Noida never slept. Horns screamed through the smog. Stray dogs barked at each other. Somewhere, someone was always shouting. But inside the orphanage, silence ruled.Zyris sat in the shadowed hallway near the storage room, cross-legged, his elbows resting on his knees. The concrete floor scraped his ankles, but he didn't move. The pain didn't bother him. The discomfort didn't register. His eyes were locked on the ground.
A line of ants walked across a crack in the floor.there were dozens of them, perfectly ordered, moving like a single thing. they were carrying crumbs. Searching. Living. No chaos. No cruelty. Just function.
He liked them.
They reminded him of systems. And systems made sense.
Even when they bit him, he never hit back. Not the ants, not the mosquitoes, not anything small and mindless that hurt him. They were just following what they were made to do.it was for survival.Not malice.They had no choice.
The other orphans were the same.They pushed him, hit him, mocked him.But he never fought back. Not because he was scared.He had just already understood what they were.They weren't complex. They were instinctive.They were predictable. Like ants that had lost their trail.
They called him names like a freak, mute,creep.They slapped him for not reacting.They kicked him for sitting too still.he didnt hate any of themEven the head-lady,who beat him with shoes and screamed until her voice cracked.She wasn't worth hating. He had once turned his back too slowly when she barked his name. She pressed a hot iron rod to his neck, and left him blistered and shaking. Still, he didn't cry.He Didn't scream. He Just stared at the wall while his skin burned.
She thought it made her powerful.
It just proved she was stupid.
He remembered everything. The look in her eye. The sound the iron made when it hissed. The exact time it took for the skin to blacken. Everything was recorded in perfect, clinical detail in his mind.
He understood pain. But pain never filled the strange space inside his mind.
Zyris had always lived with a space inside him that never went away. A feeling like his mind was too large, too deep. Like his thoughts were pebbles dropped into a well, and no matter how many he threw, he never heard a splash. No matter how long he focused, no matter how complicated his thoughts became, they never filled the space.
He could study the way people moved, the way their eyes flicked when they lied, their muscles that tensed before they hit someone.He could memorize entire rooms.He could solve puzzles in his head.he could plan six outcomes for a conversation that hadn't happened yet.
But even when his mind was full of calculations, theories, and quiet observations, that one part of him remained empty. Not waiting. Just unfinished. Like his conscience had space for something that never arrived. It made everything feel small,Pointless,Weightless.
The ants didn't bother him.The beatings didn't bother him,not even the iron.
But that emptiness did.
It had started much earlier.
Zyris had only vague memories of Kashmir,with blurry snowscapes,Warm bread in his mother's hand. His father's voice, low and firm, humming an old army tune. He remembered the smell of smoke.And he remembered the fire.He was five when it happened.
One instant, he was drawing on the floor. The next,glass was shattered, and the world exploded. People screaming in a language he didn't understand.,gunfire,his father yelling, pushing his mother behind him. There was a flash.There was Heat.Then,there was nothing.
When Zyris opened his eyes, the roof was gone. His house was black ash. His parents were burned shapes, still holding each other.
Some soldiers soldiers found him in the debris,wrapped in a carpet, barely breathing. One of them carried him to the truck without a word. They didn't ask questions.They were used to it.They werent sad,because they knew they couldnt do anything about it despite having the capability to completely destroy the enemy.They had orders not to after all.They didn't even write down his name.He was just another orphan.
It had been one of the last terror raids during the Vivec Purge—when Kashmir, like much of the subcontinent, had begun pushing back against the Cultists of Vivec.Their beliefs had spread fast over a 1000 years,preaching violent purging of non-believers and promising a heaven of endless flesh and pleasure for the faithful. Though many of their followers now lived as peaceful seculars, their roots were deep and ambitions carefully masked.
Since then, Mumbai. Then Noida.He was always handed from one broken place to another, like a file no one wanted to keep.
The silence inside him began that day and it never left.
The sound of footsteps snapped him back. They were heavy, lazy,coming down the hall like thunder."still watching bugs you fucking freak"
He didn't look up. It was Ramit. He was bigger, louder, dumber. He was always the one trying to prove he mattered.
Zyris watched the ants continue their march. "They're not bugs. They're ants."
Ramit didn't answer. He just walked closer and then crushed the whole line of ants under his sandal.
'Crunch'
A dozen gone instantly, flattened into the floor.
Zyris blinked slowly.The silence in his mind pulsed.
He turned his head calmly, almost curious.
"Why did you step on them?"
Ramit leaned over him. "What?"
"They weren't doing anything to you" Zyris said, voice flat. "Why did you kill them?"
Ramit laughed and punched him across the shoulder. "They're ants. Stupid ants."
Zyris didn't flinch. "That's not a reason."
Another punch, harder. This time to the face.He tasted blood.
"Why did you kill them?" he asked again, eyes locked, voice unchanged.
Ramit's laughter turned mean,"Because they don't matter! They're so small. So weak. They're just... toys. Something to mess with."
Zyris stared up at him.
And for the first time in a very long time, he felt something break through the silence in his head.
It was Hate.
Not at Ramit, exactly. Not the person.
But at what he had said. But at the belief behind it,that power justified cruelty. That weakness deserved pain. That the strong could do what they wanted to the small, the defenseless, the functional just for fun.
he hated that idealogy completely.
Ramit raised his fist again.
This time, Zyris moved.Not fast.,just enough.The punch missed.Ramit stumbled.
Zyris stood.
He didn't feel angry. He didn't feel afraid.He was just aware.Coldly aware.
Another punch. Zyris stepped aside. Another. He ducked.
Ramit was getting frustrated. "What, are you trying to fight me now?"
Zyris didn't answer.
Ramit threw a wild punch.
And then stopped.
His face froze.His body locked mid-motion.
And in the next instant, he dropped.
No scream.No gasp.No flinch.
Just limp.
He hit the floor like a puppet with cut strings. His eyes stayed open. His chest didn't rise.
Zyris stared at the body. Blood still fresh on his lip. A breeze stirred the dust. The ants were gone.
There was no sign of what killed Ramit. No choking. No wounds. No heart attack. He had just...stopped.
Zyris didn't touch him.
He didn't need to.
Something had happened. And he didn't understand it.
He looked down at Ramit's face, still wearing that smug, empty grin in death.
And then, suddenly,he felt it.
it was a weight.
it was like the silence inside him had been replaced with wet cement.His chest tightened.His lungs didn't want to work. His head spun.
It wasn't regret. It wasn't guilt.
It was something else.
Something unfamiliar.Something wrong.
For the first time in his life, his mind didn't feel quiet. It felt crowded. Not with thoughts, but with something he couldn't name. Something that pulled at the edges of his calmness like claws.
His conscience had always been empty. Too big.Too echoing.
Now, it was full of something he couldn't understand.
And he hated it.
His legs gave out. He dropped to the floor.
And then everything went dark.