I don’t even know what compels me to write. What kind of force is this? I have everything love, people, comfort yet I still choose solitude. I drift into a world of imagination, where I sit quietly with a few books and gaze at the endless sky.

There are people in my life who love me deeply, who breathe life into my days… and yet, I find myself falling for lifeless things. Once, I loved people real, living souls. But they drained the life out of me, leaving behind an empty shell… like a breathing vampire.

That was the turning point the moment I began loving things that don’t exist. Because they never lie, never leave, and never hurt.

In the dimming light of dusk, Roshan sat quietly, lost in these thoughts.

Roshan, a software engineer based in Hyderabad, hails from Khordha, Odisha. He had returned to his homeland on a soul-searching journey to explore its untouched beauty. A techie by profession, but a poet at heart his soul forever bound to the red soil of Odisha. Though he lives far from home, his heart beats with the pride and emotion of being an Odia. He finds peace in discovering the hidden paradises of his land, where every tree, river, and breeze whispers stories of belonging.

It was sunset. Roshan sat alone near Puri sea beach. The waves crashed gently, echoing the rhythm of his thoughts. He looked out at the sea vast, deep, and endless and opened his diary. But this time, it wasn’t poetry or dreams he was penning. It was pain. A collection of wounds that still bled quietly within him.

Each word carried a storm of emotions where smiles met tears, and silence screamed louder than noise. He wasn’t just writing… he was bleeding in ink.

He was writing about the time he was bullied in school and college mocked for his weight, shamed for his dark skin. Laughter followed him wherever he went, not joyfully but cruelly. His appearance became a reason for rejection. No one wanted to sit beside him. No one truly saw him. And slowly, he stopped trying to be seen.

He became alone. Not just lonely but forgotten.

In the midst of that silence, he turned to books and writing. That’s where he found a home. A new world. A safe world. One where no one judged his skin or size, but listened to his heart.

Over time, something within him changed. A different personality was born quiet, observant, and reflective. He began to lose his voice in crowds but found it on paper. Facing the dazzling world became difficult. Conversations became overwhelming. Gradually, he became an introvert not by choice, but by survival.

And now, he notices everything the flicker of a fading sunset, the trembling of a leaf in the wind, the pause between words. But few notice him.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s why he writes.

To be seen if not by the world, then at least by the page.

Among everyone, Roshan had two people who truly mattered. Raghav and Leena.

Raghav understood his silence, while Leena wrapped him in warmth and kindness. With her, he felt safe. Whole.

As time passed, Roshan found himself drawn to her not just as a friend, but something more. Yet he never said a word.

He feared that if Leena knew, she might pull away… and he'd lose the only comfort he had.

So he buried his feelings beneath layers of friendship.

They became an unsaid truth, buried deep in the heart of a silent boy.

Time passed.

Leena, Raghav, and Roshan moved on different colleges, different cities, and different lives.

But that one feeling stayed.

Unspoken. Unheard.

And eternal.

Roshan had quietly fallen in love with Leena—softly, deeply, hopelessly. But she never knew. She smiled, she laughed, and she cared… but never saw the storm that brewed silently in his heart.

Time passed.

Raghav completed his engineering and moved to Bangalore, carving his path in the tech world. Leena stayed back in Odisha, chasing dreams of a higher kind preparing for the UPSC, determined and focused. And Roshan… he was somewhere in between stuck in the ache of emotions he couldn’t silence.

One day, after countless battles with his own fears, Roshan gathered the courage to speak. His hands trembled, heart pounding as he dialed her number. It was a calm evening, but inside him, a thousand storms were raging.

When she picked up, he confessed everything every silent gaze, every hidden heartbeat, every sleepless night. He told her he loved her. He poured years of buried feelings into a few trembling words.

But Leena didn’t feel the same.

Her voice, gentle yet firm, said it all.

It was a no.

A soft rejection, but to Roshan, it felt like the world collapsed in a whisper.

His dreams shattered in a single breath. The image of her he carried in his heart cracked into pieces that cut him from within. What once felt like love now turned into a haunting obsession. Not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t know how to let go.

He stopped eating. He stopped writing. The very things that once saved him now felt meaningless.

And Roshan… slowly started losing himself in the ruins of what could’ve been.

After the rejection, Roshan didn’t cry in front of anyone. He didn’t scream or break things. Instead, he broke silently—like a page torn out of a favorite book.

But even in his pain, he chose to heal.

He picked up his pen and began writing again this time, not poetry, but small stories. Each story was a mirror to his soul. Some were about lost love, some about invisible pain, and some about finding light in darkness. Every night, he poured his emotions into his diary like inked tears writing not to be read, but to be understood.

He was slowly learning to live with the wound.

But the wound wasn’t done growing.

Because the one person he thought would stand beside him Raghav didn’t just walk away…

He twisted the knife.

Raghav knew everything. He had seen Roshan fall, seen him break. But instead of holding him through the storm, he whispered poison into others' ears.

He painted Roshan as the villain—as if loving someone silently was a crime.

He told Leena that Roshan had changed, that he was obsessed, unstable, and dangerous.

And Leena… she believed it.

Roshan, already fighting the darkness inside him, now had to battle the shadows cast by someone he once called brother. The betrayal hit harder than the rejection. Not because it came with loud words, but because it came wrapped in silence, from someone he trusted.

He didn’t confront anyone.

He simply stopped speaking altogether.

And once again, he turned to the only thing that never betrayed him his pen.

Some wounds fade with time, but some cut deeper with every heartbeat. Roshan had begun to believe he was healing. Through his writing, he was slowly learning to live again letting his stories hold the pain he no longer wanted to carry. But healing is never linear, and sometimes, just when you start to breathe, life knocks the wind out of you again. One evening, as he strolled past a quiet café in the city, his world collapsed in a single glance. Through the glass, he saw Leena and Raghav sitting together, their eyes locked in a way that said everything words couldn’t. She smiled at him, her hand resting gently on his, their laughter filling the space between them. Roshan stood frozen, his heart pounding in disbelief. Raghav had returned from Bangalore but never told him. No message. No call. Not even a whisper. And now here they were, wrapped in a closeness that Roshan once longed for. The betrayal stung more than the rejection ever did. He didn’t just lose Leena… he lost Raghav too. The boy who once called him brother had erased him like he never existed. The trio they once were bound by childhood, dreams, and unspoken promises was now a distant memory, fading faster than the ink in Roshan’s diary. He didn’t walk into the café. He didn’t confront them. He turned away, each step heavier than the last, their laughter echoing behind him like a cruel reminder that some people move on by forgetting… while others heal by remembering. That night, Roshan wrote not just to express but to survive. The pages no longer felt like paper, they felt like shelter. And maybe, just maybe, that’s all he had left.

Time passed, and with it, the sharpness of Roshan's pain began to soften. He no longer clung to what was lost but focused on what could still be built. He immersed himself in his studies and honed his writing skills with quiet dedication. Eventually, he moved back to Hyderabad, not as the broken soul he once was, but as someone slowly learning to rebuild from within. He secured a stable job at a well-known tech company and began balancing his life between professional responsibilities and creative passion. His diary remained his silent companion, a space where he still poured pieces of his soul, but now those pieces were laced with strength rather than sorrow.

Then one day, through a passing conversation with a mutual friend, Roshan came to know something unexpected. Raghav and Leena had broken up. The relationship that once seemed so perfect from a distance had crumbled. Raghav, the same person who once betrayed Roshan, had done the same to Leena. He had left her and moved on with someone new, as if the past held no meaning. This news didn’t bring Roshan any sense of justice or closure. Instead, it left behind a hollow ache. He remembered how deeply Leena once believed in love, how brightly she had smiled in Raghav's presence, and now, all of it was gone.

Leena had fallen into the same pit of heartbreak Roshan once knew all too well. Unable to cope, she was admitted to a hospital, struggling with depression and emotional trauma. The girl who once helped Roshan feel understood was now trying to survive her own darkness. And Roshan? He felt no triumph, no sense of being proven right. He felt only silence. A quiet sadness for the girl who had once meant so much and the friendship that had turned to dust.

He realized that pain does not compete. Everyone bleeds differently, and some wounds take longer to heal. Roshan chose compassion over resentment. He kept writing, kept working, and kept growing. Not because life had suddenly become easy, but because he had finally learned to move forward without letting the past define him. His healing was not loud. It was quiet, patient, and deeply personal.

After hearing about Leena’s condition, Roshan couldn’t stay silent. He picked up the phone once again, his voice gentle, carrying the weight of all the years and the love that still lingered quietly in his heart. Leena answered, surprised yet comforted by the familiar warmth in his tone. They spoke for hours. Roshan didn’t try to fix her pain, he just listened, and in his listening, Leena found a kind of peace. Slowly, with his support from afar, she began to heal. But life had its own pace and demands. Roshan got caught in a whirlwind of work and responsibilities. Months passed. Deadlines consumed his days, and exhaustion filled his nights. He remained emotionally present but physically distant, trusting that Leena was strong enough to continue her journey without leaning on him every step of the way.

When the dust finally settled, Roshan returned to Odisha after more than six long months. The first thing he wanted to do was see her. And when they met, it felt like the world paused for a moment. They sat together under the fading light of the evening sky, talking openly, finally sharing the truth of what had happened during those months of silence. Leena spoke about her pain, about how betrayal nearly broke her, but also how she picked herself up and chose to start again. They laughed softly at the past, not because it was funny, but because they had survived it. And for the first time in years, there was light in their eyes again.

A few days later, on a quiet Sunday evening, Roshan met Leena once more. The setting was simple, yet his heart raced like never before. This time, he had no fear. No more what-ifs. He looked into her eyes and, with trembling honesty, told her that his feelings had never changed. That he still loved her. That he always would.

Leena looked at him with a soft, sad smile. Her eyes didn’t flicker away. But what she said next shattered the moment into a thousand pieces. She gently said that she was in a new relationship now, that someone else had entered her life and helped her feel love again. She didn’t say it to hurt him, only to be honest.

Roshan stood there, heart sinking, silence wrapping around him like a heavy fog. He had waited, believed, hoped. But love, once again, had slipped through his fingers. He smiled through the pain, nodded slowly, and whispered, “I’m happy for you.”

And just like that, he realized sometimes, love is not about getting someone back. It’s about letting them go, even when your soul still aches for them. And in that quiet heartbreak, Roshan rose again, not with her, but with the strength to write one more story… this time, about letting go with grace.

After that final meeting with Leena, something in Roshan quietly broke again. But this time, he didn’t fall apart. He didn’t beg life to give back what it had taken. He simply turned around and walked away, carrying a silence too heavy for words. He returned to Hyderabad, not as a man chasing love or waiting for answers, but as someone who had learned the painful beauty of letting go. One by one, he distanced himself from everyone cutting ties not out of hatred, but out of the need to protect his healing heart. No more distractions, no more emotional wounds. Just him, his work, and the dreams he had once left behind.

Roshan poured himself into his job, chasing every challenge with fierce determination. He burned through long nights of coding and early mornings of reflection. At the same time, he kept writing. In every quiet moment between projects and deadlines, he crafted stories born from pain, resilience, and the soft strength of solitude. Slowly, his words began to reach people. His stories raw, honest, and achingly real found their way into hearts across the internet. Readers didn’t just read his words; they felt them.

In time, Roshan was no longer just another software engineer in a bustling city. He was a voice. A storyteller. A survivor. His name began to shine in tech forums and literary circles alike. He was invited to speak at conferences, contribute to publications, and share his journey the boy who once broke in silence, now inspiring others with the very scars he once hid.

He didn’t need validation from those who left. His peace came not from applause, but from knowing he rose from the ruins on his own. Roshan didn’t chase love anymore. He chased purpose. And in doing so, he found something far more lasting than temporary affection he found himself.

One fine day, just as the city of Hyderabad was waking up to its usual rhythm, Roshan’s world came to a sudden, heart-wrenching halt. A phone call—brief, cold, and devastating—delivered news that shattered the silence he had worked so hard to build. Leena had broken down again. Another heartbreak. Another betrayal. And this time, she couldn’t survive it. She was admitted to the hospital once more, battling the same darkness that had once nearly consumed her. But days later, the darkness won.

Leena was gone.

Just like that, a light he once loved from afar was extinguished forever. Roshan stood frozen, numb, and unable to process the reality. Memories came flooding back the warmth in her voice, the way she once believed in dreams, the quiet strength in her eyes that now would never open again. He remembered the laughter they once shared, the pain they both carried, and the love he had buried deep in silence. And now, even the hope of someday had disappeared.

Raghav had moved on, selfishly untouched by the wreckage he left behind. He had married, started a new life, and built his future on the ruins of others. But Roshan couldn’t hate him anymore. The ache inside him was too heavy, too sacred, and too deep for blame. Some wounds were beyond anger. Some losses, beyond rage.

After Leena’s passing, the world seemed quieter. Slower. Colder. But within that silence, something stirred in Roshan’s soul. A need. A calling. A voice that whispered through every sleepless night. It told him to write not just as an escape, but as a way to remember, to honor, and to transform grief into meaning.

And so, Roshan began writing his first book.

He called it Journey of a Storyteller.

In its pages, he poured his entire soul raw and unfiltered. He wrote about the lonely boy who found refuge in books. About the first time he fell in love, the pain of rejection, the betrayal of friendship, and the unbearable silence that came with losing someone forever. But he also wrote about resilience. About rising from the ashes. About how pain doesn’t just break you—it shapes you. And how storytelling saved him when the world couldn’t.

With every chapter, Roshan wasn’t just writing a book—he was reclaiming his life. His words became more than ink on paper; they became a lighthouse for others lost in their own storms. Readers saw themselves in his story. They cried with him, healed with him, and rose with him.

Roshan’s journey as a storyteller wasn’t born out of inspiration. It was born from loss, from love unspoken, and from truths too heavy to carry in silence. He didn’t write to become famous. He wrote so no one else would ever feel alone in their pain. And somewhere between heartbreak and healing, Roshan didn’t just become a writer.

He became a voice for all those who were never heard.

In the quiet aftermath of love lost, in the shattered silence of broken hearts, lies a truth we often overlook healing takes time. Too many rush to fill the emptiness left behind, seeking comfort in new arms while their soul still bleeds. But love is not a bandage. And hearts are not meant to be stitched with temporary threads.

Roshan's story teaches us that unhealed wounds, when buried under new promises, only deepen. That pain ignored becomes poison. That jumping into a new relationship after a breakup doesn’t erase the past it only delays the damage. And sometimes, as in Leena’s story, that damage becomes irreversible.

Take your time. Sit with the silence. Let the ache echo until it fades. Rediscover yourself before offering your heart again. Because true love whether for another or for yourself can only grow in a soul that has made peace with its past.

Heal first. Love later.

Because hearts are sacred, not spare parts.

I didn’t write to be understood by the world. I wrote so I could understand myself. And in every word, I found the pieces I thought I had lost. This isn’t just my story it’s a reminder that even the broken can become whole through the courage to speak, to feel, and to begin again.”

Nabaranjan Palatasingh, Journey of a Storyteller

Journey of a Storyteller

Love , heal and Laugh again.....