita and I were incredibly close back then. All talk of marriage aside, as her "big brother"—older by only a single month—I wanted to do my absolute best to take care of her.
Then came the day the music stopped.
"I'm sorry... I did all I could, but that scar might never fade." The doctor's voice was heavy with clinical pity, echoing against the sterile white walls of the ICU. "And you have damaged your right eye as well. Your eyeball... it cracked."
I looked into the mirror he gave me, and my world shattered. To save Ishu from a traffic accident, I had paid with my face. The person staring back was unrecognizable.
Jagged, angry lines of scar tissue carved through my skin like a cracked map, and my right eye sat clouded and bloodshot, fixed in a permanent, haunting stare. I was horribly disfigured. At that moment, looking at the stranger in the glass, I could only think one thing: This is the face of a monster.
The whispers at school followed shortly after. They called me Ishu's "demon boyfriend." Slowly, the gratitude her parents felt turned into a suffocating regret.
The air in the Bansal house changed whenever I entered a room. If I walked into the living room, the conversation would die instantly, replaced by a thick, uncomfortable silence. Her parents would look everywhere but at me—their eyes darting to the floor, the walls, or their phones—as if my scars were a sun they couldn't bear to look at directly.
Every time I tried to speak, the tension would tighten like a physical weight, a silent plea for me to disappear back into the shadows.
"We'll get you a private tutor, so don't leave the house," they told me finally, unable to endure the social shame of a 'monster' in their lineage. "In that way, you don't have to go to school anymore."
I didn't argue. For three years—from 6th standard to 9th—I was a prisoner in my room. The walls, once painted a cheerful cream, became a dull, oppressive grey in the dim light of my closed curtains. They even forbade me from seeing Ishu, telling me I would only "hurt" her reputation.
Sometimes, I'd hear her arguing from the hallway, her voice thick with tears.
"Why won't you let me see Abhimanyu?"
"That's not something you have to worry about," her mother would dismiss, her voice sharp and cold.
"She's right," her father would add, his tone heavy with a lie he had told himself so many times he likely believed it. "It's something that Abhimanyu decided on his own."
Listening to their lies, I'd look at my reflection and sink into the shadows. As long as I stay here, I told myself, she won't be hurt by the rumors.
But a small ember still flickered inside me. One day, while scrolling through a music forum on an old laptop, I saw an online advertisement for ELEVEN STUDIOS. They were looking for singers—and they offered work where I wouldn't have to show my face.
I signed up without hesitation. My voice—now deeper, carrying a haunting resonance born from three years of silence—was the only worth I had left.
The agency was run by Leo, a nineteen-year-old managing everything from a cluttered apartment-turned-studio. He was the first person to believe in me without flinching. He sent me equipment, and while the Bansals were out at work or school, I single-mindedly immersed myself in music. The microphone became my only confidant.
My hard work paid off. In 9th grade, I passed the audition and became the faceless singer for a morning drama starring the nation's sweetheart, Arya Agarwal. My voice, known only as "L," became a mystery that captivated the public.
By 10th grade, Leo and I had scraped together enough money for plastic surgery. Leo's parents, who treated me with a warmth I had forgotten existed, stayed by my hospital bed through the long, terrifying nights of recovery.
When the bandages finally came off in the winter of my 10th-grade year, I stared at a miracle. The skin was smooth, the deep, discolored pits of the scars gone as if they had never existed. My right eye no longer looked like it belonged to a creature of nightmares; it was clear, dark, and full of life.
"Is this... really me...?"
"This is the face you were born with," the doctor reassured me, smiling for the first time in three years.
On my day of discharge, Leo's family invited me to live with them. I was tempted—God, I was tempted—but I knew I had to return. "There is a person waiting for me," I told them, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Wanting to surprise Ishita, I returned to the Bansal house. My long bangs were combed down to hide my eyes, and a black mask covered the rest of my face. I stood at the threshold, trembling as I reached for the doorbell.
After years of being a ghost, Abhimanyu was finally coming home.