The glowing path ahead didn't look inviting.It didn't look safe either.
It looked… familiar.
Familiar in the way a place becomes part of your DNA: not because you loved it, but because you survived it.
Dhruve took one step, then another, Mira beside him. The light shifted as if responding to his heartbeat—brighter when he inhaled, dimmer when he exhaled. Like the damn corridor had decided to breathe with him.
"Why does it feel like this space knows me?" he muttered.
Mira didn't answer at first. Then quietly: "Because you built it."
He slowed. "I built… this?"
"Every locked memory, every numbed emotion, every time you said 'I'm fine' when you were breaking—this place was created to store all of it."
Dhruve cursed under his breath. "Great. So this whole nightmare is my interior design work."
Mira huffed a small laugh. "More accurate than you think."
They reached the end.
A single door stood there.
Old. Worn. Scratched.
Like countless hands had clawed at it from the inside.
Dhruve's stomach twisted. "What's behind that?"
Mira didn't soften her expression this time. "The year you disappeared."
Dhruve froze. "I didn't disappear."
"You did." Her voice held no judgment—just truth. "To other people, you showed up and functioned. But you weren't there. Not really."
Dhruve clenched his jaw. "I don't remember a year like that."
"That's the point," Mira whispered.
The door rattled.
Something on the other side hit it.Not violently—just a dull, heavy thud… as if something too exhausted to scream still wanted to be heard.
Dhruve instinctively stepped back.
Mira stopped him with a hand on his arm. "You don't have to open it. Not yet."
But the handle turned on its own.
The door creaked open.
No figure stood inside.
Just a room.
A bedroom.
Dhruve's breath caught. "This… is my old room…"
Not the apartment he shared with his wife.Not his married life.
The room from before — when he was still young, still surviving, still pretending everything was fine.
Messy bed sheets.Desk covered in books and unfinished sketches.A cracked mirror.No family photos anywhere.
Dhruve's shoes didn't want to move, but his feet walked anyway.
The silence in the room was suffocating — not quiet, but mute, like someone had turned the world's volume to zero.
Then he saw him.
Not a child.Not a teenager.
A young adult version of himself — maybe eighteen, nineteen — sitting on the floor with headphones on, knees pulled to his chest. His eyes were open but lifeless, staring into nothing.
Not crying.Not angry.Just… gone.
Dhruve whispered, "God… I remember this. I remember being like that."
Mira nodded. "This was the year you didn't feel anything at all."
New Dhruve walked closer slowly, afraid to disturb the stillness.
The younger version didn't react to him. Didn't flinch. Didn't blink.
Just breathed mechanically.
Dhruve crouched down. "I remember thinking… if I disappear, nobody will notice."
Mira didn't disagree.
Dhruve's voice wavered. "I wasn't suicidal. I just—didn't care anymore. Nothing hurt, but nothing mattered either."
"That is a scar most people never see," Mira said quietly. "The numb ones look strong from the outside."
Dhruve studied his younger self. "He looks like he survived hell… and then got too tired to keep living."
The young version finally blinked — but slowly, like it took effort.
Dhruve whispered to Mira, "How do I help him?"
"You can't help a numb person by forcing them to feel," Mira said gently. "You talk to them… like you're willing to be there even if they don't respond."
Dhruve swallowed hard and sat on the floor next to his past self — shoulder to shoulder but not touching.
Minutes passed.
No sound.
No reaction.
Just breathing.
Then Dhruve whispered, "I'm sorry you had no one."
His younger self didn't look up — but his fingers twitched slightly.
Dhruve continued. "I'm not here to tell you it gets better fast. It doesn't. We still struggle. We still break sometimes. We still pretend we're okay when we're not."
He laughed weakly. "Honestly, life didn't magically fix itself for us. It still hurts like hell sometimes."
Another twitch — this time in the jaw.
"But," Dhruve said softly, eyes stinging, "we stop letting everyone walk over us. We stop apologizing for being tired. We stop chasing love that hurts us. And little by little… we choose ourselves."
The younger version's eyes shifted almost imperceptibly toward him.
That was enough.
Dhruve reached out slowly and placed his hand gently over his past self's hand.
He didn't squeeze.Didn't force comfort.Just offered presence.
And for the first time in that memory — the numb younger Dhruve relaxed, just a little, like maybe he could breathe again.
The room brightened, then faded into light.
When Dhruve opened his eyes, he was standing in the corridor again. The door behind him dissolved into dust.
He looked exhausted, shoulders heavy — but something about his expression had changed.
Not healed.
Not fine.
Just… alive.
Mira stepped beside him. "You're starting to meet the versions of yourself you abandoned."
Dhruve let out a slow breath. "Feels like I'm carrying a thousand lifetimes."
"You've been carrying them alone," she replied. "Now you're finally facing them."
He stared down the corridor ahead — no light, no certainty, just the unknown.
But this time, he walked first.