In a small village tucked between rice fields and silent hills, lived a little girl named Nani. She was six years old, with soft cheeks, tangled hair, and a smile that made the neighbors adore her. Her parents were farmers—gentle, hardworking people who left for the fields before sunrise and returned only when the light faded.
Nani spent her days with the other village children, playing hide-and-seek near the well or making dolls from leaves. The village was her world, and she trusted it completely.
But not every shadow is seen in the daylight.
Two boys, around fifteen, lived just a few houses away. They were known for stealing, lying, and stirring trouble. The elders often warned their children to stay away from them—but warnings don’t always reach the ears of the innocent.
One evening, as the sky turned orange and the trees whispered secrets to the wind, the boys called Nani over to their backyard.
“Come play with us,” they said.
To her, they were just older brothers. She followed, barefoot, smiling.
Once inside, they said they would play a "new game." She nodded eagerly, unaware of the storm ahead. What followed wasn’t a game. It wasn’t even something her young mind could understand. They violated her—forcing her to do things that made her stomach twist and her chest feel heavy, even if she didn’t know why.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She just stood there, confused and silent.
The next day, she didn’t tell anyone. How could she? She didn’t have the words.
But something had changed.
She no longer played freely. Her laughter disappeared. Every time she saw those boys, her body tightened with fear. She would feel sick. She didn’t know what “trauma” was—but it was already living inside her, growing roots in silence.
Years passed. Nani grew. Her body changed, her mind sharpened, but her memories stayed hidden, like a locked room with no key. She often woke up at night, sweating, with a strange heaviness in her chest. Her parents noticed she was restless, emotional, but she always said, “I’m fine.”
Only she knew she wasn’t.
When she turned nineteen, news spread: one of the boys was dead.
Some said he was murdered in a fight. Others whispered that it was karma. Nani didn’t know the truth—but her heart, strangely, felt lighter. A part of her soul, so long crushed under the weight of what happened, began to breathe again.
She started forgetting—little by little. Or maybe, she just buried it deeper.
At twenty, Nani was a college student. Educated. Polite. Quiet. On the outside, she looked fine. But some nights, the dreams returned.
In them, she was that little girl again. The backyard. The hands. The confusion.
She would wake up crying and not remember why.
Her parents grew more worried and took her to a psychiatrist. She said nothing had happened. She was just tired, that’s all. The counsellor gave her medicine. It helped for a while. But the tears still came when she was alone.
One evening, as the wind howled through the window, she sat on her bed, and it all came back.
Every detail.
The game that wasn’t a game.
The boys. The shame. The silence.
And the one who was still alive—still walking the same village, still untouched.
Now, for the first time, Nani saw the truth not as a curse—but as a wound that needed tending. She made a decision.
She would no longer be silent.
She wouldn’t tell her parents—it would crush them. But she would not live as a victim anymore.
She stopped taking the medicines. Not because she was healed, but because she was ready to feel. She accepted that she had been harmed. And with that truth came strength.
Now, she wanted to protect other children from what she had lived through.
She didn’t want revenge.
She wanted prevention.
And she left the rest—to God.
Nani stood in front of the mirror, brushing her hair. She looked like any other twenty-year-old—bright, capable, alive. But her eyes had seen too much, too young.
She was working now, living just a few kilometers from the village, yet close enough to hear the same birds, smell the same earth after rain. Her parents still thought she had anxiety and poor sleep. But they didn’t know the truth that curled up in the corners of her dreams.
The other boy—the one still alive—walked freely in the village. Now a grown man. People avoided him, but no one ever dared say anything. That silence haunted her more than the memories.
One evening, at the town's market, their eyes met.
For a second, Nani froze. Her hands trembled. He looked at her, blankly, carelessly—as if she were no more than a leaf on the street.
He didn’t even remember.
But she did.
---
That night, Nani couldn't sleep. She opened her notebook, the one she kept locked in her desk, and began to write. Not for revenge. Not for pity. But to breathe.
She wrote about the child who didn’t understand what pain was.
She wrote about the girl who smiled even when her soul was shaking.
She wrote about the boy who died. And the one who didn’t.
And when she finished, she looked at the pages and felt, for the first time, something like peace.
---
One week later, Nani volunteered to speak at a local school about child safety. She shared a general story—no names, no details—but the truth was there, between every line. One little girl in the back raised her hand, eyes wide.
“Didi,” she asked, “what if something bad already happened? Can we still be okay?”
Nani smiled gently. Her voice didn’t shake.
“Yes,” she said. “We can be okay. It’s not our fault. And we don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
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