Seven o'clock in the evening.
A darkness thicker and more suffocating than the gloom of a new moon had descended upon the Debnath household. Usually, this house breathed through the laughter of one girl; she was the 'the life-butterfly'—around whom the entire universe of the family revolved. But tonight, the air was stagnant, poisoned by a terrifying reality: Mishti Debnath had not returned home. Mishti was missing.
Inside the ancestral walls, the sounds of wailing had turned the atmosphere heavy, almost physical in its weight. Mishti's mother was drifting in and out of consciousness, falling into a dark void of shock only to wake up and let out blood-curdling screams that echoed through the corridors. Rajendra Debnath, a man legendary for his iron will and unshakeable stoicism, sat broken. Today, even his eyes, which had remained dry through decades of hardship, were overflowing with the salt of helplessness.
Rajendra had three sons: Aloke, Abhilash, and Aniket. Aniket, the father of Mishti, was the youngest—the pride of the family. Fate, however, had played a cruel hand. Aniket had answered the call of the Creator and departed for the afterlife just a few days before Mishti was even born. On that fateful day, standing before the mortal remains of his youngest son, Rajendra had made a solemn vow: he would protect his son's widow and the unborn child from every evil force on this earth. Today, the bitter taste of failure was corroding his soul.
Clutching a framed photograph of his son, Rajendra sank into the sofa, his body feeling like lead. As he stared into Aniket's eyes in the photo, it felt as though the image was demanding an explanation—an account of how his only daughter had vanished under her grandfather's watch. The house had transformed into a living crematorium, where every brick seemed to vibrate with the echoes of grief.
As he traced the glass over his son's face, Rajendra's mind was pulled back into the abyss of the past—back to the sterile, cold hospital room where the tragedy began. He saw the white sheets, the pale light, and the hollowed face of Aniket as he lay on his deathbed. He remembered the way Aniket's trembling hand had gripped his own with a strength born of desperation.
"Father, forgive me," Aniket had whispered, his voice a mere shadow of its former self. "I could do nothing for you. The Creator sent me as your youngest son, yet He denied me the chance to serve you in your old age. I am as much a failure as a son as I am as a father. My child will open its eyes to a world where its father is already a memory. Father, why is there so much fire in my chest? Is this the sign that my time is up?"
Those final words now pierced Rajendra's heart like poisoned arrows. They say men don't cry, but tonight, two generations of the Debnath family were weeping together. The darkness of the present was perfectly mirrored by the darkness of that day.
In that hospital room, the two elder brothers, Aloke and Abhilash, felt their worlds crumbling. They had raised Aniket more like a son than a brother. Being nearly eighteen years younger, Aniket was the apple of their eyes, the heartbeat of their home.
Aloke had broken down into uncontrollable sobs, his voice cracking with agony. "Don't leave us, Ani! Don't do this! Do you remember when you were a baby and you had pneumonia? The doctors said you wouldn't survive without the city hospital. Father had his heart condition then, and we were too scared to tell him. At three in the morning, in the pitch black, I carried you on my back all the way to the General Hospital. I wasn't afraid of the dark then, Ani... but I am terrified of the darkness that will come if you leave us. Our lives will be hollow without you, brother!"
Aloke had turned his face to the heavens, begging for a miracle. "O Lord! Do not take my heart from me. Have mercy on the unborn child! Take my years, take my life, but let my brother live!"
Abhilash, the middle brother, was paralyzed by a different kind of pain. He lacked the strength to scream like Aloke; it felt as though his own heart was stopping in rhythm with his brother's. He held Aniket's hand, thinking silently, 'We are surrendering our very souls into the hands of God today.'
And Rajendra? He had stood there, a pillar of silent suffering, wondering how a father is supposed to light the funeral pyre of his own child. The sight of his sons' anguish had painted Aniket's final moments in shades of deep, tragic blue.
As the icy touch of death began to claim Aniket's limbs, he gathered his last remaining strength to reach out and wipe the tears from Abhilash's eyes. A faint, ethereal smile touched his lips. "We will meet again, Mayo brother," he whispered. "We will find each other in heaven. I, you, Big brother, Father, Mother... and my daughter and her mother. Our family will be whole there. No one will be missing."
Then, turning his tearful eyes toward Aloke, he said, "Big brother, your little brother is saying goodbye. Even in heaven, I might be sad for a while, because you won't be there with me initially."
Aloke Debnath couldn't contain himself; he let out a primal cry of grief. In the final twilight of his life, Aniket looked at his father and made one last plea. "Father... I want to hold Mother one last time. And please... bring Madhushree to me."
In a small temple adjacent to the hospital, Pramila Devi—the matriarch—was in a state of spiritual war. She was beating her head against the altar, her voice hoarse from wailing. "O Lord! What kind of test is this? Do not take my treasure. Take me instead! I cannot endure the fire of losing a child. A mother's heart is not built for this!"
Abhilash entered the temple, his hand heavy on his mother's shoulder. "Mother," he said, his voice thick. "Ani wants to see you one last time."
Pramila Devi ran like a woman possessed toward her son's cabin. The sight of her dying child accelerated her grief into a frenzy. She threw herself onto him, clutching the flesh of her flesh. Amidst her torrential tears, the unbearable weight of the shock finally snapped her consciousness, and she collapsed, fainting right onto her son's chest. The silent hospital room had truly become a sanctuary of sorrow.
At the head of the bed sat Madhushree, Aniket's wife. Being nine months pregnant, every movement should have been a struggle, every posture a pain. But was she feeling the physical toll? No. She sat like a statue carved from stone, her eyes wide and vacant, fixed on Aniket. There were no tears in her eyes, no lines of expression on her face—only a ghostly paleness that spoke of two sleepless nights of terror. The vermilion (sindoor) on her forehead was smeared and chaotic, a symbol of her crumbling world.
Aniket looked at his beloved with a smile that was more painful than a thousand cries. "I love you so much, Madhu," he whispered, his voice fading into a thready rasp. "A massive part of my thirty years was spent with you. Thirteen years of walking together... so many memories, so many words! I wove a thousand colorful dreams for the one who is coming... and now, I have to leave before they even see the light. I have so much regret, Madhu... so much regret!"
Aniket's words were becoming incoherent as the heart monitor's rhythm began to stretch into a long, flat line. Madhushree, who had been stone-cold until now, finally broke. She gripped his hands with a ferocity that defied death and screamed, "Don't go, Aniket! Don't leave us behind!"
But when the shadow of death calls, does it ever heed the cries of the living? Leaving the entire Debnath family drowning in an ocean of grief, Aniket Debnath took his final breath. He left behind a mountain of memories—memories that continued to burn this family from the inside out, even years later.
When Pramila Devi regained consciousness, the world had changed. Her youngest son was gone. Was this truly the will of the Creator?
Does a mother's scream never reach His ears? What kind of divine play is this, where the song of separation is sung before the joy of union can even begin?
The memory of that night was the very reason why Mishti's disappearance today was not just a crisis—it was the reopening of a wound that had never truly healed. For Rajendra Debnath, the darkness of 7:00 PM was not just the absence of light; it was the return of the ghost he had spent nineteen years trying to outrun.
~ To be continued ~