Locked - Strength Is In The Struggle

Characters: ¤Zoe

My name is Zoe. I am an orphan — abandoned as an infant, raised within the four walls of an orphanage that, for all its sorrow, has been my only home. I have no idea who my parents are. People say that only parents who do not love their children leave them to grow up alone in an orphanage. Throughout the city, people whisper about my beauty — but they never understand how someone so beautiful could remain so unwanted. They decide for themselves: Perhaps her family never wanted a girl. But I have never believed that. I've always felt there is a secret buried behind my story — something that no one dares to tell. Though at times, I wonder if it's just my mind playing cruel tricks on me.

Since childhood, I have sworn that I would not suffocate within the cages this world builds for women. I vowed to set an example — to force this male-dominated society to turn its head and walk towards change.

Arpit, my so-called best friend, once stood before me and declared his love. He promised to bear my every whim, to treat me like a queen. But I knew the truth. I had overheard it one night — his words dripping with arrogance as he bragged that he did not love me at all. He loved my beauty. Just another man who thought he could possess a woman and break her spirit.

I accepted his proposal with a smile. Let him think he would rule me — I would ruin him instead. His family also pretends to be clever & thought they could control me, bind me in the same chains that have shackled countless women before me.

On my wedding day, as I stepped into my so-called new home, I saw what they had laid in wait — shards of glass hidden beneath the rug at the entrance, meant to wound me, to humble me. I stumbled deliberately, pushing Arpit forward instead. He fell, just as I planned, his hands torn open by the shards. Their eyes seared into me as if I were a criminal — but I stood tall, their silent outrage powerless against me.

Later, as we sat alone in our room, Arpit drank a glass of water. I do not know what happened — only that when I woke the next morning, he lay dead beside me. My scream tore through the house like a blade. His family rushed in, but they did not question — they only wept.

Then the widows came for me. They dragged me from my room, eyes gleaming with twisted pity and malice. They told me I was now a widow, and to protect me from the lust of other men, they would cut off my hair — to destroy my beauty, to erase my allure. My pleas fell on deaf ears. When I fought them, one widow seized me by my hair and hacked at it like I was a beast. I kicked one in the face — she rose, fury burning in her eyes, and smashed my leg with a hammer. The agony was blinding.

They called me stubborn, unclean — a woman who must be punished lest she ensnare another man. They decided my fate: I would face the Sati ceremony — burned alive upon my husband's pyre. They bound me to a tree at the crematorium as they built the pyre around Arpit's corpse. Then they pushed me into the flames.

As the fire devoured my flesh, rain fell from the heavens — a mercy or a curse, I could not tell. The flames died, but half my face was ruined forever. I understood then what it means for widows to be forced to burn for the honour of men — to be erased like sins written in flesh.

People fled when they saw me. My scarred face frightened them — proof that beauty is all they value in a woman. For a moment, I thought I would keep my burned face forever, to remember the injustice done to every widow forced to die in silence. But I needed allies to fight this monstrous tradition, and I knew no one would stand with me if they could not even bear to look at me. So I used what money I had earned before marriage to undergo plastic surgery. I made myself whole — beautiful again.

When I returned to my in-laws' house, they were stunned. Qazira, my brother-in-law, stared at me too long — hunger in his eyes. I ignored him until the night he cornered me in the kitchen, gripping my hair with filthy fingers. "You're even more beautiful than before," he whispered. "Stay with me — I'll give you what my brother could not."

I pushed him away, but he dragged me by my wrist, promising to take what he wanted by force if I did not yield. He struck me with a stick until my screams fell silent. But when he turned his back, I seized that same stick and cracked it against his skull. He fell, unconscious.

That night, I did what no one could have imagined. He was proud of his manhood — thought it made him invincible. I found a pair of scissors and ended it for him. When he awoke, he screamed — just as I knew he would. His pride was gone forever, a curse he could never undo.

Even after this, he sat silent, plotting. He was known to be stubborn — so cruelly stubborn that I wondered what darkness still brewed in him. But then I reminded myself: Perhaps I think too much.

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2

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Author's Note: How did this part make you feel? What are your thoughts on Zoe's haunting journey and the shadows that still linger around her? I would love to hear your reactions — share your opinions in the comments below. As always, thank you for reading and for standing with this story until the very end. - Peninstinct

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