THE NAME THAT BURNED
In the suffocating stillness of the cell, a girl sat hunched in the corner—her thin figure barely distinguishable from the shadows that clung to the cold, damp walls. The air was heavy, tainted with the stench of mold, rust, and something more elusive—despair itself. Darkness didn’t merely fill the room; it seemed to breathe, to whisper, to watch.
The silence shattered with the slow, deliberate creak of iron hinges. The heavy door groaned open, and with it came the soft, echoing thud of boots on stone. The jailer had come.
A sliver of light spilled in behind him, but it could not chase away the gloom. Instead, it seemed to recoil, swallowed whole by the cell’s ravenous shadows. The girl didn’t move. Her eyes—once perhaps bright—were now dull, wide, and distant, as if fixed on something far beyond the walls. Or beneath them.
The jailer stepped inside, his presence casting a longer shadow than his body. He looked at her with nonchalant eyes, devoid of sympathy or disdain—just a blank, practiced indifference that came from years of watching people break.
“inmate no. 112 Your bail is today,” he said flatly, like it was an inconvenience.
The girl didn’t respond immediately. Her eyes, hollow and rimmed with weeks of exhaustion, slowly lifted to meet his. There was no gratitude, no relief—just dead, unblinking silence.
She rose, every movement slow, like dragging herself out from beneath the weight of something invisible. Chains clinked faintly as she stepped past him, through the iron threshold that had become her entire world.
Outside the cell, she paused.
The hallway was narrow, lined with flickering lights that buzzed and sputtered overhead. And at the end of it, waiting with arms crossed and a crooked smirk, was another figure—the jailer who had taken particular interest in her suffering. His eyes glinted with something far darker than duty.
She met his gaze.
There was no fear in her now. Only a dead silence beneath the ashes of her former self.
The crooked smile stretched wider across the jailer’s face as he stepped closer, his presence violating the air around her. His hand reached, bold and slow, but she didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. She walked past him like he was nothing more than a ghost—one of many haunting these stone halls.
He laughed—low, mockingly—as he followed beside her.
n—but her eyes… her eyes were tombstones.
“They all hate you, you know,” he said, voice dripping with venom masked in honey. “Your husband, your family… no one came for you. No one asked. Not even once.”
She kept walking.
“We had something special, you and I,” he hissed into her ear, his breath sour with rot and secrets. “If you want someone to protect you, to keep you warm—give you shelter—you’ll have to earn it. Some favors. Just like before.”
She trembled , but not reacted
Slowly, she turned to face him. Her face, pale under the flickering lights, bore no emotions
“Where is the locket of inmate 445?” she asked, voice quiet, almost gentle. But beneath that softness was steel. “Return it to me.”
The jailer frowned confusedly , the smirk faltering just a breath.
“I don’t want my things,” she said. “Only that locket. It’s more precious to me than my life.”
The silence that followed was thick. Something shifted in the air.
The jailer narrowed his eyes. “What do you want with that thing?” he muttered.
She didn’t answer. Just stared a him with dead eyes
“You promised me…” her voice trembled despite the steel in her stance, “…you said you’d give back that locket. After—” she faltered for a breath, eyes flicking to her waist and then the floor, “—after what happened.”
The jailer’s grin widened, darker now. His eyes moved slowly over her, devouring every inch like a predator toying with prey.
“And what if I don’t?” he whispered.
He reached out, fingers brushing through her hair with the familiarity of a nightmare. “How can you ask me anything… after what I did to you?” he murmured, voice low and venomous, thick with cruel amusement. “Remember?”
For a moment, her composure cracked. Fear danced in her eyes—but it didn’t consume her. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t run.
She took a breath. Deep. Centering.
“You promised me,” she repeated, voice steadier now. “You said you’d give it back.”
The silence between them stretched taut. Then—
A door creaked open. A uniformed officer entered quickly, his face pale, urgency radiating off him in waves. He leaned into the jailer, whispering something sharp and fast.
She couldn’t catch most of it.
Just one name.
And when she heard it, her body froze—blood draining from her face like someone had flipped a switch.
The jailer, too, had gone pale. His smirk vanished. His hands began to tremble. Eyes darting to her, to the hallway, back to the officer.
Without another word, he turned, fumbled through a drawer in the wall, and pulled out something wrapped in old cloth. He shoved it into her calloused hands.
“Take it,” he snapped, no longer smug—just scared. “Get out. Now.”
She opened her fingers slowly, revealing the locket. A small, worn thing, tarnished but untouched, gleaming faintly in the dim corridor light, with initials SR dancing infront of her eyes
She clutched it to her chest. And said nothing.
Because she knew.
She needed to get out—fast.
Before he arrived.
Before the name that turned men into monsters and her into dust crossed the threshold of that jail.
Samrat Shikhawat.
The name echoed in her mind like the toll of a funeral bell. It wasn’t just a name—it was a curse. A memory. A scar that bled no matter how long she tried to forget. The jailer had trembled at its mention, but for her… that name had hollowed her out.
That name had made her a criminal
Loving him had been her only crime. And for that, they made her pay.
Every punch, every assault, every night where screams went unheard—sanctioned by him. He didn’t need to touch her to destroy her. Others did his bidding. The jailer. The guards. The judges who turned their faces away. Because he said so.
Because Samrat Shikhawat owned them.
He had turned her life into ash, all for daring to love him, for wanting something that was above her reach
And now he was coming here.
She clutched the locket tighter—its edges digging into her palm, grounding her, reminding her she still had one piece left. One piece they didn’t take. A whisper of what she had lost… and what she still might reclaim.
Her feet moved faster. Past guards who wouldn’t look her in the eyes anymore. Past the walls that once swallowed her screams. Out into the open air that hit her like a slap—cold, raw, real.
But she couldn’t breathe easy. Not yet.
Because Samrat Shikhawat was more than a man.
He was the past
He was her nightmare
And he was coming
