Episode 19: “The Silence That Screams”
902 Words
(Neha’s POV)
It’s been two days.
Two painfully long, restless, suffocating days.
And still—no word from Sanchit.
No texts.
No calls.
Not even one of his dumb memes that usually annoyed the life out of me so much, I’d threaten to block him every other day.
For someone like him—someone who’d send “good morning” messages even at five in the evening just to make me roll my eyes—this silence is louder than a scream.
It’s not just absence.
It’s a void.
A void I don’t know how to fill.
I’ve called him—what?—thirty, maybe forty times by now.
Every single time, the same thing.
Voicemail.
Switched off.
Dead air.
I even went as far as checking with his office. He hasn’t shown up. No leaves applied. No word left behind. It’s like he just… disappeared.
The boy who couldn’t stop talking, couldn’t stop joking, couldn’t stop being—is just gone.
Gone like he vanished from the world.
I sit on my bed now, the blue light of my phone painting my face as I stare at his contact again.
“Pasta Boy.”
That’s what I named him. My own little joke. Because of his ridiculous obsession with eating pasta at least four times a week. Because he once said, “If I ever go broke, I’ll just open a pasta stall and call it ‘Pastaway’.”
I’d laughed so hard that day, my stomach had hurt.
And now, looking at that stupid name on my screen, all I feel is my chest caving in.
The last message I sent him still sits there, untouched.
> Neha: “Sanchit, please. Where are you? At least let me know you’re safe…”
Delivered.
Never seen.
The gray tick mocks me.
My fingers tremble slightly as I lock my phone. My chest feels too tight, too heavy—like I’m carrying something that doesn’t belong to me.
Because this… this isn’t him.
Sure, Sanchit is sensitive. He overthinks. I’ve seen him spiral when emotions get too big for him to hold.
But this silence?
This doesn’t feel like heartbreak.
This feels like danger.
Like something’s happened.
Something none of us saw coming.
And then there’s Disha.
She isn’t talking much either.
She drifts through the house like a shadow of herself, pretending everything’s fine. Smiling at the right times. Nodding when I ask if she’s eaten. Laughing—if you can even call it that—when I try to lighten the mood.
But I see her.
I see the way her hands shake when she thinks no one’s watching.
I see the way her eyes flicker to her phone screen every few minutes, like she’s waiting for something.
Like she’s waiting for him too.
She hasn’t spoken a word about that night.
Not about his proposal.
Not about her rejection.
Not about what tore her heart in two.
And I haven’t asked again.
Not because I don’t care.
But because I’m scared.
Scared that whatever broke her is too dark to put into words.
Still, there’s this voice inside me.
A small, sharp, angry voice that won’t quiet down.
How could she say no?
He loved her. God, he loved her with everything he had. He planned that night like it was a fairy tale. I helped him choose the lights, the music, the little touches he thought she’d notice. He wanted everything to be perfect for her.
And when she walked in… the way he looked at her.
Like she wasn’t just a person.
Like she was the only star in his sky.
Like she was home.
And then…
Her silence.
Her “no.”
And now… his disappearance.
I close my eyes and press my palms against them, trying to breathe through the weight pressing down on me.
“Come on, Sanchit,” I whisper into the stillness of my room. “Please… just tell me you’re okay. Send one stupid meme. Call me at 3 AM like you used to. Shout at me for stealing your fries. Just… something.”
But the only reply is the ticking of the clock on my wall.
Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock.
Too steady. Too cruel.
And the faint hum of the fan above my head, filling the silence with its mechanical sighs.
The world feels too quiet.
Too still.
Like it’s holding its breath with me.
---
A thought slips into my head, uninvited.
If something’s happened… If someone’s hurt him…
I shake my head violently, almost as if I can fling the thought away.
No.
No, I can’t go there.
I won’t go there.
Because if I let myself believe that, even for a second, I’ll lose it.
And I can’t lose it.
Not now.
Not when he needs me.
Because Sanchit is more than a friend.
He’s family.
The boy who turned my worst days into laughter.
The boy who believed in me when no one else did.
The boy who never let me walk alone in the dark, even when he was scared himself.
If the world thinks it can take him away from me…
It has no idea who it’s dealing with.
Because I will not sit here and do nothing.
If I have to search every street, every corner, every shadow—
If I have to burn down the world to find him—
I will.
- Writer
