CURSED MIND

​Chapter 1: The Sound of Silence

Seventeen-year-old Shreya Chaudhary—a name that everyone, from the walls of her home to

the corridors of her school, had learned to 'ignore.' She was like an old book placed on a shelf

for display, but one that no one ever bothered to open and read. She had no share in her

mother’s affection, no place in her father’s expectations, and no part in the playful mischief of

her siblings.

​For Shreya, every new day was like a heavy burden that she carried upon her frail shoulders without a single complaint.

​Technically, she was a student, but the black letters of her textbooks merely danced before

her eyes. She had no interest in the tangled equations of mathematics; instead, she heard the

untold stories hidden within the cracks of the walls and the dry leaves falling outside the

window. Yet, in the eyes of the world, her perspective was nothing more than 'laziness.'

​"Nothing is ever going to come of you... I've started feeling ashamed just looking at you!"

​With the first ray of morning, it wasn't a sip of tea that welcomed her, but these bitter words

from her mother. These words no longer wounded her; they had simply settled somewhere deep inside.

​And her father? To him, Shreya was a piece of household furniture whose presence was only

felt when he happened to trip over it. Every conversation with him ended in only two ways—the

failure of her marksheet or the 'riddance' of marriage.

​"If you find a decent enough boy and get married off, that’s plenty. You aren't worth more than

that anyway," he would often mutter, hiding his face behind a newspaper.

​The world of school was no different. There, Shreya’s identity had shrunk to a mere roll

number. She was neither the class topper nor the school’s 'beauty queen.' She was simply a

walking silence, someone her classmates didn't even deem important enough to mock.

​Shreya had no friend, no confidant. she would suppress every taunt, every bit of hatred, and

every moment of being overlooked into a secret cellar within her chest, wearing a mask of a faint, pale smile.

​But there was one thing that only Shreya knew—