The corridors of the Sunayna mansion were not meant for comfort. They were too long, too wide, their ceilings too high, as if the architecture itself had been designed to remind anyone walking through them how small they really were. Shadows pooled in the corners like stagnant water, untouched even by the chandeliers. The house did not whisper. It watched.
Maya walked those corridors as if they were part of her body, as if her feet already knew the way without her mind needing to guide them. Her steps were slow, noiseless, careful. She touched nothing, disturbed nothing. The silence clung to her like an extra layer of clothing.
Somewhere ahead, a sound broke the stillness: laughter.
It wasn't the kind of laughter that warmed a room. No—this laughter was brittle, edged with sharpness. It did not rise from joy; it was the echo of superiority, of boys-turned-men amusing themselves by cutting someone invisible into pieces.
Maya's head tilted slightly, like a shadow listening for its master's command. Then she followed.
The corridor opened into the living room.
The space was vast, its air heavy with the scent of leather and dust. The sofas, dark and broad, sprawled across the floor like lazy predators. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books whose spines hadn't been touched in years. Old portraits watched from above—oil-painted ancestors frozen in their stiff glory, eyes glinting in the lamplight with more life than the ones who sat beneath them.
A single lamp stood lit, its golden glow spilling onto the carpet, leaving the edges of the room in soft shadow. That light gathered around a circle of figures.
Her brothers.
And three cousins, unfamiliar faces with familiar arrogance.
Their voices drifted like smoke.
"She looked like a statue," Fahad was saying, his tall frame leaning forward, his smirk sharp enough to cut paper. "Didn't even breathe when she saw us."
One cousin barked a laugh, elbowing the other. "Are you sure she's alive? Maybe you dragged a corpse in a dress."
The second cousin grinned wider. "Would explain the eyes. Empty. Hollow. Like staring into a well."
Faha, lounging with his actor's smirk, tilted his head back against the sofa. "Not a corpse. Corpses don't have eyes like that. Did you see her? Cold. Like she's looking through you. Like she's memorizing the space you take up and deciding if you deserve it."
The first cousin snorted. "Or maybe she's just nothing inside. You know—broken doll."
In his corner seat, Fahish's voice cut through, quieter but sharper than theirs. "Dolls don't carry themselves like that. She stands like… she remembers something we don't."
Fahim adjusted his glasses, his voice clinical, a surgeon dissecting without remorse. "Whatever she remembers or doesn't, she's a blank slate . That's what matters."
Another cousin leaned forward, mocking. "Blank slate? More like blank soul. She didn't even say hello. What kind of manners are those? Raised in a jungle?"
Farhan, barely visible near the piano, murmured so softly it nearly drowned in the noise: "…Maybe she didn't grow up."
For a second, silence.
Then Fahad scoffed. "Whatever she is, she's not normal. That much is certain."
And that was when Maya stepped into the doorway.
The air froze.
Her figure was small, almost fragile in the lamplight, but her presence filled the space like smoke filling a lung. She stood still, her pale face unreadable, her eyes—dark, endless—gliding slowly across the room. She landed on each of them one by one. She did not blink.
The laughter died. No one told it to. It just… withered.
Fahad, unwilling to be swallowed by silence, forced his voice first. "We were just… talking."
Her gaze slid to him, heavy and slow, before shifting to Faha, then to the cousins. Her silence weighed more than their words.
One cousin shifted, uneasy. "It was a joke."
Her voice came then—soft, even, no tremor. "Was it funny?"
The question was simple. But the weight behind it pressed against the room's walls. No one answered.
Faha gave a thin chuckle, nervous at the edges. "Guess she's not as quiet as we thought."
Maya's eyes flicked to him. Her tone was almost gentle, but it cut clean: "Ghosts don't laugh."
The smirk fell from his lips.
Fahan leaned forward, voice cautious. "Do you… want to sit with us?"
Her gaze moved briefly toward the empty chair beside him, then back to the floor. She didn't answer.
Farhan's voice again, softer, fragile. "…You don't have to listen to them."
For the smallest heartbeat, her head tilted, a flicker of acknowledgment. Then she turned, her steps quiet as she left.
No one moved until her footsteps faded into the long corridor.
"She's… creepy," muttered one cousin, exhaling shakily.
"No." Fahish's tone was thoughtful, almost reverent. His eyes lingered on the empty doorway. "Not creepy. Heavy. Like she's carrying something none of us can touch."
Faha leaned back, smirk hollow now. "She didn't say ten words, and it feels like she drained all the air out of the room."
Farhan's hands hovered faintly above invisible piano keys. His whisper barely broke the silence. "She's not a ghost. She's something else."
The room itself seemed to hold its breath after she left, the walls clutching her silence like a secret.
Fahad snapped it first with a scoff. "That's it? That's the sister we've been waiting for? I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that." His voice dripped with disdain.
One cousin smirked. "She looked lost. Like a servant who wandered in by mistake."
"A servant would've smiled and bowed," Faha muttered darkly. "She just stared. Cold."
"She did say one thing," Fahish said quietly. His pen-like fingers tapped against his knee. "I'm not a child."
Fahad gave a mocking laugh. "One whole sentence. Impressive. Maybe next week she'll manage two."
Fahim's voice remained calm, surgical. "Don't exaggerate. She's been away for years. Who knows what kind of environment she grew up in. No school. No manners. Likely no discipline."
The cousin beside him leaned in, grinning. "Did you see how she touched the plate at dinner? Like she thought it was holy. Poor thing's probably never seen a real meal."
Faha's smirk sharpened. "Bet she doesn't even know which fork to use. We'll have to teach her. If she can learn."
Fahad chuckled low. "Assuming she can even read."
A murmur of agreement rose, casual, merciless. Their words were not cruel by accident; they were cruel by habit.
Fahan shifted uneasily, voice low. "You don't know that. You don't know her."
Fahad's eyes cut to him like knives. "And neither do you. Don't act like she's some story you can fix. She's not one of us. Maybe not ever."
Fahim pushed his glasses higher, tone flat. "If she lacks education, memory, manners—then she isn't just a stranger. She's a burden. And this family has no room for burdens."
Fahish spoke again, his voice soft but carrying. "Stranger or not, she's here. That makes her part of this house. But…" His gaze turned distant, cold. "She doesn't belong to it. Or to us."
Farhan's whisper drifted from the shadows: "…She's not bad."
Fahad barked a humorless laugh. "She's not anything. No warmth. No manners. No smile. No past worth mentioning. Just a blank face in expensive clothes."
A cousin muttered, "Blank face. Blank mind."
The words hung—until a colder voice sliced them apart.
"Enough."
They turned.
Mahi stood in the doorway. Her hands were clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. Her face, pale under the lamplight, was calm—but her eyes carried storms.
"You don't know her," she said softly, though steel threaded her tone. "None of you do."
Fahad rose, defiance bristling. "And what if we don't want to? What if she's not our sister?"
Her breath trembled, but she didn't falter. "She is your sister."
His voice sharpened, low and bitter. "Then why doesn't it feel like it?"
Silence. Thicker than any argument.
Upstairs, hidden in the shadows of the hallway, Maya stood still as stone. She had heard every word.
Her expression did not shift. Her eyes remained calm, too calm. Her hand rested lightly on the banister, fingers curling—not out of anger. Not out of pain.
Just folding in quietly, as if taking their words and locking them away where no one would see.
She turned without sound, walked back to her room.
Her door closed gently.
And the mansion—The Tears of Pearl—grew heavier that night, its walls pressing down like the weight of unspoken truths.