Ayush barely slept that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, the same thought surfaced like a shadow rising from deep water:
The story knows his past.
Morning arrived quietly, but Ayush's mind was loud. He moved through his routine on autopilot—brushing his teeth, eating breakfast, nodding at his parents—while his thoughts stayed locked on the dark screen of his laptop.
At school, words felt distant. Teachers spoke, friends laughed, bells rang—but Ayush felt like he was standing behind glass, watching life instead of living it.
Neel noticed.
"Bhai, you're not okay," Neel said during lunch. "You look like you haven't slept in years."
Ayush forced a smile. "Just tired."
Neel lowered his voice. "About last night… you think it'll come back?"
Ayush didn't answer immediately.
"It didn't shut down because of a bug," he said finally. "It shut down because I refused."
Neel frowned. "Refused what?"
"To remember."
Neel wanted to ask more, but something in Ayush's eyes stopped him.
That evening, Ayush locked his room door and sat in front of his desk again. The laptop lay exactly where he had left it, harmless and silent.
For a long moment, he just stared.
Then he opened it.
The screen powered on instantly—no loading, no delay—as if it had been awake the whole time.
The document opened by itself.
A single line waited:
"You can't avoid this chapter."
Ayush's jaw tightened.
"Why are you doing this?" he whispered.
The cursor blinked.
Then words appeared:
"Because this memory shapes every line you write."
Ayush leaned back, heart pounding.
"No," he said quietly. "I don't write about it."
"Exactly."
The word hit harder than he expected.
Ayush closed his eyes.
Images pushed forward—unwanted, sharp.
A hospital corridor.
White walls.
The smell of antiseptic.
He shook his head. "Stop."
The screen didn't respond.
Instead, another line formed:
"You learned silence before you learned storytelling."
Ayush's breathing grew uneven.
"That's not fair," he said. "You don't get to decide what I remember."
The response came slowly:
"You already did—by never writing it."
Something cracked inside him.
Ayush stood up abruptly, pacing the room. "Fine. You want the truth? The truth is messy. The truth hurts people."
The cursor moved.
"Truth always does."
Ayush stopped.
His hands clenched.
"You want me to write about the accident," he said.
The screen stayed silent.
That silence was louder than any reply.
Ayush sat back down.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
The accident.
The night everything changed.
He had been thirteen.
A rainy evening.
A decision made in anger.
He swallowed hard.
Slowly—carefully—he typed:
"That night, I chose silence instead of honesty."
The moment he pressed Enter, the room changed.
The air felt heavier.
Colder.
The words on the screen shimmered.
A new paragraph appeared—one Ayush did not type:
"And someone paid the price."
Ayush's chest tightened painfully.
"No," he whispered. "I didn't cause it."
"You didn't stop it either."
His vision blurred.
He remembered now.
The argument.
The warning he never gave.
The accident that followed.
A friend.
A fall.
An ambulance too late.
Ayush slammed his hands on the desk. "That's enough!"
The laptop vibrated violently.
Then the document scrolled on its own.
"You turned guilt into imagination.
Pain into stories.
Fear into control."
Ayush stared at the words, tears burning behind his eyes.
"This isn't why I write," he said.
The reply came instantly:
"It is why you write."
The truth settled in him like a weight.
He had written to escape.
To rewrite outcomes.
To feel powerful where he once felt helpless.
The screen softened its tone:
"This is the first honest line you've written."
Ayush wiped his eyes. "And now what?"
The cursor blinked once.
Twice.
Then:
"Now the story can move forward."
The room returned to normal.
The pressure eased.
Ayush leaned back, exhausted.
He had expected something dramatic—lights flickering, walls shaking.
Instead, what scared him most was the calm.
Because he knew this wasn't the end.
It was the opening of something deeper.
Something that had been waiting for him to stop running.
Ayush closed the laptop slowly.
For the first time since finding the journal, he wasn't afraid of what the story might do next.
He was afraid of what it already knew.