At 5:30 a.m., the orphanage screamed.
Not metaphorically. Literally. A rusted whistle—leftover from some forgotten railway project—shrieked through the cracked courtyard walls and jolted 108 half-asleep children into ritualized motion. If the sun hadn't risen yet, Harun said, "let them learn to defy shadows."
There was no water. Just the illusion of hygiene: kids splashing grey slop from a shared bucket or wiping last night's sweat from their necks with threadbare shirts.
Breakfast came at 6:15. "Porridge" if you were feeling generous. Salt-thick starch if you weren't. If Maya Amma felt kind (or bored), she dropped in something green. Probably a leaf that had blown in from the window.
Then: "Agro-Vocational Enrichment."
Which sounded like a scholarship opportunity.
It wasn't.
It was child labor in slow motion.
---
The government, in its ever-expanding appetite for solutions that cost nothing but dignity, had launched the farming initiative six months after the first ceasefire collapsed.
The pitch was noble: build national resilience, reduce transport strain, empower orphaned youth to contribute to the post-war food chain.
In practice?
A sun-scalded patch of half-dead dirt fenced off behind the orphanage. Tools donated by some NGO three years prior. "Seeds" delivered in crumpled packets with the labels scratched off.
It was mandatory for any child over twelve.
Adyanth was fourteen.
Lucky him.
---
Harun introduced the field like a museum docent unveiling an exhibit of disappointment.
"This," he declared, standing beside the dried husk of what might've once been spinach, "is your future. Soil is the first classroom. Let it teach you respect."
He was sweating through his collar and sipping lemon water from a thermos labeled DIRECTOR. The umbrella shading him was "reserved for administrative use."
Children crouched over hand-dug rows. Some with sticks, others with what looked like spoons. The sun blistered overhead with the urgency of punishment, not light.
They worked until noon.
Not from compassion. From logistics.
Too many kids fainting at once caused bottlenecks in the infirmary queue. If they staggered the suffering, the paperwork stayed manageable.
---
Adyanth was assigned to Row C.
It smelled odd. Damp, almost medicinal. The soil was darker, as if it held secrets no one had the bandwidth to notice. But he didn't ask questions. He moved where pointed, dug when prompted.
Some children whispered about Row C. Said Mokir spent more time there than anywhere else. That it was the only plot with a locked tool shed beside it.
But Adyanth wasn't curious.
He was tired.
Tired in a way that settled in the bones and whispered, maybe if you stop moving, they'll leave you behind.
---
By afternoon, the lie of order unraveled.
Lunch scraped by at 12:45. The same slop. Same bowl. Same resigned silence.
Then came "free hours." Misnamed, misused, and mismanaged.
Because that was when his real day began.
---
Pride is a strange thing.
Most assume it belongs to the powerful. That it grows fat with praise and success.
But here, among the discarded and the ignored, pride was a last defense. A thin, cracked mirror these children held up to convince themselves they still mattered.
They'd lost homes. Names. Parents with enough strength to stay alive.
But they still had selves.
Pride was all that was left of them that didn't need rations or permission.
And to keep it alive, they had to feed it something weaker.
Enter: Adyanth.
---
It started, as rot often does, with a whisper.
"He didn't even thank Erwan. Sat there like we were trash."
"He thinks we're beneath him."
"I heard he told Harun the food was unfit. Like he came from a palace."
"I saw him muttering to himself. Probably thinks he's better than the rest of us lunatics."
There were no corrections. No fact-checks.
Lies aren't sand in places like this.
They're fuel.
Soon it was fact: Adyanth thought himself superior. Looked down at their grief. Laughed at their pain.
Of course none of it was true.
But truth dies fastest in rooms where no one feels seen.
---
The first shove happened outside the mess hall.
The second was during evening roll call.
The third came with words:
"Cry, ghost-boy. Just once. Let's see you prove you're still human."
He didn't.
Not yet.
But the silence wasn't strength.
It was retreat. Shame tangled into his spine. The belief that if he hurt, he deserved it. That somewhere—back in that burning street, in the flicker where goodbye became guilt—he'd earned this.
So he took it.
Again.
And again.
---
The fourth beating came behind the latrine.
No fists. Just knees. Elbows. Rib-focused. Quiet.
Someone smothered his mouth with a palm so the whimpers wouldn't echo.
That was the new game.
Not hurt him.
Make him whimper.
One boy described the sound as "a kicked puppy trying not to breathe."
They laughed.
Harun walked past once. Paused. Saw.
Then muttered, "Keep it down," and kept walking.
Adyanth stayed on the ground long after they left.
He wasn't sad.
He was ashamed.
Ashamed he had whimpered.
Ashamed it still hurt.
He hated them, yes.
But not as much as he hated himself.
Because every flinch, every crack of pain—they made it about him again.
Made it about his suffering.
Not his parents'.
Not their loss.
He was still the boy who cried too late—and not for the right reasons.
Adyanth walked back alone.
He wasn't limping. Not anymore.
His legs had stopped translating pain as injury. They just trembled beneath the weight of breath.
He didn't remember how long it took to reach the dorm. Every step was molasses. Every blink a stutter. The corridor swam gently sideways, as if time had begun to slide off the table and no one had noticed.
He reached the foot of the bunk ladder. Gripped it.
For a moment, he just stood there. One hand on the rung. Head bowed. Breathing through lips that tasted of rust and chalk.
Then he climbed.
Not with strength.
With submission.
Like a prisoner dragging himself into the noose and hoping gravity finishes the conversation.
The top bunk welcomed him the way rust welcomes rain.
He collapsed forward. Half on his side, one arm sprawled outward, fingers twitching against a scratch in the mattress that read "someone was here."
---
His skin was burning.
But he felt cold.
The fever wasn't peaking. It was inviting.
Calling to something deeper than pain. Beneath language. Beneath even thought.
He blinked.
The ceiling cracked open like paper. His eyes fuzzed to static.
He didn't hear the room anymore. Just his own heartbeat, slow and wrong, whispering in a rhythm he couldn't follow.
He thought of his mother's voice. Tried to conjure a word.
Couldn't.
His own name felt foreign.
His breath shuddered.
The room bent slightly.
He pressed his forehead to the mattress. It felt far away.
There was no sky now. No hate. No judgment.
Only pressure.
A gentle weight on his lungs. On his chest. On his name.
---
He remembered the dirt. Row C. That strange smell. That dark soil.
He remembered the way Mokir looked at him like a ghost that forgot to vanish.
He remembered laughter that shouldn't have hurt—but did.
He remembered Harun's shoes. Stepping over him.
He remembered whimpering. Hating the sound. Hating himself for making it.
---
Then:
The light shifted.
His eyes didn't follow.
His fingers twitched once, curled into his shirt.
And stilled.
No final thought.
No grand surrender.
Just a boy.
Still.
Too still.
Waiting for the heat to carry him somewhere quieter.
---
Time passed.
Outside, the whistle blew for lights-out.
Inside, nobody noticed.
Not Erwan. Not Mishal. Not even Janu, who'd once looked at Adyanth like he wanted to believe him.
They slept.
The room stank of old sweat and swallowed shame.
And Adyanth?
He didn't dream.
He just faded.