The Weight Of The Wings

“Help!”

The darkness was heavy. It pressed against Sahara’s chest, thick and suffocating, swallowing everything she knew. She wasn’t in her bedroom; she was buried alive in a place the sun had completely forgotten.

Somewhere far away, a single drop of water hit a stone floor. Drip. Drip. Slow and steady. It was the only clock in a world where time had stopped.

“Help,” Sahara whispered. Her voice sounded small and fragile, like a child lost in a massive crowd. “Please... someone get me out.”

Panic flared sharp in her gut. She started to run. She couldn’t see a path, but standing still felt like death.

Her feet splashed through invisible puddles, spraying icy water against her shins. Her breath came in jagged, frantic gasps. Every sound she made echoed back, as if the shadows were mocking her.

Suddenly, a cold hand gripped her shoulder.

Sahara froze. Relief and terror slammed into her all at once. She opened her mouth to beg for help, but before she could make a sound, the hand shoved her—hard.

The floor vanished. Sahara plummeted into empty space, screaming as she fell toward an endless floor.

Sahara jerked upright in bed, a gasp tearing from her lungs.

For a full minute, she sat completely paralyzed. The phantom feeling of falling still vibrated in her bones. Cold sweat covered her skin.

Trembling, she reached out and grabbed the glass of water on her nightstand. She drank it greedily, letting the cold liquid ground her. As her eyes adjusted, she realized with a start that it wasn’t even night.

The digital alarm clock glowed 5:47 PM.

Soft gold of the evening light filtered through the gaps in her curtains, lighting up the wooden floor and the messy pile of books on her desk. Outside, the distant hum of Delhi traffic provided a comforting roar of reality. Above her, the ceiling fan made a rhythmic click-click-click.

I really need to call the electrician, she thought, desperately clinging to a normal, mundane thought to push the nightmare away.

Sahara swung her legs off the bed. She pulled her oversized grey T-shirt tightly over her shoulder—a quick, defensive habit she couldn’t shake, even when she was entirely alone. The stretched waistband of her old black lady’s underwear dug slightly into her hip as she stood.

She padded into the small kitchen. The floorboards creaked predictably under her weight. Sahara found comfort in the ordinary sounds of her routine: the scrape of the cabinet, the clink of the kettle, and the sudden whoosh of the blue gas flame. She filled the pot with water, tea leaves, and crushed ginger, watching the steam rise.

Leaning her elbows on the counter, she let her head hang. The dream flashed in her mind again. The shove. The weightlessness. The dark.

A sharp hiss snapped her back to reality. The tea had boiled over, frothing angrily against the sides of the pot.

“Damn it,” she muttered. She turned off the gas and wiped up the mess with sharp, irritated movements.

With a hot mug in her hand, she walked back toward her bedroom. Just as she reached the door, her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and let out a long, tired sigh.

“Namaste, Maa,” she said softly, balancing the phone against her ear.

Her mother’s voice was warm, but sharp. She didn’t just ask how Sahara was; she investigated. Had she eaten? Was work too much? Why did she sound so tired? Then, inevitably, the conversation shifted.

“Meena Aunty called today,” her mother said excitedly. “She told me about a boy—very well-settled, Sahara. He has his own business, the family owns several cars, and he is quite tall. They are very respectable people.”

Sahara stood by the window, the warmth of the mug seeping into her palm. Down below, people were walking in pairs, laughing and talking. Her apartment, by contrast, felt like a silent tomb.

“Hmm,” Sahara whispered, watching a stray dog on the sidewalk.

“What’s the matter, Sahara? At least sound interested. We just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy, Maa.” The lie felt heavy in her mouth.

“You keep saying that,” her mother sighed, her maternal intuition cutting through the defense. “But I don’t feel it.”

Sahara went silent. She didn’t know how to explain that her “happiness” was just a lack of conflict—a quiet, controlled vacuum.

“Maa, you’re overthinking. I’m fine, really,” Sahara said quickly. “I have to go—I’ve got floor plans to review for work.”

She ended the call before things could get too emotional. To drown out the lingering silence, she turned on the television in her living room. The artificial blue light filled the room. She sat on the couch, sipping her tea, scrolling aimlessly.

Hours passed in a blur of random YouTube videos and background noise. When hunger finally hit, she didn’t bother cooking. It felt like too much labor. Instead, she opened a food delivery app and ordered her usual meal from the one restaurant she trusted—something predictable that wouldn’t surprise her. When it arrived at 9:15 PM, she ate it mechanically, barely tasting the food while watching a show she wouldn’t even remember the next morning.

This compact two-bedroom apartment had been her home for two years. It was clean, quiet, and completely predictable—exactly the way she needed her life to be. She kept everyone at arm’s length. She didn’t want anyone getting close enough to see the cracks in her life.

Over time, the invitations from friends had dried up. First, Sahara had declined them politely; eventually, people just stopped asking. Sahara liked it that way. She was an expert at inventing “urgent deadlines” or “social headaches”—little lies that allowed her to remain a ghost in her own life. To the world, she was composed and agreeable, just a bit distant. That version of herself was easy to maintain.

Sahara Sharma, a girl from the small town of Karnal, carried her past like a heavy, invisible weight. Delhi had been her home for nearly seven years now. She had arrived in 2012 to study interior design, graduating in 2015 full of vibrant, restless energy. But that version of Sahara felt like a ghost story now.

The two years that followed graduation were a dark, blurred chapter. That was a time when she didn’t live in this quiet apartment, but in a shared world that had completely collapsed in the sweltering heat of June 2017. After a grueling three months in a cramped hostel—a period marked by her very first panic attack—she had finally found this sanctuary. She had moved here in September 2017. Now, in the cool winds of November 2019, she had spent over two years perfecting the art of being invisible.

Eventually, the hum of the TV lulled her back into a light sleep on the couch.

“Is anybody there?” Sahara’s voice echoed in the dream-darkness.

Footsteps approached. Slow. Heavy. They felt terrifyingly familiar.

“I know you’re here,” she challenged the void, her heart hammering. “Go on. Push me again.”

The footsteps stopped. The silence grew heavy, waiting for her to break.

“So now you want me to wait?” she whispered. “To wait for you to destroy me?”

The darkness didn’t answer. Her phone did.

A sharp, rhythmic vibration on the coffee table cut through the nightmare. Sahara bolted upright, her breath catching as the blue light of the phone screen illuminated the dark living room. She almost fell from the couch.

She squinted at the display. Unknown Number.

She checked the time: 3:14 AM. A cold knot formed in her stomach. At this hour, a phone call was never good news. She instantly thought of her mother, of her brother Ashu, or some distant family emergency. But the number was a string of digits that meant absolutely nothing to any of her contacts.

She stared at it, her finger hovering over the glass, until the ringing stopped. The sudden silence was even heavier than the noise. She didn’t call back. She didn’t move. She just sat there, clutching a pillow to her chest, waiting for her heart to slow down.

A few seconds later, the screen lit up again. A text message.

Unknown Number: Sorry to bother you. - Rudra

Sahara’s brow furrowed. Rudra.

The name felt heavy, like a word from a foreign language. She searched her memory. Was it a client? An old classmate? The name sat in her head, cold and unrecognizable, yet hauntingly persistent. She didn’t reply. She couldn’t bring herself to invite a ghost into her midnight.

Unable to sleep, she stood up on shaky legs, switched off her TV, and went to her bedroom where the lights were still on, as she had slept on the couch.

She walked to the window, pulling the heavy velvet curtain back completely. Unlatching the glass pane, Sahara pushed the window open and leaned against the frame. The cool November breeze rushed into the stuffy room, biting gently at her skin and clearing the last lingering remnants of the nightmare from her mind. For a few long, quiet moments, she simply stood there, closing her eyes and breathing in the crisp night air, letting the absolute stillness of the midnight hour ground her.

When she finals opened her eyes to look down at the central garden, her gaze drifted across the courtyard.

In the building directly opposite her block, a silhouette was standing on a balcony.

Sahara froze. The figure was perfectly still, leaning against the metal railing and looking straight toward her open window. Even in the dim light of the distant streetlamps, the gaze felt direct, deliberate, and entirely focused on her.

The brief sense of peace she had just found vanished instantly. Her walls slammed back up, heavier and more rigid than before. Exposed and deeply unsettled, Sahara stepped back into the safety of her room. She pulled the window shut, locked it with a sharp click, and drew the heavy velvet curtains tight, sealing herself back into the protective, absolute darkness of her own making.

She walked back to her bed. Rudra... The name drifted aimlessly through her mind. Must be a wrong number, she decided. She switched off the lights, climbed under the covers, and stared up at the turning blades of the ceiling fan until her eyes finally grew heavy.

Across the central garden, in the unlit stillness of his new apartment, Rudra lowered his phone. The screen’s glow cast sharp angles across his face, highlighting a deep fatigue that had nothing to do with his long flight.

He had landed in Delhi only twelve hours ago, leaving behind everything he knew, guided entirely by a quiet obsession he had carried for years. Earlier, seeing the lights blazing in her bedroom window, he had finally taken the gamble and called, hoping she was awake. When she didn’t answer, he sent the text, and then he waited.

He had been standing on the balcony, staring at his phone, waiting for a reply that never came. But then, unexpectedly, she had appeared at the window.

As Sahara pushed the glass open and stepped into the moonlight, Rudra’s breath hitched. It felt like a beautiful coincidence, like God finally granting a tired devotee a glimpse of the deity after a long, grueling journey. He hadn’t expected her to open the window, but there she was—a sight he had longed for years to see again.

But the moment was fleeting. He watched as she suddenly froze, her gaze locking onto his silhouette in the dark. He watched the window slide shut and the heavy velvet curtains draw tight, vanishing her from his sight. It felt as if a genie had just taken away the very wish he had been granted. The glimpse was over, and she was gone, leaving him standing alone in the dark.

Rudra leaned his elbows on the cold metal railing, the November wind biting through his thin shirt. He looked at the silent, dark window across the way and spoke softly into the night air.

“I know it’s going to take time, Sahara,” he murmured into the quiet night air “But I promise... I will be someone you want to hold for the rest of your life.”

He looked at his watch. 3:37 AM. With one last look at her dark window, Rudra stepped inside. His apartment was dark, silent, and crowded with cardboard boxes he hadn’t even bothered to open yet. He slid his glass door shut, the click of the lock sounding final, a vow made in the dead of night.

Tomorrow, everything would change.