The calendar didn’t move, but the days did.

After a while, I stopped counting them.

The bruises began to look like tattoos. Patterns. Symbols of initiation.

My body stopped registering the difference between normal and pain.

Sometimes I’d wake up and not know where I was.

I’d crawl toward the wall, thinking it was the mess hall.

I’d mistake the window for a mirror and stare, waiting for it to speak back.

It never did.

Because there was nothing to reflect anymore.

---

People had begun using me as a rumor.

New boys would be taken aside during orientation, whispered to:

> “Don’t talk to him. That’s the gay one.” “He did something dirty with a guy. Disgusting.” “You know they caught him drinking pee?”

I became a story.

But not the kind people write poems about.

I became the kind people mention before spitting.

The kind you warn your sons about.

The kind you think is contagious.

---

One day, during roll call, the warden paused at my name.

He looked up.

Our eyes met.

There was silence.

Then he said, “Present,” on my behalf, and moved on.

The other boys snickered.

And I realized then: I didn’t exist anymore. Not even in records.

---

The worst thing they ever did to me wasn’t the beating.

Or the piss.

Or the floor.

It was the second birthday party.

It wasn’t even my birthday.

But they planned it like it was. Months after the first.

There was a balloon. Just one.

Written on it: "FAG PRINCESS."

They tied it around my neck.

There was a small cake this time. But it wasn’t cake. It was cow dung, layered over with leftover white icing.

They dragged me into the laundry room, pinned my arms, sat me on a broken chair.

No resistance. I’d stopped fighting.

They put a party hat on me. Plastic. Torn.

They asked me to smile.

I did.

Because I didn’t know what a frown meant anymore.

Then they opened their pants.

They did that with me. One by one, even two at a time, they put their penis, fingers, fists, bottles and what not in my mouth and between my thighs. After that, they smeared my own shit on my lips, face and the body. I bled, they didn't care. I cried, they didn't care. I died...half, they didn't care. 

But one thing they cared about.

They each pissed in a tin bucket.

Five streams.

Hot. Yellow. Stinking.

They mixed in milk, leftover dal, and a spoon of birthday cake from someone else’s real celebration.

“Drink.”

I didn’t move.

Someone slapped me across the ear.

It rang like a temple bell. Hollow and cruel.

“I said drink.”

And I did.

I drank it.

I drank until it ran down my chin. Until the taste became the only thing I knew. Until they laughed so hard they fell to the floor.

“See?” one said. “He likes it.”

And that’s when I started laughing too.

Not out of madness.

Out of understanding.

They weren’t punishing me anymore.

They were feeding their emptiness.

And I?

I was just the plate.

---

Later that night, I vomited everything.

Every organ inside me wanted to escape.

My stomach twisted until I blacked out on the bathroom floor, curled like a fetus.

I hoped I would die.

But death has its favorites.

And I was not one of them.

---

The next day, a teacher pulled me aside.

Not to help.

Just curiosity.

“Why do you let them do this?” he asked.

I looked at him.

He had eyes like everyone else—brown, tired, used to watching.

“Because I stopped being a ‘them’,” I said.

He frowned.

I walked away.

---

I started writing names on my wall.

With charcoal. With nail polish. With blood, sometimes.

Not their names.

Mine.

Over and over.

Slut.

Whore.

Bitch.

Faggot.

Like I was reminding the wall that someone once existed here.

That someone had a soul. A mouth. A heart. A dream.

That someone had loved.

That someone was a whore, after all.

---

There were the nights.

Nights when I’d smear my body with Dettol.

Scrub until the bruises opened again.

Until the skin wept.

Until the stench faded for a moment.

But it always came back.

Like shame.

Like memory.

Like the sound of their belts slapping against my ribs.

---

One day, I stood in the shower stall, naked, staring at the drain.

It was clogged.

Water pooled around my ankles, filthy and brown.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I pissed into it.

Not because I needed to.

Because I wanted to watch it circle with the dirt.

Like everything else inside me.

I began laughing again.

It scared the boy next to me.

He walked out without rinsing.

That was the only time I felt powerful in months.

---

I became a ghost that haunts but isn’t seen.

People passed me in hallways like wind.

No eye contact.

No questions.

Even the boys who hurt me grew bored.

I wasn’t fun anymore.

I had no reactions left.

They moved on.

Started pranking others. Stealing from juniors. Smoking in class.

And I was left behind.

Not forgiven.

Just forgotten.

And maybe that was worse.

---

By then, I couldn’t hear music.

Couldn’t hum.

Couldn’t even think in full sentences.

Everything became fragments.

Words without glue.

Ash.

Lick.

Bleed.

Mother.

Don’t.

Stop.

Stop.

STOP.

I began cutting my inner thigh.

Tiny lines. Not deep.

I didn’t want to die.

I just wanted to see something that still obeyed me.

Blood did.

It was red.

It was real.

It was mine.

---

My breath shortened.

My feet turned pale.

My nails had begun falling off.

One by one.

I collected them in a pouch.

Don’t ask me why.

Maybe I thought if I gathered every part of me they took, I could rebuild myself one day.

---

I started imagining a place.

Not heaven.

Not freedom.

Just a room.

With sunlight.

And silence.

And someone who didn’t look at me like I was a stain.

I didn’t believe in it.

But I needed it.

Because hope isn’t real.

It’s just the lie your brain tells to stop you from jumping.

---

I tried again to write a letter.

But not to the God.

To no one.

Just a page. In red pen. Full of bile.

It read:

> "I was a boy once.

Then I kissed another boy.

Now I am not even that.

I am spit.

I am belt.

I am floor.

Is that enough for you?"

I tore it up before sunrise.

Fed it to the rats behind the cupboard.

At least someone would read it.

Even if only to chew.

.

.

.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped reacting.

The body stopped flinching.

The eyes stopped darting.

The breath stayed shallow like it had settled into permanent defense.

I became predictable.

They hit me—nothing.

They called me names—nothing.

They spat—I didn’t even wipe it.

Some began calling me “statue.”

Others said I’d “gone mad.”

But none of them stopped.

Because the thing about abuse is—

It doesn’t need a reaction.

It just needs a victim.

---

The room became a cage.

The walls had scratches now. From nails. From belt buckles. From my forehead.

Yes, sometimes I banged it against the wall.

Just to feel something specific.

Pain I could control.

Once, I rubbed Dettol into the belt wounds—slowly.

The sting made me moan.

Not in pleasure.

In relief.

It was sharp.

Focused.

Private.

Everything else was public.

This, at least, was mine.

---

I had stopped wearing clothes when alone.

Because why bother?

Shame was dead.

They had already filmed me naked. Tied. Crawling. Covered in spit and food.

What’s left to hide?

The body isn’t sacred anymore once everyone’s walked over it like floor.

I’d stare at myself in the mirror, if I found one, and think:

> This is ME. The Failed Human.

He thought a kiss was love. Turned out, it was a matchstick.

And now he’s firewood.

---

One day, in the mess hall, a teacher dropped his spoon and bent to pick it.

He saw the back of my thigh.

The whip scars.

Still fresh.

Still red.

He looked up.

Eyes met mine.

He didn’t say a word.

Not a question.

Not a gasp.

He just stood and left.

That was the day I stopped believing in adults.

---

In early winter, I began hearing whispers.

Not from others.

From inside.

"Let's go. Till when?"

---

Sometimes I heard Yaitamba.

“Don’t touch me, you disgusting freak.”

His voice stuck the longest.

It would replay like a loop.

Whenever I tried to eat.

Whenever I looked at water.

Whenever I tried to sleep.

Yaitamba never laid a hand on me.

But he might as well have.

Because his words lit the first fire.

And the others just came to roast marshmallows.

---

Once, I tried to report again.

This time using an outside cyber café.

I wrote the email in English.

Cold. Clean. Formal.

> “This is a student from Lords Secondary. I have been subjected to psychological and physical abuse. I am reaching out for help. If you ignore this, I will be the next suicide.”

I sent it.

Waited.

No response.

Instead, my login was flagged.

Three days later, the warden entered my room.

Smiling.

He sat on my bed—my bloodstained bed.

“You like attention, don’t you?” he said.

“You want to make us famous? Drama boy?”

I looked at him.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t speak.

He didn’t hit me.

He didn’t have to.

He stood, patted my shoulder, and said:

> “You won’t win. This place eats people like you for breakfast.”

And he left.

And I sat there.

For hours.

Listening to the sound of my own heartbeat break into static.

---

My grades plummeted.

No one cared.

I was moved to the back of every class.

No group projects.

No roll-call response.

Even the ID card printer stopped updating my attendance.

I was present in body.

Dead in system.

Even God wouldn’t file an FIR on me.

---

It rained one night.

Hard.

Violent.

The sky ripped itself open like I had.

I stood outside the dorm—barefoot, shirtless.

Face tilted up.

The cold slapped me.

And I smiled.

Because for once, it wasn’t spit.

It was sky.

And it didn’t hate me.

It didn’t judge.

It just fell.

Endlessly.

On everyone.

Rich boys. Abusers. Seniors. Me.

We were all wet now.

Equal.

---

After that, I began walking late at night.

Alone.

Through corridors.

Past notice boards.

Past prayer rooms.

Once, I stood in front of the flagpole and whispered the national anthem to myself.

Not out of patriotism.

Just because it was the only thing I remembered fully.

That night, I didn’t return to my room.

I slept on the stone bench outside.

Mosquitoes feasted.

And I didn’t care.

Because pain had become predictable.

Peace was the surprise.

---

A staff member once found me humming.

“Still alive?” he muttered.

I didn’t respond.

He walked off, muttering something about “these types.”

I stood there, barefoot, covered in old scars, thinking:

> If survival is a sin… then maybe I’m the holiest one here.

---

The last straw wasn’t pain.

It was laughter.

One evening, a new student imitated me in the mess.

He bent, pretended to lick the floor, barked twice, and said:

> “Woof! My style!”

The whole hall burst into laughter.

And that’s when I decided—

I didn’t want revenge.

I wanted absence.

I didn’t want them to cry.

I wanted them to forget.

Because memory is a gift.

And they didn’t deserve even that much of me.

Anyways, they won't remember me. I was just imagining things.

---

So I disappeared.

I began skipping meals.

Stopped speaking entirely.

I sat in the library, not reading—just staring at blank pages.

I wandered through empty classrooms.

I lay under beds, arms crossed over my chest like a corpse.

And they stopped noticing.

Like I had never been there.

Like all the fluids they poured on me had dried.

And taken me with them.

---

My body became smaller.

Thinner.

A shadow among flesh.

My voice cracked when I tried to speak.

So I stopped.

Even my name, when called in class, no longer hit my ears.

I was no longer my name.

I was echo.

---

And that’s how I died.

Not by suicide.

Not by hanging or pills.

By erosion.

They scraped me off the walls, slowly.

Piece by piece.

Shame by shame.

Until even my reflection forgot its face.

---

But this isn’t where the story ends.

Because sometimes—

The smallest breath left in a broken lung…

Is enough.

To scream back.

~shivirstoriesep4

(THE DISCOVERY OF THE LIGHT)