Darkness.
Not the darkness of night.
Not the darkness of closed eyes.
But the darkness of absence.
He opened his eyes and found nothing. No sky. No ground. No weight to his limbs. No sound except the echo of his own breathing — if it was breathing at all.
He tried to move.
There was no body.
He tried to speak.
There was no voice.
Memory came slowly, like broken glass surfacing from deep water.
The interview.
The betrayal.
The truck.
Impact.
Then silence.
A tremor passed through him—not physical, but emotional.
"Is this death?"
The words formed without sound.
Images crashed through him violently.
The orphanage courtyard.
The cracked cement floor where he once slept as a child.
The taunts of richer boys.
The nights he cried silently because crying aloud meant punishment.
He had never known a mother's embrace.
Never known a father's hand steadying his shoulder.
He had built himself from hunger, humiliation, and stubborn hope.
"I fought," he whispered into the void. "I fought with everything I had."
The void did not answer.
Anger rose.
Not righteous anger.
Raw anger.
"What was the point?"
His thoughts burned.
"I lost everything. I gave everything. I chose truth. And I died like that?"
Memories stabbed deeper.
Arvind's eyes.
The quiet apology.
"I have a family."
He almost laughed.
A hollow, bitter laugh.
"Yes. You had a family. I had principles."
The bitterness tasted metallic.
"Was I a fool?"
His voice grew sharper.
"All that sacrifice. All that pain. For what? So the powerful learn to hide better?"
Sadness followed anger like a shadow.
He saw children reading his words.
He saw candlelight vigils.
He saw his own funeral from above.
Strangers crying.
He had never been hugged that way when alive.
The irony broke him.
"I was alone when I lived," he thought. "Now they mourn me in crowds."
The weight of loneliness crushed him.
As an orphan, he had once asked the sky a question:
"Why was I born unwanted?"
No answer had come then.
And now, suspended in cosmic nothingness, the question returned heavier than ever.
"Was my suffering necessary?"
His thoughts cracked.
"Was I just a pawn in some grand divine chessboard?"
His anger became accusation.
"If there is a God, then why silence? Why watch children burn in riots? Why let corruption flourish? Why let betrayal win?"
The void trembled faintly.
But still, no response.
His frustration became despair.
"All my life I fought systems. And even death feels like one more system."
He felt tears — not physical, but spiritual.
"I never asked for wealth. I never asked for comfort. I asked for justice. And justice answered with a truck."
Silence stretched.
Then something shifted.
The darkness softened.
Not replaced — but illuminated from within.
A faint golden radiance appeared, not ahead of him, not above him — everywhere at once.
Warm.
Ancient.
Unfathomable.
And for the first time since he opened his eyes—
He did not feel alone.