Chapter 1 – The Quiet Return

The late autumn wind whispered through the leaves as Don stepped off the rickety school bus and into the courtyard of a world he thought he’d left behind. Three years had passed since he last walked these halls, but the chipped paint on the walls, the scent of chalk dust in the air, and the faint laughter from distant classrooms pulled him right back into memories he had buried deep.

He wasn’t returning by choice.

“You’re going back to your old school,” his mother had said flatly over breakfast a week ago. “That boarding nonsense is over. Be normal for once.”

His father didn’t even look up from his newspaper.

Don didn’t argue. He hadn’t argued since the day his sister, Aarya, the only soul who had truly understood him, had taken her life. That was when everything collapsed. His world stopped spinning; colors dulled; time stood still.

Now, he walked through the gates like a ghost. His school uniform fit too tightly around his shoulders. His hair was longer, messier. There was a cigarette pack hidden deep in his backpack—a secret rebellion against a life that never listened.

The courtyard was alive with chatter, footsteps, and commotion. But Don was invisible.

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Chapter 2 – The Reunion

Class 11A. That’s where he was assigned. As he entered the room, his presence barely registered. A few glances. No recognition.

Jake sat in the second row, laughing with Mark—the loud, flashy type who thrived on attention. Don’s eyes lingered for a moment. That was the boy who used to call him “brother.” The one he had once made a cardboard time machine with in fourth grade. Now Jake didn’t even flinch.

“Who’s the new guy?” Mark whispered.

Jake shrugged. “No idea. He looks weird.”

Don found a seat at the back, by the window. His notebooks remained blank for days. The teachers praised his previous records, but his eyes never left the skies beyond the window.

Jake never recognized him. Not yet. That was fine. Don didn’t want to be seen.

But he saw everything.

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Chapter 3 – Fractures and Flickers

Days turned into weeks. Jake and Mark were inseparable. Gor, the topper of the school, was as polite and distant as ever. Don got top scores quietly, which only drew his mother’s scorn.

“Second again? Behind Gor?” she snapped. “Why waste time writing? Are you trying to follow Aarya’s path?”

She never said her name, not directly. But Don heard it. Felt it.

At night, he lit a cigarette by the bathroom window, exhaling smoke into the cold sky. And he wrote. Stories, poems, half-memories. Only his pen listened.

One evening, his hand found a hidden panel in Aarya’s old room. Inside—her journal.

> “I don’t want to be a disappointment anymore.” “Maybe if I disappear, they’ll finally rest.”

Don’s tears came silently.

The next morning, he confronted his father. “You broke her.”

The slap came hard. The punches harder.

He showed up at school with a fractured arm. No one asked why. Not even Jake. Especially not Jake.

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Chapter 4 – Shadows Beneath the Sun

Mark transferred out unexpectedly. Rumors flew. Jake was suddenly alone.

During lunch, he ended up sitting near Don.

“You always sit here?” Jake asked.

Don said nothing.

Jake kept trying. Eventually, he brought out an old class photo. “Remember this guy? He had that weird habit of putting ketchup on samosas.”

Don blinked. That was him.

Jake’s voice trembled. “No way… Don?”

He nodded.

Jake laughed awkwardly. “You’ve changed, man.”

“You haven’t,” Don replied.

It was awkward. But it was something.

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Chapter 5 – The Silent Bridge

Jake started walking home with Don. At first, it was just silence. Then came the casual stories. Then jokes.

Gor joined sometimes, speaking cautiously. He’d grown more serious, more watchful.

Don still smoked. Alone. One evening, Gor caught him.

“You’ll kill yourself,” he said.

“Maybe that’s the point.”

Gor didn’t respond. But the pain in his eyes said everything.

Later, Jake made an offhand comment about Aarya.

“She was so bright. I wish I had a sister like that.”

Don stood up and left. The old wound had reopened.

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Chapter 6 – Echoes in the Smoke

Don stopped speaking to them for days. But they didn’t give up.

One afternoon, Jake and Gor confronted him behind the school.

“You can’t keep pushing everyone away,” Jake said.

Don lashed out. “Why do you care? I bullied you. Gor laughed. You should hate me.”

Jake punched him. “I forgave you. Doesn’t mean I forgot.”

Blood trickled from Don’s lip. He didn’t retaliate.

Gor stepped between them. “We’re not perfect. But we’re here.”

Don collapsed to his knees.

“I didn’t want to survive her,” he whispered.

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Chapter 7 – The Old Fighter

A week later, Don saw Jake getting beaten up by seniors.

He ran.

Found his locker. Unlocked a hidden compartment. Took out a pair of old boxing gloves.

He returned and floored five boys in seconds.

Gor stared in disbelief. “Where did you learn that?”

Don didn’t answer.

They were taken to the nurse’s office.

Jake looked at him. “You’ve got a past, huh?”

Don smiled faintly. “We all do.”

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Chapter 8 – The Truth in Pieces

Don’s scars began to show—emotionally and physically.

Gor started noticing Don’s bruises didn’t all come from fights. Some were older.

“Is someone hurting you?”

Don stayed silent.

Jake found one of Don’s old short stories in the classroom.

It was about a girl who lived in shadows and wrote poems no one read.

Jake cried reading it.

“Why hide this?”

“Because stories don’t change reality.”

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Chapter 9 – The Third Chair

Don, Jake, and Gor sat under the banyan tree again.

Jake whispered, “You ever miss how simple things used to be?”

Don lit a cigarette. “All the time.”

Gor smiled faintly. “We’ve all changed. But I think we’re finding our way back.”

Don didn’t respond. But he didn’t walk away either.

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Chapter 10 – Beginning Again

The trio became inseparable—though shadows remained.

Don still smoked. Still hid his notebooks. Still took blows at home.

But now, Jake noticed.

Gor intervened.

And Don, for the first time in years, laughed.

Just once. But it was real.

The bell rang. Class began.

And outside, three boys walked back together—slowly, step by step, into the light of friendship rebuilt.

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End of Chapter 10

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Chapter 11 – When the Past Whispers

The sky was a dull shade of grey that morning, as if even the heavens were unsure how to feel. A cold wind rustled through the school courtyard, tossing dry leaves across the concrete like forgotten memories. Don stood by the window in the library, his cigarette unlit between his fingers. He had started coming here early—before the bell, before the noise, before anyone could judge or recognize him.

He looked out at the empty field beyond the classrooms. Once upon a time, it had been their playground, their battlefield, their kingdom. The echoes of laughter and shouting from years ago still seemed to hum in the air. His mind wandered—not to now, but to then.

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Five years ago…

Don ran with Gor and Jake through the dusty field, sticks in their hands like swords, pretending to be warriors. “Vice-Captain Don! Enemies to the east!” Jake shouted, his tiny voice filled with excitement.

Don raised his stick high. “Then we show them no mercy!”

The three of them charged toward an imaginary enemy, barefoot and laughing. That was before the fights, before Aarya’s silence, before everything fell apart.

Back then, Don was the brave one. The strong one. The one everyone followed.

But no one knew—outside of their childhood make-believe games—Don had once been the real Vice-Captain of something far more serious.

A gang.

---

Back in the present, Jake slid into the library seat across from Don, breaking the silence.

“You always come here now,” Jake said.

Don didn’t answer.

Jake looked down at Don’s notebook. Scribbles. Smudges. Broken lines of poetry.

“What are you writing?” he asked softly.

“Nothing worth reading,” Don replied, snapping the book shut.

Jake was quiet for a long time before saying, “You used to write better than anyone in class. Even the teacher said so.”

“That was before,” Don said, stuffing the notebook in his bag.

Jake didn’t press further. He had learned not to. But there was something in his eyes—concern, maybe, or guilt.

---

Later that day, in the corridor, Gor pulled Don aside. “Jake’s been asking about you. Wants to make things right.”

“There’s nothing to make right,” Don said. “He has his life. I have mine.”

“But you used to be best friends.”

Don lit a cigarette. “Used to be.”

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At home, things were no different. Don’s father shouted over the phone while his mother scrubbed dishes violently. The house was a warzone without words.

Don shut the door to his room, opened the hidden drawer behind his bookshelf, and pulled out the letter Aarya had written—her final one. He read it again and again, trying to understand what he had missed.

> “I was always proud of you, Don. You were strong for both of us. But I couldn’t carry it anymore. Please don’t become like them. Don’t lose your light.”

His hands trembled. His cigarette burned down to the filter. He didn’t notice.

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At school, rumors began to swirl. A group of boys from a nearby district had been expelled for gang activity. A few teachers whispered that fights might spill over into their campus.

Don heard it all but stayed quiet.

He knew t

he name of the gang. Knew the colors they wore. And he knew that if they came looking for trouble—he’d be the one to face it.

Because Don wasn’t just a student. He had been someone else once. Someone dangerous. Someone respected.

Someone feared.

○

End of Chapter11