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Chapter 30 – The Lost Pen and the Unwritten Truth

The school bell rang, but none of them moved. Don sat at the back of the class, his fingers absently tracing the edges of his worn-out notebook. He hadn’t written a single word in it since last year. The pen that once danced so freely across the page now lay silent.

Jake glanced at him and asked softly, “Still can’t write?”

Don nodded.

“It’s like the words are there,” he whispered, “but they’re buried. Beneath guilt. Beneath smoke.”

Gor, sitting beside them, noticed something else—Don had been quieter lately, and not the usual brooding silence. This was different. He was thinking too much. Remembering too much.

And today… was the anniversary.

It had been exactly a year since Don had buried that pen—the first one he ever used to write stories—beneath the banyan tree near his old house. The place he used to call home, before everything shattered.

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That evening, Don returned to that tree alone.

The neighborhood had changed. The streets were quieter, the laughter of children replaced by the echo of horns and the hum of daily struggle. But the banyan still stood strong—its roots stubborn, clinging to the earth like memories refusing to fade.

Don crouched by its base and started digging gently, as if afraid of what he might find.

And there it was. Wrapped in plastic. Dusty. Still intact.

The blue pen.

It felt heavier now, as if it carried the weight of all the stories he had left untold.

He sat there for hours, leaning against the tree. A cigarette between his lips. Not lit. Just held.

And then, for the first time in what felt like forever, he took out his notebook.

And began to write.

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Elsewhere…

Mark stood on a rooftop across town, arms folded, looking down at the school below. Behind him stood a boy with a long coat and a scar across his brow.

“You sure this is the guy?” the scarred boy asked.

Mark smiled, wicked and certain. “Yeah. Don. He used to be something. Let’s remind him who really runs the streets now.”

“Didn’t he roll with Shiv?”

Mark’s grin vanished.

“He was someone,” he said coldly. “But now? He’s just a writer who smokes too much.”

They walked off, but not before one last look at the school gates.

War was brewing.

And Don, unknowingly, was walking straight into it.

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Back at the banyan tree…

Don’s pen stopped. The ink ran dry.

But he didn’t care.

He smiled, bitter and soft. “It’s starting again,” he whispered.

Behind him, footsteps.

Jake.

“Thought you might be here,” Jake said, holding two cups of tea.

Don took one and muttered, “You remember everything, huh?”

Jake smirked. “Only what matters.”

They sat in silence.

And then Don said something he hadn’t said aloud in years: “I think I’m ready.”

“For what?”

“To tell the story. All of it. Even the parts that hurt.”

Jake looked at him seriously. “Even the gang?”

Don paused.

And then: “Not yet. But soon.”

The secret still rested quietly in Don’s chest—the truth that he had been the vice-captain of one of the most feared gangs in the city. That once, he had been more than just a boy with a cigarette and a notebook. That once, he had led.

But that story wasn’t ready yet.

Not until the storm arrived.

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End of Chapter 30