Kathmandu was beautiful in the way that quiet cities often are — the mountains surrounding it, the rivers cutting through neighborhoods, the air crisp with morning chill. A city that could have healed someone. A city that could have given Siddharth a second chance.
But healing required attention, and Siddharth's attention had long since fled. He had told his father he was studying. He had told the world he was trying. Every message, every lie, was carefully constructed. Behind the smiles and "I'm doing my best" texts lay hours of fantasy and escape.
He spent mornings scrolling through manhwa updates, afternoons listening to audiobooks about protagonists who received systems, powers, and second chances, and nights in a haze of lust and distraction. The days ran together like ink bleeding on paper, indistinguishable from one another.
Yet even in the escape, a small voice whispered. Siddharth felt it sometimes — the tug of reality at the edges of his fantasy. He knew, somewhere deep inside, that time was slipping, that he was sinking further into patterns that had already destroyed him once. But the fear of facing that truth kept him rooted in place. One glance at his father's hopeful eyes, one thought of another failure, and he froze.
Nameless. That was the identity he wrapped around himself like a cloak. Nameless didn't have expectations. Nameless didn't have failure. Nameless didn't have shame — at least, not in the same way Siddharth did. Nameless could watch the world without being part of it, could sink into stories and fantasies, and forget the weight pressing against his chest.
On one rainy afternoon, Siddharth walked through the quiet streets of Kathmandu. The city smelled of wet earth, burning wood, and rain-soaked stone. Children splashed in puddles. Old men sipped tea at small shops. Women carried baskets of vegetables home. Life went on. And he felt like a ghost moving among it — unseen, unnoticed, irrelevant.
He thought about his past, the years lost, the NEET exams failed, the endless fantasies of power and escape. He thought about the spark that had once made him want to be a doctor, the boy who had believed in rules, in diligence, in building something real. That boy seemed almost alien now, a memory from a life he no longer recognized.
And yet, even as he walked, even as the fantasies clamored louder in his mind, a subtle tension grew. Siddharth was beginning to notice the contradictions within himself: the desire to escape and the longing to exist; the fear of failure and the tiny spark of hope; the shame of lying and the fleeting thrill of freedom.
That evening, he sat by the riverbank, the water reflecting the muted lights of the city. He opened his notebook — not for study, not for planning, but for writing what he dared not speak aloud:
I know I am failing. I know I am wasting time. I know I deceive myself every day. I tell everyone I am trying, but I am not. And yet… I cannot stop. I cannot face the truth. I cannot step forward.
The words felt heavy, yet freeing. Siddharth wrote until his hand cramped, until the rain and darkness pressed against him, until he felt like he had poured part of himself onto the paper.
In that small act, a seed took root. It wasn't hope yet, not entirely. But it was recognition. He saw the patterns of his life for what they were. He named the fear, the escape, the shame. He acknowledged the fantasies that had swallowed him whole.
And somewhere beneath it all, Nameless stirred. Not the boy who had fled into stories, but the boy who could watch, who could reflect, who could begin to understand. Nameless wasn't yet alive. But he was beginning to awaken.
The night deepened, and Siddharth closed his notebook. The rain softened. The river murmured. The city breathed around him. And for the first time in a long while, he felt a flicker of something he hadn't felt in years: awareness.
Awareness that he was still here. Awareness that life was moving, even if he wasn't. Awareness that maybe, just maybe, he could take a step.
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