Karthik reached home, gasping for breath, and hammered on the front door with trembling fists. The moment his father opened it, the horrifying abomination from the cemetery vanished from his mind, replaced by a cold dread. He had not only skipped his temple duties but had also returned hours past curfew.
He braced himself. A missed pooja would earn him a lecture, a familiar sting, but this—coming home in the dead of night—felt like crossing an unspoken boundary. He had no idea what consequences awaited him, and his fear deepened, twisting his gut.
"Karthik," his father's voice was calm, unnervingly so, "where were you? Why are you so late?"
Karthik stood, swaying, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. The world blurred. Then, without warning, he collapsed.
The accumulated pressure of the last few hours—the horrifying ghost, the desperate run, the sudden confrontation—had finally overwhelmed him. His body, drained from the long journey and without food, simply gave out.
His father gasped, his calm façade shattering as his son crumpled before him. He shook Karthik vigorously, his calls of "Son! Karthik!" growing frantic, but there was no response. He splashed water on his face, then scooped him up, rushing him out the door and towards the nearest hospital, a desperate prayer forming on his lips.
At the hospital, after a quick examination, the doctors assured him it was nothing more than severe exhaustion and stress. Karthik would wake up after some rest, they said, confirming his body just needed to recover with the help of an IV drip.
Waiting by his son's bedside, Karthik's father was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. Anger still simmered – anger at Karthik for his defiance, for running away during such an important time. But beneath it churned a deeper, more unsettling doubt: doubt in himself, in his failure to understand his own son, to see what could have pushed him to such a breaking point. He stared at Karthik's pale face, agonizing over what could have caused such profound stress.
News reached Karthik's mother quickly. She flew to the hospital, her face a storm of rage and sorrow as she demanded answers. Once the situation was explained, and with the doctors' reassurance, they made the difficult decision to take Karthik home. While the hospital offered comfort, staying longer was a luxury their simple priestly income couldn't sustain.
The next day, Karthik slowly surfaced from a deep, dreamless sleep, opening his eyes to find his parents dozing fitfully on a mat beside his bed. As they stirred awake, he braced himself, frantically searching for an excuse, any excuse, for the previous night.
But his father's first words were not an accusation. "Are you okay, son?" he asked, his voice rough with concern.
A wave of overwhelming relief and something akin to joy washed over Karthik. His father was worried about him, not angry. "Yes, Appa," he whispered, feeling a warmth he hadn't expected.
"Good," his father replied, a flicker of his usual sternness returning. "We will talk about yesterday after you have fully recovered." The anger was still there, a ghost of a shadow in his eyes, but for now, his son's health was paramount. With that, his father left to inform the school of Karthik's absence.
At the school, when he explained Karthik was unwell due to immense stress, the teacher's composure fractured. Her face became a mask of profound guilt and worry. Hesitantly, she began to explain everything: the relentless bullying Karthik faced, the cruel jokes from his classmates about his family's temple work, the way they twisted his very identity into a punchline.
As Karthik's father listened, each word was a blow. The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. He finally understood why his son detested the religious duties, why he had been so desperate to escape the pooja preparations. In that moment, the last lingering embers of his anger for Karthik's truancy vanished, incinerated by a profound, aching guilt.
After Karthik's father left, the teacher returned to the classroom, her expression grim, to address his so-called friends. She relayed what had happened, and the casual cruelty of their taunts suddenly took on a heavy, painful weight. Shocked, they tried to offer weak excuses, but none of their words could lessen the crushing reality of Karthik's suffering.
By the end of the day, a quiet, uncomfortable reckoning had begun. Karthik's parents questioned the home they had made for their son, and the sacrifices they had demanded. His teacher questioned her own awareness and inaction, the bullies she had implicitly allowed. His friends questioned their casual cruelty, their thoughtless words. And Karthik, lying in the quiet of his room, questioned the very fabric of his reality, still grappling with the horrifying abomination that had set this painful chain of events in motion.
Everyone braced themselves for the inevitable new interactions—the first strained conversations, the tentative apologies, the wary glances—knowing these would be some of the most awkward and tense situations they had ever faced.