The morning air was pale — too pale, almost fragile — and the mist clung to everything like memory.
It draped the marble steps, the golden gates, even the edges of the black car that waited outside the Sunayna estate.
The week had been calm — eerily calm — a quiet so deep it felt like the world was holding its breath.
And then, at dawn, something shifted.
The stillness began to crack.
Life — hesitant, slow — began to return to the house like the first drops of rain before a storm.
Doors opened. Curtains fluttered. Voices returned, soft and measured, careful not to disturb the thin thread of peace that had finally found its way back.
Mahim left early, the faint clink of his car keys echoing through the hall.
Mahi moved through the garden with a basket of rose petals and trimmed leaves, pretending not to look toward the balcony where her daughter stood — though every few moments, she did.
Inside, Fahim and Fahad dressed for meetings, adjusting ties in the mirror. Farhan hummed softly to himself while checking his phone — a tune from another time, another world.
And the Ghosts of Hell — those quiet, wounded boys who once moved through darkness — now wore new uniforms. They stood together in the courtyard, shirts crisp, shoes shining, each holding a backpack instead of a weapon.
A strange sight, if one remembered who they once were.
But Maya had commanded it.
And when Maya commanded, there was no refusal.
Her words were law — not born of fear, but of something weightier. Reverence.
Mahim had arranged everything. Admissions, documents, uniforms — all done with quiet obedience. For when his daughter spoke, her voice no longer belonged to the realm of ordinary children. It was the voice of someone who had seen beyond life and returned changed.
He didn't question her anymore.
He only obeyed.
The black car waited in the driveway.
Maya stood beside it — still as dawn itself.
Her school uniform was immaculate: black blazer, pleated skirt, gloves, her faintly glowing hair clip. The morning light brushed her cheekbones and caught in her hair like liquid silver.
She looked untouchable.
Cold, perhaps.
But not cruel.
Her eyes, though distant, were strangely calm — a deep stillness that no one dared disturb.
One by one, the Ghosts of Hell filed out, heading toward the van that would take them to university.
Rahi was among them, his college bag slung carelessly over his shoulder. He paused before stepping in, glancing once at Maya.
She didn't look back.
But something in the air shifted — like she had felt his gaze, acknowledged it, and dismissed it all at once.
He smiled faintly.
"She doesn't need to look," he murmured under his breath. "She already knows."
Then he climbed in, and the car doors shut.
Maya's driver opened the door for her. She entered silently, the hem of her skirt brushing against the sunlight pooling on the marble.
The car started.
And as the estate disappeared behind her, Maya turned her eyes toward the window — expressionless, silent.
The city was alive again.
The streets bustled with sound, the rhythm of morning traffic weaving through honking horns and hurried footsteps.
The car slid through it like a ghost through smoke.
When they reached the school, Maya stepped out quietly.
It was as it always was — laughter echoing off the walls, clusters of students gossiping, the clatter of shoes against stone.
But when she entered through the main gate, something subtle happened.
The noise… shifted.
Not silence, not exactly — but a hush of attention.
Eyes followed her.
Whispers stirred.
"The silent one."
"The witch girl."
"The one who doesn't talk."
Maya didn't respond.
Her black shoes clicked softly on the floor as she walked down the hall, books pressed against her chest.
The others moved aside instinctively — not in fear, but in quiet awe, as if she carried a boundary no one dared cross.
She reached her locker, exchanged her books, and walked to class. Every motion was precise, graceful, almost mechanical — the rhythm of someone who had mastered repetition, who had done this countless times without ever truly being there.
When lunch came, she went outside — to her usual place, beneath the old banyan tree at the corner of the courtyard.
The air was warm now, touched with gold. The leaves cast broken patterns on her notebook as she drew — faint lines that grew into a small figure.
A girl.
Sitting inside the cage.
Her pencil moved slowly, tracing sorrow into form.
She didn't hear them coming.
At first, it was just one voice — sharp, mocking.
Then another.
And another.
"Hey… that's her, right?"
"The quiet witch?"
"She thinks she's too good for everyone."
"Maybe she can curse us if we talk to her."
"Smile for us, Maya—oh wait, witches don't smile."
Laughter. Harsh. Human.
Maya didn't move.
Didn't even lift her head.
She just kept drawing.
Line after line.
Shadow after shadow.
The boys grew bolder.
One kicked the bench beside her, the noise snapping through the air.
"Hey! We're talking to you!"
Another leaned closer, his grin turning sharp. "What's wrong, too proud to answer?"
Still nothing.
The silence made them angry — because silence, to the cruel, is unbearable.
"She's scared," one muttered.
"Or maybe she's dumb."
That word.
It fell heavy in the air.
And the wind… stopped.
The banyan leaves froze mid-rustle.
The sunlight dimmed, turning the world pale and gray.
The air grew thick — electric, heavy.
And Maya looked up.
Slowly.
Her eyes rose from the page — dark, unblinking, empty.
No anger.
No heat.
Only stillness.
The kind of stillness that makes even the fearless step back.
The boy closest to her swallowed hard.
"W-what are you looking at?"
Maya stood.
The notebook slipped from her lap to the ground.
When she moved, it was without sound — without rush, without force — yet the air trembled around her, bending as though it, too, obeyed her presence.
Then—
Without touching them—
They fell.
Not struck, not thrown — simply crushed beneath the weight of her will.
"Stop—!"
"Please—!"
"Maya—what—"
Her voice came soft, colder than ice.
"You said I was small."
A pause.
"Tell me now… do I still look small to you?"
No one answered.
They couldn't.
The illusion broke — like glass shattering in silence — and they collapsed, trembling, pale as ghosts.
Maya turned.
The crowd that had gathered parted in silence.
Not fear.
Awe.
Like witnessing something divine.
She walked through them, steps steady, measured, echoing faintly across the courtyard.
No one dared follow.
At the gate, a teacher rushed forward, panic flashing across her face.
"Maya—wait! You can't just—"
But the words died on her tongue.
Because when she saw Maya's eyes — calm, distant, too old for her years — she knew this was not a child one could scold.
This was a being the world had already tried, and failed, to break.
Outside the gates, Maya paused.
The breeze caught her hair, and for the first time that day, she looked upward.
The sky was pale blue, almost white, the clouds moving softly like wandering souls.
"They wanted a storm," she whispered.
Her voice barely touched the air.
"So I gave them wind."
And she walked away.
When Mahim arrived at the school after the call from office and the office was full — parents shouting, teachers flustered, papers scattered.
The boys' parents demanded punishment, apology, explanation.
Mahim said nothing.
He simply stood near the doorway, gaze steady on his daughter.
She sat quietly at the far end of the office — hands folded in her lap, eyes downcast, untouched by the noise around her.
When the shouting finally subsided, Mahim spoke.
"She doesn't start fights," he said, his tone calm, deliberate. "She ends the fight ."
The room went still.
Even the principal lowered her eyes.
Maya didn't look at her father. Didn't speak.
But for a fleeting moment, her hand twitched — as though she wanted to reach out and it wanted to say something .
Then it stilled again.
Outside, through the glass, a single leaf drifted past — slow, golden, fragile — brushing against the window before vanishing into air.
No one spoke after that.
Because they all understood something too late—
That Maya's silence was not weakness.
It was control.
It was strength.
It was the fire that burned beneath still water — unseen, untouchable, eternal.
And when she left the office that day, the world seemed quieter.
Not because it feared her.
But because, for the first time, it listened.