The room hadn't changed, but something inside me had gone still.
I heard her words from before sharp, possessive, burning but they reached me as if through water. Sound without weight. Meaning without grip. The glass of water placed near the mouth of the box, the deliberate echo of her heels, the promise and threat tangled together in her voice all of it brushed past me and dissolved.
This was the power of chanting Radha. I knew it.
Inside the box, there was only darkness.
And in that darkness, there was only one thing that remained intact.
I was not brave. I was not defiant. I was simply… emptied.
When I realized I could not leave, a quiet understanding settled in my chest. This was not a prison meant to break my body first, it was meant to exhaust my will. To make me react. To make me fight her on her terms.
But there was nothing left in me that wanted to fight.
The hunger had begun as a distant ache, like a reminder from a body I was slowly forgetting how to inhabit. Thirst followed, dry and persistent. Yet even those sensations felt secondary, like background noise to something deeper pulling me inward.
I had already let go of this world.
Her jealousy, her threats, her need to be seen they belonged to a place I no longer stood in. Power, ownership, fear, desire… they felt like stories I once heard but could no longer remember the ending to.
I rested my forehead against the inside of the box and breathed slowly.
Radha.
Radha.
Not as defiance. Not as escape. Just as remembrance.
When I finally spoke, my voice was calm, not cold, not angry. Just honest.
"I don't hate anyone," I said softly.
There was no bitterness in it. No accusation.
"I just don't care about this world."
The words surprised even me in their clarity.
"I'm sorry if I'm troubling you," I continued, my voice steady, unshaken by the silence that followed.
"You can go. Eat. Sleep. Have your favourite dishes. Drink water. Rest."
I paused not for effect, but because the truth needed no haste.
"I am ready to die in this place if you won't let me go out."
There was no drama in the sentence. No plea hidden inside it. It wasn't a challenge.
It was simply where I stood.
The box was small. The room was large. She was everywhere outside of it.
But inside, there was only quiet.
And in that quiet, I was already gone. Only faith remained.