What is communication?
A way to speak?
Yes.
A way to express emotion?
Also yes.
But at its core, communication is a mechanism—a backdoor access key to the human condition. You speak, you gesture, you exist in proximity, and something invisible passes between you. A signal.
That signal becomes emotion. That emotion becomes memory. That memory becomes bond.
Say something kind to a stranger—they might smile. Say something cruel—they might never forget.
Humans tether each other with words. Entire relationships are built on little more than phrasing and punctuation.
But what happens when you say something kind and feel nothing?
When someone praises you and you don't glow? When someone insults you and you don't burn?
What happens when you sever that link?
> You don't stop talking.
> You just stop lying to yourself.
---
This is what Adyanth had discovered.
During the past few weeks—watching, listening, engineering.
He had watched the orphanage unravel with the same attention a surgeon gives to decay in living tissue. An institution meant to preserve children had, under his careful prompting, turned into a pipe bomb stuffed with trauma and poorly digested porridge.
And all it took was:
- A few rumors.
- A pinch of powdered leaf.
- And the tiniest nudge at everyone's already fragile egos.
Now?
The orphanage wasn't just in crisis.
It was feral.
---
📌 The Powdered Prologue
The sequence began with whispers: "Harun's skimming money. Maya's feeding herself, not us. The new kids think we're garbage."
The three clowns fanned those fires gleefully.
And behind them, quiet as always, Adyanth stirred microdoses of his "magic leaf" into the porridge.
It dulled aggression for a while. Then intensified it.
By the time he stopped dosing them two days ago, most of the kids were ticking like cheap grenades.
The consequences weren't subtle.
---
💣 The Violence Was Biblical
First came the shoves—low-intensity playground stuff. Accidental "elbow bumps." Tray collisions that turned into shirt-grabbing.
Then came the targeted hits.
Old kids versus new kids.
Cliques were formed. Territory has claimed. Bunks sabotaged. Meals were stolen. Lines jumped.
Someone cracked a rib with a broomstick.
Two fights broke out overnight.
The staff tried to stop it.
Big mistake.
---
🔥 Harun's Last Stand
Harun yelled at the kids. Maya shrieked. Mukir slapped a nine-year-old for growling.
But nothing changed.
Then Harun made the ultimate mistake: he moralized.
"You orphans should be grateful! You have nowhere else to go. We gave you food, shelter, protection!"
He meant it to inspire.
It triggered a riot.
"We didn't ask to be born!" someone shouted back.
"You don't protect us, you use us and control us!"
"Shut up, you don't even clean!"
The line between caretaker and captor finally collapsed.
A crowd rushed the corridor. Chairs were thrown. Someone lit a curtain on fire with a half-burnt match and absolute confidence.
Harun and staff retreated into the admin block, barricaded the doors.
They were outnumbered, outgutted and outdone.
Adyanth, of course, used the moment to sneak into Harun's office—and plant a few bags of powdered leaf near the desk drawer.
Just in case the inspection needed a narrative.
---
🚨 The Cavalry Arrives
Three days later, the smell of blood, smoke, and bad lighting drew the state in.
Inspectors arrived. Police trailed behind them. Media floated in like vultures.
Harun was dragged out in cuffs.
Maya too.
Mukir tried to bribe someone on the way out and got smacked with a microphone.
Harun cried. Publicly. Told them he did it all for his children. That he sacrificed for them. That the system was broken.
No one cared.
The opposition-owned inspector team had cameras rolling and soundbites ready.
"This is what happens when oversight fails."
"A tragedy born from neglect."
"The children were used. That's unforgivable."
They mentioned illegal crop cultivation. Systematic abuse and possible trafficking.
Adyanth half-listened. They were only half wrong.
---
🩹 Pain Has a Pattern
Every kid in the orphanage had some form of injury.
Some with broken fingers.
Some with blackened eyes.
Some with dislocated shoulders.
The medics barely blinked—started triaging like this was routine.
Adyanth walked through it calmly, like a priest gliding through battlefield confessions. Blood on tiles. Sniffling kids huddled under blankets. Some too stunned to cry.
He looked for his targets.
---
🃏 The Three Idiots
There they sat. Near one of the ambulances.
Their arms were bandaged. Their faces are completely pale. Their legs were shaking involuntarily.
They looked up and saw him.
And immediately shrank.
Their mouths opened, but no sound came out.
Because in that moment, he wasn't a kid.
He was a story they would tell years from now, badly lit and half whispered.
Adyanth approached with his usual limp, his expression draped in faux pain like a wet curtain.
His left shoulder was dislocated—intentionally.
Their arms were broken—also intentionally.
To not seem suspicious.
He sat beside them gently.
Smiled like a saint.
And began.
---
😈 The Devil Smiles Too
"You should've left me alone."
His tone was almost wistful.
"You couldn't help yourselves, could you? You wanted to feel important. And I was available."
They flinched.
"I was the easy one. The quiet one. The one who didn't fight back."
He turned to Clown One.
"But when I did, you were scared at first the you were happy, weren't you? That little rush you got being close to me. Not because you respected me. No."
He leaned forward just slightly.
"You wanted to ride the wave. Thought I'd do something big—and you'd get power for free. You weren't afraid of me. You were just opportunistic."
They said nothing.
Their eyes went wide.
Throats closed.
Adyanth chuckled softly.
"This is what happens when people confuse proximity with power. When they reach too far to matter—even for a minute."
Clown Two looked like he was about to cry.
Adyanth stood halfway, then paused.
Just loud enough for them to hear.
"Because of us, Harun might kill himself. Maybe Maya too. Their kids? Probably end up in gutters. And every kid you used to call friend?"
He pointed around the chaos.
"Injured. They were screwed. They would be forgotten. The doctors will bandage them. Maybe give them pills. But that's it. They'll walk funny for the rest of their life—if they're lucky."
He tapped gently on their broken arms.
"You too."
Then he whispered:
"Congratulations. We made a history. Rejoice in our legacy."
He walked away to the sound of choked sobs.
And didn't look back.
---
💭 What's Left After the Fire?
He stood outside what used to be the dining hall.
Crumpled glass. Torn-up posters. Charred blankets flapping in the wind.
The remnants of something that tried to be a home—and failed harder than any building should.
Adyanth stared at the scene.
He didn't smile.
He didn't cry.
He didn't feel… much of anything.
No relief.
No triumph.
No laughter.
Just a heaviness—not inside, but in the air.
He had gotten his revenge. So why did it feel like he hadn't won anything?
---
🧠 Reflection in Ruins
What he said to the clowns had been crafted to hurt.
Every sentence was a scalpel.
But deep down, he knew—
He felt guilty.
Not for Harun. Not for Maya. Not for Mukir or the others who bled responsibility like it was holy water.
He felt guilty about the kids he didn't care about. The ones who didn't hurt him. The ones who got caught in the radius of a bomb they didn't even see coming.
Guilt simmered inside him like a low-grade fever.
And yet—he didn't indulge it.
'Because feelings are weather. They pass. But damage? Damage they are like monuments they would stay.'
He decided if he can't feel anything good. He might as well stop feeling anything bad.
That is his resolve
So he stood in it.
---
🧘 The Final Resolve
He thought back to all the times he had waited—eyes lowered, mouth shut—while people spoke about him like he wasn't in the room.
The small joys of a compliment. The sting of a mock.
All of it had power.
But only because he gave it power.
Never again.
"From now on," he whispered aloud to no one, "I won't let anyone define how I feel. Not their praise. Not their cruelty."
He kept walking.
"I'll feel joy when I choose to. Sadness when I need to. Revenge when I must. Not because someone triggered me. But because I decided it was worth doing."
And then, one sentence—low,
heavier than breath and sharper than steel:
"I am me. And that's enough for me."
Not because he believed it completely.
But because believing it wasn't necessary.
He'd live by it anyway.
Epilogue: Silence, Like Applause Withheld
That night, while others sobbed, screamed, and stared into nothing, Adyanth lay on the clinic cot—shoulder braced, bones splinted, heart calm.
His pulse didn't race.
His mind didn't spiral.
He stared at the ceiling tiles, cracked and yellow with mildew.
And for the first time in weeks, the silence didn't feel like absence.
It felt like agreement.
> He didn't need to be redeemed.
> He didn't need to be loved.
> He didn't need to be seen.
He had himself.
And this—this feeling of calm after carnage—wasn't victory.
But it was his.
Because without knowing it, without naming it, without needing anyone to witness it—
Adyanth had achieved self-containment.
And that was enough.