The rain poured mercilessly from the heavens, as though the sky itself had broken down into sobs—crying with her, for her. Thunder cracked above, echoing the turmoil inside her chest. The streets, usually bustling with life, now stood deserted under the storm’s rage, a ghost town mirroring the emptiness she carried within.
Muskaan walked aimlessly, her footsteps slow, uncertain—guided by neither direction nor reason. Her soaked neon salwar clung to her skin, but she didn’t flinch. She felt… nothing.
If one were to look closely into her eyes, they would see more than grief. They would see a whole world of pain—one that had lost its light. Her gaze held no focus, as though she were watching her life from outside her own body.
Her lips trembled.
Her fingers curled into trembling fists.
Her heart—shattered beyond repair.
Today, she lost everything.
But this wasn’t the first time she had stood alone while the world around her burned to ash.
She was only six when death first found her.
That awful night still lived in the corners of her mind like a ghost refusing to leave.
One moment, her father was singing along with the radio. Her mother was laughing, brushing back her curls from the front seat.
And then—
Screams. Shattered glass. Blood.
A cold silence that still rang in her ears, years later.
She remembered waking up alone in a hospital bed with scraped knees and a hollow chest. No parents. No lullabies. Just a strange woman telling her,
“You’re a brave girl now. You’ll go somewhere safe.”
The orphanage wasn’t safe. It was just… silent.
Rooms full of children with eyes too old for their faces.
Birthdays passed without candles.
Nightmares returned without comfort.
Hope visited rarely and never stayed long.
But Muskaan—ironically named for a smile—still dreamed.
She believed that someday, someone would love her with a kind of forever her heart ached for.
And when Manik came into her life, she thought maybe… just maybe…
God had finally given her something of her own.
Six months. That’s all fate gave them as husband and wife.
One ordinary morning, he kissed her forehead before leaving for work—his lips warm, his smile tired. She didn’t know it would be the last time she’d ever feel it.
By afternoon, her phone rang.
A single call.
“We’re sorry. Manik suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. He didn’t make it.”
No warnings. No goodbyes.
Just silence where his heartbeat used to be.
She had stood in that hospital hallway, staring at the door, waiting for him to walk out and say it was all a mistake. That he was fine. That he just needed rest.
But doors only open for the living.
And Manik was gone.
He died before she could share the one piece of hope blooming inside her—the baby they had unknowingly created together. A tiny heartbeat that beat within her, even as his had stopped.
But grief has a way of devouring life.
Her body couldn't hold both loss and hope.
And so, it let go.
The doctor said it gently, too gently:
“The miscarriage was due to emotional trauma. We’re deeply sorry.”
No.
Don’t be sorry.
Be God.
Reverse it.
But no one could.
Now she walked under the pouring sky, her soul soaked in the storm of everything she had lost—again. Her fingers clutched her dupatta to her chest, not to protect herself from the rain, but as if trying to hold together what remained of her.
An orphan. A widow. A mother with empty arms.
What else was left for fate to take?
She wandered, unaware of her steps, the rain blurring her vision, the world moving around her like smoke.
And then—headlights.
A blaring horn.
Screeching tires.
A body collapsing onto wet asphalt.
And fate—watching quietly—began to write a new story.
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