The blinding light faded slowly, as if peeling itself away layer by layer. Dhruve blinked, waiting for shapes to form, but what emerged wasn't a landscape or some mystical place.
It was a room.
A small, dimly lit room.
Four walls.
A single chair.
A quiet bulb hanging overhead.
A room he knew far too well.
His old bedroom… from his teenage years.
Dhruve froze. His throat dried up instantly. "No… why the hell—why this place?"
Mira remained just outside the door, watching him with cautious eyes. "This is where the corridor believes your truth begins."
Dhruve almost laughed—bitter, angry, exhausted. "Truth? There's no 'truth' here. Just shit I survived."
But the air in the room shifted.
Footsteps echoed behind him.
Dhruve turned.
And he saw—himself.
A younger version of him. Sixteen. Skinny, tired-faced, with dark circles under his eyes. The kid sat on the old bed with slumped shoulders, staring at the floor like he didn't know where else to look.
Dhruve's heart punched through his ribs.
"Damn…" he whispered. "I'd forgotten how fucked up I looked back then."
The boy didn't move at first.
He just breathed quietly, as if even breathing felt like a burden.
Then he lifted his head.
And he stared right at Dhruve.
His younger voice—soft, shaky—cut through the silence:"Why did you leave me behind?"
Dhruve stepped back a little.
"What?"
"You promised…" the boy murmured, his voice trembling with something between anger and heartbreak, "that we'd grow up and be happy. That things would get better. That all this pain was just temporary."
Dhruve clenched his jaw. "I tried. You know I tried."
"You did," the boy replied softly, almost sympathetically. "But somewhere along the way… you stopped trying for yourself. You only tried for people who kept breaking you."
The words landed harder than Dhruve expected.
Mira quietly stood by the door frame—she didn't speak, didn't interfere. She simply existed, letting his past confront him.
Dhruve looked at the younger him. Really looked.
This was the kid who cried silently at night so no one heard.Who kept every failure hidden.Who kept every fear to himself.Who learned to smile even when his chest was tightening.Who trusted people who didn't know how to love him back.
Dhruve's voice dropped to a whisper:"I got older. I worked. I built a life. I made it out."
"Did you?" the boy asked.
Then he stood up from the bed — fragile, but with a strange resolve.
"You grew up… but you kept my loneliness. You kept my fear of losing people. You kept that stupid habit of thinking love would save you if you just held on tightly enough."
Dhruve's breath stilled.
The boy stepped closer, until they were inches apart.
"You didn't fail me," he whispered. "But you forgot me. You forgot the part of you that needed comfort too. You kept giving, giving, giving… until there was nothing left to protect."
Dhruve swallowed hard. His chest hurt—deep, sharp, raw.
He wanted to defend himself.Say he did his best.Say he tried.
But the boy already knew.
"Dhruve," the younger version murmured, "you deserved to be cared for too."
That single sentence cracked something inside him.
Dhruve lowered his head, and a silent tear slipped down his cheek before he could stop it. The boy didn't judge him. Instead, he reached out with a hand too gentle, too understanding.
And Dhruve, for the first time in years, didn't push the comfort away.
He let the boy place the small hand over his chest.
In a voice barely above a whisper, the boy said:
"It's okay. You're allowed to stop hurting."
Something shifted around them.
The walls rippled.
The air lightened.
The light above their heads grew warmer.
Mira stepped forward. She didn't intrude — she simply laid a quiet hand on Dhruve's shoulder, grounding him back in the present.
The boy began to fade.
Not tragically.
Not painfully.
But peacefully… like a wound finally healing.
His final words lingered as he dissolved into soft light:
"Take care of me… this time."
Dhruve closed his eyes.
When he opened them again—
The room was gone.
The corridor returned.
But something inside him felt… lighter. Not healed, not fixed — but no longer drowning.
Mira's voice was gentle. "You faced the truth."
Dhruve nodded slowly. "Yeah. And it hurt like hell."
"Truth always hurts first," she said softly. "Then it starts rebuilding."
He wiped his eyes roughly, embarrassed but relieved.
"Let's keep going," he muttered.
Mira smiled faintly. "As you wish."
They stepped deeper into the corridor, the mist parting—not because it was less dangerous,but because Dhruve was finally starting to breathe again.