The house was quieter than usual.
Not the peaceful quiet of dawn,
but the hushed, heavy quiet that settles after truths are revealed —
truths that no one was ready to receive,
yet all had witnessed in the trembling lamplight of the night before.
The echoes of the room's sorrow still lingered in the air, thin as incense smoke long after the flame had died.
Maya had taken her place again, jacket restored to her shoulders, every scar hidden once more beneath the fabric that cloaked her like night itself. The guests had returned to murmuring, cups trembling between uncertain fingers, conversations stitched back together with threads too fragile to pull tight.
Yet under that fragile normalcy, a tremor lived.
A quiet awareness.
A hush that felt like the moment before a storm.
And then—
A soft shuffle of footsteps.
A rustle of dark coats.
The members of the Ghost of Hell—those silent shadows who had followed Maya through nightmares and wars— One by one, they stepped into the room —hesitant, unsure, humbledafter what they had seen carved upon her skin the moment before.
They formed a quiet circle around her—respectful, hesitant, like warriors approaching a shrine.
Nahir spoke first.
"Maya…"
He cleared his throat, voice unusually unsure.
"Maya… may we… ask something?"
Maya lifted her eyes.
Just once.Then returned them to the floor.
"You may ask."
Her voice was calm, steady, stripped of emotion —
as if emotions were ornaments she no longer owned.
Rahi cleared his throat softly.
"… you said something.We want to understand it,"he hesitated.
"Then ask," she said.
Nahir exchanged glances with the others, then stepped closer.
"We heard what you said," he began softly.
"You said you cannot heal yourself…"
Maya's gaze did not tremble.
"Yes."
pause.
A long one.
Maya did not blink."I cannot."
Her voice was steady.
Like she was discussing weather, not the truth of her own body.
The room froze again.
A second silence fell over everyone—heavy, ancient, like the stillness of a forest before an earthquake splits the earth.
Farhan frowned softly.
"But you can heal worlds. You can heal others. You can undo time. You can reverse… so much."
"I can," Maya replied.
"Then why not yourself?" Nahir asked quietly.
Maya's answer came slowly, shaped by memories she did not show.
"Because some wounds were made to stay."
The room hushed.
Maya lowered her eyes for a heartbeat.
Then rose them again with a calm that felt older than sorrow.
"I cannot harm myself," she said softly.
"And I cannot heal myself."
Nahir's voice was small.
"Why?"
"I cannot," she said.
Her voice carried no shame, no fragility, no tremor of emotion.
Only fact.Only truth.
Nahir swallowed hard,"…Why?"
His question was soft, trembling—
like a candle flame bowing before wind.
Maya looked past him for a moment, as though remembering a sky she had once seen only through iron bars.
""When I was very young, they tortured me , They tested me… over and over.Pain was a constant… like air, like gravity.It shaped me before I understood what shaping meant."
she said quietly,
"my body suffered. My mind suffered."
she continued,"Back then… I wanted to live.
Desperately.Every day I wished to escape.
I tried to run.
Over and over.
But they always caught mewanted escape. I would run whenever I saw a chance… even though I never succeeded."
Fahin's breath caught."They hurt you when you tried to escape?"
A long silence.
"There was discipline," she said quietly.
"And correction.
And when I resisted…
their methods grew harsher."
Fahim said, "So you learned to survive pain."
A statement, not a question.
Maya nodded."It was my only way to stay alive."
Rani, who stood with arms wrapped around herself, whispered:
"You tried to flee? Alone?"
Maya glanced at her.
"Yes."
"Did you…" Rani began, but the question lodged in her throat.
The Ghost of Hell members waited.
Even the air seemed to hold its breath.
Fahin stepped forward then, voice roughened by a trembling anger he tried to swallow.
Rani whispered:
"There was a time when you didn't want to live anymore."Her voice broke at the end.
"Maya," he said, "if you wanted to escape… if you wanted to survive back then… why would you ever try to harm yourself later? Why even think of something like that…?"
His question quivered, not from accusation but from heartbreak.
The kind heartbreak that comes when you realize someone has lived an entire lifetime in silence and pain you never saw.
Maya blinked once.
Slow.
Detached.
"The day Arab died," she said.
The name dropped like a stone in a sacred river.
Every person there felt its ripples.
Someone whispered, barely audible,
"Arab…"
"He was the only reason I survived. The only person who try to understand my darkness.
He protected me when I was too weak.He taught me how to hope.
He gave me something to look forward to…
in a world where there was nothing to look at but pain."
Her hands tightened slightly in her lap.
Rahi whispered, "And then…?"
Maya's voice thinned — not shaking, not breaking —
but turning into something hollow and ancient.
"He died," she said.
Maya's fingers rested lightly on the rim of her cup.Truth that felt heavier than every scar on her skin.
"When he died in front of me," Maya continued,her voice steady, unwavering,
"I felt that everything inside me died with him."
"They placed his body inside my cell."
Her voice remained calm—
I thought I had lost everything..My reason to keep breathing."
too calm.
"He was the only one who made the dark feel less dark. The only one who understood."
Her eyes lowered.
"And he died because of my mistakes."
Fahin's jaw tightened.
"No—"
But she cut him off gently."When he died," Maya continued,
"I felt the world collapse. Everything I knew—every reason I held onto life—dissolved.
I could not see any path forward."
The Ghost of Hell members bowed their heads.
They knew the edge between survival and despair well.
But Maya's voice stayed even.
"When I realized he was gone," she whispered,
"I… no longer searched for escape."
Nahir's voice broke.
"Maya…"
Farhan's voice was just a breath." So, you tried… to end your suffering."
"I was not trying to harm myself," she clarified quietly.
"I was simply trying to stop existing."
The room shook with silence.
Rani wiped at her eyes, her voice barely a breath.
"So… after I escaped…after I ran for my life that night… when i run away from the facility… you tried to... to suicide?"
Maya looked at her.There was no emotion.
Only truth.
"Yes."
Rani's hand covered her mouth.
A soft, trembling sound escaped her—neither sob nor gasp but something between.
Farhan whispered, "Did you… feel anything? Pain? Fear of death ?"
"No," Maya said.
"That is the problem. I do not feel fear in such moments. I do not feel anything. My instincts are… altered."
Fahin shook his head, overwhelmed.
"But Maya… your powers can rewrite reality. You bend time. Heal lives. Stop destruction. Why can't you heal your own scars? Your own injuries? Your own mind?"
Maya nodded, calm,"There is something inside me — a force they built, a core they engineered.It prevents me from harming myself.
It stops any act of destruction when directed inward.
It is… a safeguard and a cage .
A leash."
Fahin's fists tightened, anger shaking his voice,"They didn't even allow you control over your own body."
"No," Maya said.
"It was never mine."The room felt colder.
Maya lifted her chin a fraction.
"I was designed to survive. At any cost."
Nahi stepped closer, whispering:
"Designed… to resist death."
"Yes."
"Even your own?"
"Yes."
He closed his eyes, as though the truth itself hurt.
Maya continued:
"When I attempted to make myself disappear… the energy inside me rejected the action. It stopped me. Forced me back."
A ripple of horror moved through the circle.
Rani's voice cracked:
"You mean you couldn't… even choose…?"
"No."
"And you still have no choice?"
"No."
Her answers were rain on cold stone.
Mahi stepped forward from the back of the room, voice shaking like old prayer beads slipping between trembling fingers.
"What kind of life is that, Maya…?"
she whispered.
"To suffer and not be allowed to speak and not be allowed to escape… to break but never be allowed to crumble…"
Maya looked at her.
Her eyes were ancient, deep—
but still without emotion.
"It is the life I was built for."
Fahin whispered, "Built…"
Maya did not contradict him. wiped tears again.
"So all this time… all these years… you lived with this ?"
"Yes."
"You didn't tell anyone?" she whispered.
"There was no point," Maya said.
Nahir exhaled shakily.
"Maya… but you're free now. You're with us. You have a family. You have people who care. Why does it still feel like you're carrying everything on your own?"
Maya lowered her gaze.
Her next words were soft.
Almost tender in their honesty.
"Because I do not know how to place my burdens on others.
I never learned."
Silence touched every corner of the room.
Even the walls seemed to bow in grief.
Fahin murmured:
"You don't trust us enough?"
She met his eyes.
"No," she said softly.
"It is not about trust.It is about habit.I learned to survive by holding everything inside.
And habits built in fear do not leave easily."
Rani knelt in front of her, tears slipping down her cheeks.
"Maya… would you ever try again? To… disappear? To leave us?"
Maya paused.
Her voice held a strange softness, like dusk settling over a long field.
"No.
Not anymore."
"Why not?" Rani whispered.
"Because He tell me to stay alive."
A silence heavier than every scar she carried stretched between them.
Nahir finally said:
"Maya… do you still feel that emptiness?"
Maya thought for a moment.
Then nodded once.
"Yes."
"Does it hurt?"
"No," she said.
"But it also does not heal."
Farhan whispered:
"Do you want it to heal?"
Maya's gaze drifted toward the window again, where moonlight touched the glass like a blessing from an old sky.
"No, " she said.
Mahi broke into silent sobs.
Mahim bowed his head.
Rani covered her mouth.
Nahir whispered,
"Maya… then let us be one more reason you stay."
But Maya only blinked.
Slow.
"I do not stay for reasons," she murmured.
"I stay because I cannot leave."
Rani whispered:
"But you stay also because… of him. "
Maya did not deny it.
The silence that followed was long, tender, painful.
Then Fahin took a slow breath.
"Maya… what would you do if Arab were here? What would he say?"
Maya glanced at the floor.
"He would tell me," she said,
"that I must not vanish.
That I must live.
That running toward death was never my destiny."
"And would you listen?" Fahin asked gently.
Maya's reply came like the final note of an old song—
"I am keeping his word now."
The Ghost of Hell members bowed their heads in respect.Maya did not smile.She did not cry.She simply looked at them with that ancient, silent gaze...as though she wished she could believe those words.
But could not yet.
Not fully.
Not tonight.
Still—
When she reached for her cup again,
her hands were steady.
Her sleeve slipped down just a little—
revealing a single scar.
Only one.
And for the first time,she did not hide it.Not immediately.Not as she sipped.Not as she breathed.
Not as the room watched her with hearts that broke and healed in the same breath.
The night settled again.
Soft.
But this time—
Maya was not at the center of their silence.
She was at the center of their care.. as an old tradition that refuses to vanish.