The door clicked shut behind them. Silence returned. A different kind of silence not fear, not defeat but power.
Meher stared at herself in the mirror again. The same face. Same lips. Same innocent eyes.
But behind those eyes now lived memory. Pain. And a fire that refused to be extinguished again.
She turned the lock on her bedroom door. Her breath shook. Her hands did too. But her spine stayed straight.
"I'm not dying like that again," she whispered to herself.
The day passed in strange rhythms.
She skipped breakfast and lunch, knowing her stepmother's tricks the subtle drugging, the sleepy fog. She watched from the window as Rhea basked in attention, playing the wounded doll. Her stepfather left for his office like nothing had happened.
Everything was repeating itself. But not her.
That evening, Rhea knocked.
"Di?" Her voice was soft. "Are you mad? I didn't mean to you know it was an accident."
Meher didn't open the door.
"You're not the only one who knows how to act, Rhea," she said clearly. "This life? I'll be the villain if I have to."
There was a pause. Then the sound of Rhea walking away.
Later, Meher retrieved her old schoolbag from the closet. Deep inside, beneath layers of dust and old notebooks, she found the journal.
It had once been filled with dreams, poems, and sketches.
Now, she tore out every page.
And she started fresh.
On the first page, she wrote:
"If I am reborn, I am not helpless. I am not theirs. I am mine."
She began listing everything she remembered and wrote every single incident, like small or big events, people, and patterns. The moment Rhea would start her games. The nights Aarav would call. The day she'd be invited to Club Inferno. And person who saved her.
She would not go blindly this time.
She'd build a different ending.
Two nights later…
Meher quietly messaged a local self-defense instructor she remembered from her old life. A woman who taught street techniques in a run-down gym.
"Do you accept private lessons for girls who can't tell anyone they're training?" she typed.
The reply came within minutes:
"Yes. Come alone. First session free."
As she closed the chat, her phone lit up with a message from an unknown number.
Aarav: "Hey beautiful. Rhea gave me your number. You seem...different in school lately. Want to go out sometime?"
Meher stared at the screen. In her past life, this was the message that made her blush, smile, and believe someone saw her for once.This time, her lips curled into something colder.She didn't reply. She just blocked him.
She wasn't going to be sweet.She wasn't going to be quiet. And she wasn't going to wait for anyone to save her. Because next time Devian saw her she wouldn't be dying in his arms. She would be standing on her own.