Rain had washed the world clean by morning.

By the time the sky finally cleared, the light pouring through the huge window was bright but soft, filtered through thin veils of white cotton clouds. Cold air drifted in, carrying a faint mist that slipped across the room and wrapped itself around everything it touched, turning the space pleasantly chilled.

Outside, life moved on as if nothing had broken.

Sparrows chirped somewhere near the sill, their quick, bright sounds cutting through the quiet. A koel sang its long, lilting notes from a distant branch, weaving its song into the morning. The fragrance of flowers from the garden below floated up and into the room, fresh and sweet, brushing away the sterile hospital scent and replacing it with something gentler, almost innocent.

From farther away, the ocean spoke.

Waves hit the shore in a steady rhythm, their distant crashes creating a soft, constant background track. It was soothing in a way—like a low hum at the edge of reality, steady and indifferent to whatever storms had already passed through her life.

The sunlight, stubborn as ever, slipped past the clouds and into the room.

A few golden strips of it fell directly across Aarohi's face. The warmth on her skin made her scrunch her features in irritation, a tiny frown forming between her brows. She instinctively tried to burrow away from it, dragging the blanket up to cover her face and escape the light.

But the heat gathered quickly under the blanket, trapping her breath, making the inside too warm, too suffocating.

Her body, still bruised with exhaustion and wired to crave anything cool, rebelled. With a small, frustrated movement, she shoved the blanket away, letting it slide down to her waist. The chilled air from the window kissed her exposed skin, and her muscles relaxed slightly, grateful for the contrast.

The sunlight, however, refused to back off.

It stayed where it was, gently insistent, nudging her out of sleep one warm touch at a time. It crept over her eyelids, her cheeks, her jaw, refusing to let her slip back into the darkness. Little by little, it tugged her toward the surface of consciousness.

She woke.

Not all at once, but in slow layers. Awareness returned first in the form of sound—low whispers drifting through the room. Faint, careful voices. Soft footsteps. The rustle of fabric. The subtle clink of something metallic. None of it loud, but all of it enough to tell her one thing:

She was not alone.

Her heart clenched.

Before she even opened her eyes, last night hit her. Not in fragments, but in a single, brutal sweep. The hospital room. The doctor. The tests. The bandages are coming off. The impossible fact that she could see. And then... him.

His face. His eyes. The suit. The way he had stood there like a ghost she could never exorcise.

Her heartbeat spiked.

The monitor beside her reacted instantly, the beeping growing louder and faster, matching the sharp rise in her pulse. Each beep shouted her panic into the room, a few seconds away from calling in a rush of bodies, from turning quiet concern into full-blown emergency.

How? When? What? Where?

The questions came back with a vengeance, storming through her mind, louder than the birds, louder than the waves, louder than the machine. How was she alive? How was he alive? What had happened between the moment she died and the moment she opened her eyes here? Where was she, really? How was any of this possible?

No answer came.

She'd woken up twice in the last day. Twice she'd tasted consciousness, twice she'd been thrown back into confusion. And still every question sat there, heavy and unanswered, crushing her under their weight.

This time, she refused to drown in them.

She drew in a shaky breath, trying to steady herself. Her fingers curled into the sheets, anchoring her. If she stayed like this—if she kept lying down, eyes closed, letting fear run circles around her—nothing would change. The questions would keep eating at her, and the terror of not knowing would be worse than whatever truth waited for her.

She made a decision.

Aarohi slowly opened her eyes, only to hiss and clamp them shut again as the sunlight stabbed directly into them. The brightness was too harsh, too sudden for eyes that were still heavy with sleep and strain. For a moment, she just lay there, breathing quietly, lashes trembling against her cheeks.

Then she felt it.

Something moved between her and the window—between her and the light. A shadow fell across her face, soft and deliberate, blocking the sun from landing directly on her eyes. The warmth faded from her lids, replaced by a gentle shade.

She tried again.

This time, when Aarohi opened her eyes, the light was still there, but softer, dimmed by the figure now standing at her bedside. Her vision was blurry at first, sleep clinging to her lashes, edges smudged like a half-finished painting. She blinked once. Twice. The world sharpened slowly.

She shifted, attempting to sit up, but her body was still too weak. Before she could struggle for balance, hands were already there.

They moved quickly, but carefully—sliding behind her back, lifting her just enough to adjust the pillows. One after another, they were tucked into place, building a cushioned support that allowed her to lean back against the headboard without collapsing. The touch was practiced, gentle, controlled.

But not his.

The scent was familiar—something soft, something clean with a hint of floral—but it didn't wrap around her like his dark, suffocating cologne. The warmth of the hands steadying her didn't carry that same cruel tension she had come to recognize in him. Her chest loosened just a fraction.

These hands weren't his.

Aarohi's lashes fluttered as she blinked away the last of the haze and lifted her gaze to see who was standing in front of her.

And then her world cracked open.

Her breath caught. Her body went rigid before a visible flinch ran through her, her shoulders pressing deeper into the pillows as if she wanted to disappear into them. Her fingers curled into the blanket, knuckles whitening.

Her heart started pounding so loudly she could almost hear it echoing in the room.

Her mind flooded with a fresh wave of disbelief. How is this possible? The question screamed through her skull. There is no way this is real. She had seen too much—felt too much—for this to be anything but a cruel trick.

She had seen her dead body parts.

She had seen what remained of those she loved. She had seen flesh torn apart, blood flooding drains, limbs lifeless. She had stood in the aftermath of death and watched it swallow everything.

She had seen her.

Her throat tightened.

No. This couldn't be real. First him—alive, standing in a suit like death had never touched him. Then her eyes—seeing when they should have been nothing but ruined hollows. And now... this.

It was too much.

Too much for a mind already weighed down by trauma, too much for a heart that had been broken, stabbed, and burned. Reality and nightmare tangled together until she couldn't tell which one she was sitting in.

But she had to know.

Even if the answer destroyed her, even if it shattered what little stability she had left, she needed to hear it. To confirm it. To prove that her eyes weren't lying to her again.

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Fear made her tongue clumsy, her voice fragile. Still, she forced the words out, each syllable stumbling over the next.

"T–t–Tanishka... I–is t–that... is that really you?" she whispered, the question cracking under the weight of confusion and terror.

The name tasted like grief and hope all at once.

Because standing right there, close enough to touch, was the face she never thought she'd see again. The one she had mourned. The one she had watched vanish in pieces. Her best friend. The girl whose dead body parts she had seen going down the drain, the memory burned into her mind like acid.

Yet now, Tanishka was here.

Not in her memories. Not in a dream. Not in a hallucination lurking at the edges of her pain.

Here.

Breathing. Moving. Looking at her.

Alive.

Tanishka let out a small chuckle.

A deeper, familiar chuckle followed a heartbeat later, wrapping around hers like a harmony. Aarohi's head snapped toward the sound before she could stop herself, her eyes widening at the sight of the man standing just behind Tanishka.

"Mohit," she whispered, the name barely leaving her lips.

He was right there.

Alive. Breathing. Solid. The same man she had watched die. The same man she had seen fall in front of her eyes. She remembered the way his body had dropped, the way life had slipped out of him, the way her own helplessness had strangled her.

But he was here.

What is happening? Her mind screamed. I saw him die. I saw it. I know I did. Maybe—maybe with Mohit, there had been a chance. Maybe someone had gotten to him in time. Maybe fate had been kinder to him than it had to her. Maybe there was an explanation, however thin.

But Tanishka...

How was she alive?

How do you come back from what Aarohi had seen? From pieces. From drains. From parts of a body instead of a whole? The memory made her stomach twist, her chest ache with guilt and horror. Yet here Tanishka stood—smiling, breathing, laughing, there.

Then, through the fog of confusion, something else slipped in.

Relief.

Warm. Sudden. Overwhelming.

Whatever the explanation, however impossible it seemed, Tanishka was alive. If she hadn't been... if Aarohi had truly lost her because of what had happened, because of where she hadn't been, because of what she hadn't done... she knew she would never have forgiven herself.

"Thank God you remember us," Tanishka said, her voice teasing but thick with emotion. "Or else we all thought you forgot all of us."

Aarohi looked at her, confusion still clouding her features, questions still heavy on her tongue. But before she could say anything, arms wrapped around her.

A body leaned in, soft and shaking, pulling her into a hug.

It wasn't Tanishka this time.

The embrace was different—tighter, desperate, trembling. A woman's scent. Familiar. Home. Tears fell warm and fast against Aarohi's cheek, soaking into her skin, each drop filled with relief and anguish and something deeper than either.

She looked up, and for the first time since yesterday, her own tears finally broke free.

All the fear she had swallowed, all the terror she had locked inside, all the grief that had been sitting heavy in her chest—they rushed out in a single, shuddering wave. Her throat closed, her vision blurred, and she clung to the woman holding her like she was the only solid thing in a world that had stopped making sense.

"Maa... I was scared," Aarohi choked out, her voice raw.

She didn't want to tell her everything. Not the worst parts. Not yet. Maybe not ever. How could she explain the knife, the torture, the shit she went through, the darkness, the way death had felt, the way pain had changed her? No one would understand that. No one should have to.

But she could give her mother this one truth.

She had been scared.

Terrified in ways she didn't have words for. And right now, wrapped in her mother's arms, she felt something she hadn't felt since everything fell apart—a place to put that fear down.

She clutched her mother tighter, her own cries turning into deep, shaking sobs. She poured everything into that hug—her sorrow, her pain, her terror, her confusion. Every piece of her that still hurt found its way into her mother's embrace, as if her arms could somehow hold all of it without breaking.

A large, warm hand moved over her head, fingers threading gently through her hair.

She lifted her gaze, eyes red and blurred, and saw him.

Her father.

Tears shone in his eyes, his usual steadiness cracked open by the sight of his daughter breaking in front of him. The moment she left her mother's arms to reach for him, he bent down and pulled her close, wrapping her against him. She pressed her forehead to his stomach, her arms circling his waist, clinging like she had when she was small, and nightmares had simpler shapes.

He tried to hold himself together, his chest rising and falling with controlled breaths, but his hand on her head trembled as it stroked her hair.

"It's okay, beta," he said, voice thick but gentle. "Now everything is fine."

The words were simple.

They weren't enough to untangle the impossibility around her, or erase the memories burned into her mind. They didn't answer how Mohit and Tanishka were alive, or why her eyes could see again, or what kind of nightmare she had been dragged through.

But in that moment—held between her mother's warmth and her father's steady hand—they were the only words she had the strength to believe in.

 After a few seconds, her father stepped back, reluctantly letting her go.

The moment his warmth left her, Aarohi's eyes darted around the room, scanning every corner, every shadow. She searched for him. For the man whose presence had turned her life into a nightmare. For the cold gaze that had haunted her even after death. Her heart hammered in her chest as she checked every space her eyes could reach, bracing herself, expecting him to be standing there, waiting.

He wasn't.

No sharp jawline by the window. No dark suit near the door. No chilling stare pinning her in place.

Relief washed through her in a shaky wave.

She didn't want to see him again. Not now. Maybe not ever. She didn't care if he walked away from all of this untouched, unpunished, unharmed. He could disappear into some corner of the world, take every trace of his existence with him, and she would not go after him.

Once, the thought of revenge had been the only thing keeping her breathing. But seeing her parents again—feeling their arms around her, hearing the fear in their voices when they thought they might lose her—had carved something new into her chest.

They needed her.

And somewhere beneath all the pain, all the darkness, she realized she needed them too. Needed this. A chance, however fragile, at something that looked like peace. She didn't want blood anymore.

She just wanted to live.

With them. Quietly. Away from him.

Her gaze began to drift away, ready to drop, ready to focus on familiar faces, familiar safety—

When an unfamiliar hand cupped her cheek.

The touch was gentle but firm, fingers warm against her skin, thumb brushing the curve of her jaw as if memorizing it. Aarohi stiffened for a second, startled, then turned her head slightly to look at the hand's owner.

It was a woman.

Middle-aged. Dressed simply but neatly. Her face was completely unfamiliar—no recognition sparked, no buried memory stirred. Aarohi had never seen her before in her life. And yet, the woman's dark eyes shimmered with tears already spilling down her cheeks, her expression breaking open with raw relief.

She leaned down without hesitation and pressed a trembling kiss to Aarohi's forehead.

"My baby is fine," the woman whispered, her voice shaking. "You... I was so scared."

The words didn't make sense at first. The way she said my baby felt wrong against the blankness of Aarohi's memory. The tone, the trembling affection, the way her hands cradled Aarohi's face like it was the most precious thing in the world—all of it belonged to someone who knew her deeply.

But Aarohi didn't know her at all.

Her voice was unfamiliar. Her face was a stranger's. Her name, if she had given it, was lost somewhere in the haze. And yet... the emotion in her words hit Aarohi like a physical force.

Terror. Relief. Love.

It was there in every syllable, thick and undeniable. This woman was crying for her. Shaking for her. Holding her like she had almost lost something irreplaceable and had just gotten it back.

Aarohi didn't know who she was.

But the way she was being held, the way her forehead was kissed, the way those hands wouldn't let go—it all made one thing painfully clear:

Whoever this woman was to her mind...

Her heart could feel that, to the woman, she was a daughter.

It had been almost half an hour since Aarohi woke up.

The storm of tears and reunions had finally calmed. A nurse had come in a few minutes ago, quietly checking the line in her hand, changing her drip, injecting something cool into the tube, and placing a few tablets in her palm with a small glass of water. Once Aarohi swallowed them, the nurse had smiled gently and said the doctor would be there in a few minutes before slipping out of the room.

Now Aarohi sat propped up on the bed, pillows supporting her back, the blanket loose around her waist.

Her mother stood beside her, one hand steadying a small bowl, the other gently feeding her spoonfuls of almost water-thin khichdi, just as the dietitian had instructed. The taste was bland, but warm. Easy to swallow. Her mother blew lightly on each spoonful to cool it before bringing it to Aarohi's lips.

On the surface, Aarohi looked calm.

Her breathing was even, her expression neutral, her movements small and controlled. But inside, the questions were tearing her apart. Every time she swallowed, it felt like she was swallowing confusion. Every quiet second stretched over the chaos in her mind like a thin sheet, doing nothing to smother it.

She couldn't hold them in any longer.

"Mumma..." she spoke slowly, her voice naturally low, careful. "Who are they?"

Her mother's hand paused mid-air, the spoon hovering just in front of Aarohi's mouth. For a moment, she didn't react. Then she lowered the spoon back into the bowl and turned fully toward her daughter, eyes narrowing slightly in surprise.

"Mumma, who are they?" Aarohi repeated, a little more clearly this time.

Her mother searched her face, as if looking for a sign that this was a joke, a bad attempt at humor, anything but genuine confusion. "You really don't know who they are?" she asked softly.

Aarohi met her eyes and shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "And how did... I ended—"

Before she could finish, her mother gently cut her off. "Can you name all those people standing here?" she asked instead, her voice steady but edged with something tight.

Aarohi paused.

She looked around the room, letting her gaze move from face to face. Some she had already replayed in her mind a thousand times. Some still felt like strangers wearing emotions that didn't match her memory.

"Hmm..." she started slowly. "That is my best friend, Tanishka." She nodded slightly in her direction. "That's Mohit." Her eyes shifted to him. "Papa." She glanced toward her father, still standing a little distance away, watching quietly.

"And you are my Mumma," she added, looking back at the woman beside her.

Her mother's lips trembled just a bit at that.

"But..." Aarohi's eyes traveled back to the others, to the unfamiliar faces. "I don't know who they are."

The room fell silent.

Every person present seemed to freeze in place, as if someone had pressed pause on them. Shock flickered over more than one face. 

The middle-aged lady—the one who had cupped her face and called her my baby—slowly stood up from her chair. Her eyes were wide, wounded.

"Do you really don't know who I am?" she asked, her voice fragile.

Aarohi looked at her, guilt twisting in her chest even though she didn't know why. She shook her head again, small and helpless. "No," she said quietly.

Hurt flashed across the woman's face like a crack in glass.

Before anyone could say anything else, the door swung open with a soft thud. Everyone's attention snapped toward it. A nurse stepped inside, expression polite but firm.

"Everyone, please wait outside," she said. "Doctor is here."

There was a moment of hesitation, then everyone nodded silently. One by one, they rose from the chairs and sofa in the seating area and began to file out of the room.

Her mother placed the bowl carefully on the stand beside the bed, giving Aarohi's hand one last squeeze before letting go. Without a word, she turned and walked out with the others, the door closing softly behind them.

Aarohi was left sitting on the bed, alone now.

Alone with her questions.

The nurse walked toward her bed, latex gloves snapping lightly as she adjusted them.

"Mam, as you are quite fine now, we need to remove this bag," she said gently.

Aarohi frowned, confused, and followed the nurse's gaze downward. That was when she saw it—a transparent pee bag hanging at the side of the bed, a tube disappearing under the sheet and into her body.

Shock rippled through her.

Her throat tightened. She hadn't even realized it was there. The idea that something had been inserted into her while she was unconscious, that her body had been handled, cleaned, taken care of without her knowing, made a fresh wave of discomfort crawl over her skin.

"Can I ask you something?" she blurted out, needing at least one answer from someone.

The nurse looked at her with an apologetic expression, eyes soft. "I am sorry, mam," she said quietly, "but doctor will be here any time—"

She didn't get to finish.

The door opened again with a soft click, and the air in the room shifted.

Doctor Satish walked inside first, his assistant just behind him, carrying a tablet and a file. And right after them, as if he had every right to be there, came him.

The bastard who was still alive.

The man who should have been buried in the same darkness he had thrown her into. The man who stood there like he owned the room, the building, the city—like he owned her.

Her eyes narrowed into a glare before she could stop herself.

Sidharth stepped in with that same unsettling calm on his face, his expression composed, almost bored. His eyes, however, were anything but. Cold. Sharp. Focused directly on her, as if the rest of the room didn't exist.

He wasn't in his usual armor of a suit this time.

He wore a plain t-shirt that clung to his chest and shoulders, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, and sneakers. His hair was slightly longer now, messy and soft, a few strands falling over his forehead and partially shading his eyes. A light beard shadowed his jaw, framing his face in a way that should have made him look softer.

It didn't.

If anything, it made him look even more dangerous—like a predator off-duty, relaxed only because he knew he still controlled the cage.

Everything about him scared her.

Not just the memories of what he had done.

It was the way he stood there now, casual and calm, as if none of it had touched him. As if he could walk back into her life after destroying it and act like this was just another conversation.

But this time, Aarohi didn't let the fear show.

She forced her breathing to stay steady, her hands to remain still on the blanket. Her eyes locked on his, but she didn't flinch, didn't look away. Inside, panic scratched at her ribs, begging to be let out, but she pushed it down.

She didn't want to mess with him again—not blindly.

Not without knowing.

First, she needed to understand.

What happened. How she survived. Why was he alive? Why were Tanishka and Mohit alive? Why did strangers cry like mothers in front of her? Why could her eyes see when they shouldn't exist? Why her past and present felt like two entirely different lives stitched roughly together.

She needed answers.

Only after that... only after she understood what kind of game she had been thrown into... would she decide what to do with him.

Whether to run.

Whether to fight.

Or whether to burn his carefully controlled world to the ground.

The nurse gently guided Aarohi to lie back down as Doctor Satish stepped closer to the bed.

The blanket was folded down, and the nurse lifted her t-shirt slightly, exposing the area low on her abdomen where the tube disappeared into her body. Cold air hit her skin, making her shiver. The doctor sanitized his hands, the smell of antiseptic sharp in the air, then pulled on fresh gloves with soft snaps.

He leaned in, eyes focused. "How are you feeling today, Aarohi?" he asked, his tone calm, professional.

Aarohi hissed as he began to peel off the tape holding the tube in place. The adhesive tugged at her skin, already sore and sensitive. A sharp sting shot through her, making her fingers twitch.

Before she could even think of bracing herself, a hand closed around hers.

She grabbed it instinctively, squeezing hard, her nails digging into the skin as if that grip was the only thing anchoring her through the pain. Another hand slid into her hair, fingers gently caressing her scalp, smoothing back loose strands in slow, soothing strokes.

She looked up.

It was him.

Sidharth.

For a heartbeat, her chest tightened, panic threatening to break loose. But she forced herself to tear her gaze away, to focus on the doctor instead. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her flinch.

"Better than yesterday," she managed to answer, voice low but steady.

The doctor nodded, satisfied, and went back to his work. He carefully eased the tube out from inside her, inch by inch, the sensation unpleasant and raw. Aarohi bit down on her lower lip, trying to swallow her cries, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes as the final length slipped free.

He quickly cleaned the small opening, the antiseptic stinging as it touched the tender skin. Then he sealed the wound with medicine and a fresh set of bandages, pressing them in place with practiced gentleness.

By the time he finished, Aarohi's eyes were wet.

Her teeth dug into her lip hard, trying to hold back the sob building in her chest. The pain wasn't as brutal as what she'd known before, but it still hurt—physically, emotionally, a reminder of how helpless she'd been, how much her body had been through without her.

The nurse moved to help her sit up, hands reaching for her shoulders.

But Sidharth was faster.

In one smooth motion, he slid an arm behind her back and another under her elbow, lifting her with care that made her skin crawl. His touch was steady, controlled, almost gentle as he helped her sit upright and settle back against the pillows.

Aarohi hated it.

Hated the way his touch felt now—soft, careful, almost... protective. Hated that it contrasted so violently with the brutality in her memories. Hated that some part of her body responded to the comfort even while her mind recoiled.

She didn't want his help.

She didn't want his hands on her in any way that wasn't honest about what he'd done.

Doctor Satish placed the stethoscope on her chest, listening to her breath from different angles, then gently tilted her head down with two fingers to check her eyes, her reflexes, and her overall response.

"She is fine now, Mr. Sisodia," the doctor said at last, turning toward him. "You may take her home tomorrow."

The words dropped into the room like a stone.

Home. The word didn't feel real. Not when she didn't even know which life counted as hers anymore. Not when she didn't know what home meant in this version of reality.

Doctor Satish turned to leave, his assistant following, but before he could reach the door, a voice stopped him.

"Doctor."

Aarohi.

Her voice was quiet but firm, threaded with barely controlled emotion. Her eyes shone, a little teary, but there was steel under the fear now.

He paused and looked back. "Yes, Aarohi?"

She swallowed, gathering every question that had been clawing at her since she woke up. Her fingers tightened around the bedsheet.

"Who is this man?" she asked, glancing briefly in Sidharth's direction without letting her eyes linger. "How did I end up here? What happened to me? And what is happening right now?"

Each question came out sharper than the last, building on the one before it.

She wasn't pleading.

She wasn't begging.

She was done being silent.

Now, no matter how painful the truth was, she refused to sit quietly without answers.