AUTHOR'S POV

There was a time when the world didn't feel like a punishment.

Kriti's earliest memories weren't of iron bars or cold steel trays, but of soft cotton blankets, Sunday oil massages, and the jingle of her mother's glass bangles. Her world had once been a warm cocoon, stitched with the soft silences of comfort and the laughter of her little sister echoing through narrow hallways.

In their modest home in Dehradun, even the smallest joys had felt like luxuries. A scoop of mango pulp shared with giggles, the smell of rain hitting the tin shed, or the loud chime of the school bell before an unexpected half-day—those were victories. The biggest heartbreak was the last chocolate in the fridge going to Pari, and even that ended with tickles and loud apologies.

Pari—her sunshine, her shadow, her everything.

Kriti could still remember one particular summer afternoon like it was branded into her heart. She had been sixteen. Pari, barely six. The school had declared a surprise holiday after exams, and both their parents were away at work.

With the ceiling fan spinning lazily above them, and not a care in the world, they built a tiny house using sofa cushions, the old dupattas their mother didn't miss, and unmatched ambition.

"Madam, I haven't done my homework," Pari said dramatically, sitting cross-legged inside the cushion fortress, wearing her school bag backward for no reason at all.

Kriti, pretending to be the teacher, adjusted imaginary glasses on her nose and narrowed her eyes. "Then you'll be punished. Hundred jumps on the spot!"

Pari stuck out her tongue. "You're not even a real teacher."

"Excuse me?" Kriti gasped in mock horror. "I'm the best teacher in all of Dehradun!"

Pari giggled and crawled over, launching an attack of tiny tickling fingers. Kriti squealed, both of them collapsing into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Their fortress trembled under the weight of joy, but they didn't care.

They laughed until their stomachs ached. Until the house didn't feel small anymore. Until the world outside didn't exist.

That evening, Kriti made two bowls of Maggi, stirring in extra masala just the way Pari liked. She cut mangoes and sprinkled red chili powder and a hint of salt on the edges—just like their mother did. She even let Pari eat with her hands, although she'd scolded her for it earlier in their pretend school.

They had no idea how cruel the world could get. No idea how fast life could flip.

But even back then, the protector in Kriti had already taken root.

There was another memory—one that came wrapped in shadows and rain.

The electricity had gone out. A heavy storm thundered outside, the windows rattling, the curtains fluttering like ghosts. Kriti and Pari lay curled on their shared mattress, whispering stories until sleep took over.

It must've been past midnight when Kriti stirred. A sound had woken her—soft, eerie, like paper scraping across cement. Then came a cold silence.

And then, she saw it.

A pale, long-bodied lizard crawling down the damp wall, inching closer to their bed, its tail flicking, claws tapping.

Kriti froze. Her entire body went rigid. Lizards terrified her in a way nothing else did. Her mouth went dry. Her limbs stiffened.

But then she heard Pari.

A sleepy, frightened whisper. "Didi..."

Her sister stirred beside her, eyes half-open, breath already quickening. She had seen it too.

Kriti's fear cracked at that moment.

She couldn't let Pari see her panic. Couldn't let her feel unprotected.

So she sat up—slowly, shakily—her heart thudding like thunder. Her fingers reached out, fumbling in the dark until they found the old wooden broom leaning by the wardrobe.

Her palms were slick with sweat. Her knees trembled. But she stood.

She tapped the wall once. Nothing.

Again—harder this time. "Go... go away," she whispered, voice quivering.

The lizard paused, eyes glinting in the shadows. Pari whimpered behind her.

Kriti's grip tightened. She slammed the broom against the wall now, again and again, her breath coming in short bursts. "Go! Go away! Don't you dare—"

The lizard finally darted up, disappearing into the crack behind the curtain rod.

Silence returned, except now it pulsed with fear and triumph.

Kriti sat down on the mattress, breathless, her hands trembling. She pulled Pari close, kissing her forehead.

Pari was already asleep again, trusting. Unafraid.

And Kriti?

She stared at the ceiling, chest tight, arms wrapped around her little sister, whispering into the dark, "I won't let anything touch you. Not even a lizard. Not in this lifetime."

Even when afraid herself, she had stood between danger and her sister.

She always would.

The sound of her own scream shattered the memory.

Kriti's eyes flew open. Her body jolted forward in the darkness of the cell. Sweat clung to her skin like a second layer, her breath coming out in short, broken gasps.

She clutched her chest.

Air. She couldn't breathe.

Her vision spun, blurring the rusted bars, the stained ceiling, the half-broken fan. Everything pulsed in and out of focus.

"I couldn't protect her..." she whispered, choking on her own voice. "I couldn't... I couldn't..."

Her body trembled violently, curling into itself as if trying to shrink out of existence. Panic surged through her veins like fire.

From the adjacent cell, someone groaned. "Not again..."

Another inmate muttered, "Shut her up. Some of us are trying to sleep."

Footsteps approached quickly. The familiar sound of keys rattling. Then the bars creaked open.

"Kriti!"

Constable Seema.

The only officer in the jail who still spoke her name with a touch of humanity.

"Breathe," she said, kneeling beside her. "Can you hear me? Just look at me. Inhale... exhale... one breath at a time."

Kriti's fingers gripped the edge of her blanket. Her lips parted. A sob broke free.

"I couldn't... protect her," she cried, louder this time, her voice raw and aching. "I promised her I would. I failed, Seema. I—"

"Hey," Seema said, cupping her face gently. "You're not failing. You're surviving. And so is she."

Kriti's eyes filled. But she nodded. It was all she could do.

Seema gave her a small steel cup of water. She drank in sips, each drop calming the fire inside.

"Try to sleep," Seema whispered, standing. "You've got a long week ahead."

At that very hour, the light in Advocate Ranveer Choudhury's study was still on.

The rest of his family had retired for the night—his mother in her white silk shawl watching her serials, his father locked away in silence like usual, and his younger brother studying anatomy upstairs.

Ranveer sat behind his teakwood desk, sleeves rolled up, jaw tense, eyes fixed on a thin government-issued file that lay open in front of him.

Kriti Sharma. Age 25. Occupation: Schoolteacher. Accused of first-degree murder.

"No lawyer hired," he muttered, flipping through the pages. "No defense. No explanation. She confessed."

A junior lawyer had handed him the file earlier that day. "Routine case, sir. Government-appointed defense. Probably another one of those 'heat of the moment' murders."

Ranveer hated those words.

He scanned the evidence summary. One knife. A dead man. No witnesses. No CCTV.

Just Kriti Sharma's flat voice in court: "Yes, I did it."

The confession made everything easy.

Too easy.

Ranveer flipped to the last page—a mugshot.

It was always the eyes. Not what they revealed. But what they tried—desperately—to hide.

Kriti Sharma's eyes weren't the kind you'd expect to find in a murder file.
They weren't wild with guilt or glazed with remorse.
They weren't pleading for mercy.
They weren't proud.
They weren't even numb.

They were still.

Still, like a lake moments before a storm.
Still, like the pause between a scream and its echo.
Still, but not empty.

There was something behind that quiet.
A shadow. A secret. A story begging to be heard without words.

Ranveer tapped the photograph twice, slowly. "Why didn't you speak?"

The file was thin. Too thin.
No priors. No friends. No lawyer.
Just one clean confession.

He frowned. A case like this should've closed itself.

But it didn't.

Because silence isn't always submission. Sometimes, silence is survival.

His eyes narrowed on a line buried in bureaucratic ink:
Victim's name withheld by family. Media silence imposed.

Why?

He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

He had taken hundreds of cases. Walked into courtrooms full of noise, lies, blood, and truth.
He had defended monsters and saved innocents. He had seen tears fake enough to shame theatre and silences deep enough to drown in.

But this?

This wasn't a case. This was a trapdoor. A whisper. A dare.

And Ranveer Choudhury had never ignored a dare.

He closed the file with a soft thud.

He closed the file, leaned forward, and said to his assistant who had just walked in, "Schedule my visit to District Jail. First thing tomorrow."

"You're meeting the prisoner?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," he said simply. "She may have confessed. But I haven't heard her side yet."

And in a jail cell across the city, Kriti sat curled under the worn, scratchy blanket that barely covered her. The chill of the concrete floor seeped into her bones, but it was not what kept her awake. Her eyes were wide open, tracing the cracks on the ceiling like they held some secret escape route.

Sleep had stopped visiting her weeks ago. Night after night, she waited—for what, she couldn't say. A whisper of change. A shift in fate. Something. Anything.

What she didn't know was that tonight, miles away, someone had picked up her file for the first time without judgment clouding their eyes.
She didn't know that her silence had unsettled him. That her name had made someone pause.

She didn't know a question had been born in the mind of a man who had seen hundreds of confessions—just never one like hers.

And somewhere in the folds of that silence, her story began to stir.

Not loudly. Not yet.

But maybe, just maybe, the truth she had buried so deeply was no longer content to stay hidden.

And with it, perhaps, the slow, agonizing unraveling of something resembling justice. Or redemption. Or both.

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