Prologue – 0

Sri City: I died in silence

No grand finale no last words no mourning faces leaning over my bed

One moment I was asleep and the next I was somewhere else

It was not heaven not hell not the endless black of nothing

It was a hollow place

A corridor that had no walls and yet I felt confined

Like being buried alive in air

That was where I met him

He was tall and bent slightly forward as if always laughing at a joke only he understood

His eyes were pale as glass and his mouth stretched too wide when he smiled

A robe hung over him but it did not shine it clung like a shadow that had weight

I knew he was an angel because he told me he was

And in that place there was no reason to doubt

“You died quietly” he said with delight“

As if you did not even care about the end”

I nodded

Because it was trueI had never cared

Not for myself not for anything

Living had been a long hollow sentence

Dying felt like a punctuation mark

The angel’s voice was not soft

It was sharp

It cut through the air and scraped against my bones

He leaned close to me as if he wished to whisper yet his words thundered

“I am offering you a gift”

His smile widened

It was not a smile meant to comfort

It was a smile that belonged to a child tearing wings off flies

A gift

A curse

The difference was only in how much I could endure

“Nine lives” he said

“Nine souls you will wear like borrowed coats

Nine deaths you will taste as if they were your own

You will slip inside the minds of the broken

Those who tremble on the edge of ending themselves

You will feel what they feel

You will suffer what they suffer

And you will decide how they die”

I felt nothing at first

Only a dull curiosity

But then he added

“You will not just watch their end

You will become their end”

The floor under me groaned like old wood even though there was no floor

I wanted to ask why but the angel spoke again before my mouth opened

“For my amusement” he said

His voice was almost tender now

“You see I enjoy suffering when it wears a face

When it carries poetry inside the blood and the bruises

Each scar will stay with you as a mark upon your flesh

So you may remember the theatre I have staged for you”

I raised my right hand and found my wrist bare

But I knew soon it would not be

The angel touched my shoulder

His hand was heavy and burning cold at the same time

And he whispered“Begin”

The world tore itself apart like paper and I fell through

Life 1 – The Crushed Student

I woke inside a boy

His skin was thin his breath shallow his hands shook

I felt the ache in his chest before I opened his eyes

A mountain sat there pressing down on him pressing down on me

The room was small yet every corner seemed to close in

Books piled high on the desk

Notes bleeding with red ink

Equations and words carved into his head like knives

I could feel his father’s voice echoing even though the man was not there

You must succeed you must rise you must not shame us

Every word was weight

Every number was stone

And I felt it pressing on me pressing until I could barely draw air

He wanted to end it

Not because he hated life

But because he had been given no space to live it

A body made for carrying someone else’s dreams

A mind made for breaking

The angel’s voice hummed in the walls

Mocking yet patient

Decide

The boy’s pulse raced

Mine did too

My wrist ached though it was bare

I knew the tally would come once this was done

I thought of knives

I thought of pills

But neither carried the truth of his burden

He was not cut he was not poisoned

He was crushed

So I gave him what he already lived

I walked him outside to the skeleton of a building still under construction

The night air was sharp the city lights blurred

He stood beneath the steel beams and trembling concrete

And I lay him down where the shadow was deepest

I pulled loose the supportI let the weight of stone and steel descend

And as it fell it was not rubble

It was every word he had swallowed

Every expectation

Every demand

It struck his chest and I felt ribs snap like dry branches

I felt air flee my lungs as if the world had stolen it

The mountain became real and it buried me alive

The pain was endless but brief

The world narrowed to dust and bone and silence

When darkness took him I woke again

Alone in nothing

My wrist burned and I saw the first mark cut deep and red

A single lineThe first of nine

The angel’s laughter spilled out around me like broken glass

He was pleased

And I could not even say I was horrified

Only empty

Only waiting for the next descent.

Life 2 – The Abandoned Lover

I woke inside a woman

Her chest was an echo chamber where no one answered

Her body trembled though no one touched her

Her mind whispered names but each one dissolved before reaching her lips

The bed beside her was empty

It had been empty for years though once it had been filled

She carried ghosts in her skin

Every embrace had slipped away

Every voice had grown quiet

Love had left her again and again until she was nothing but a hollow shell of waiting

I felt it

The emptiness deeper than hunger

A thirst not for water but for a hand that would never hold hers again

Her thoughts repeated like a prayer without an end

No one will come back

No one will stay

No one will love me enough to stay

The angel’s whisper floated through the walls like dripping water

Decide

My chest felt raw as if loneliness had its own claws

I thought of pills

Of ropes

Of fire

But her pain was not sharp not fast

It was slow and endless like tidewater

It had drowned her long before she chose how to end

So I walked her through the night

Barefoot across soil damp with dew

Down to the lake where the water shimmered black and silver

The moon bled across its surface like an open vein

She stepped in

Cold spread up her legs into her chest

I could feel the heart racing yet heavy like a stone tied tight

I guided her deeper until the water rose to her mouth

Her breath was wild

Her eyes reflected the night sky fractured by ripples

And then she let go

Water surged into her lungs like broken glass and starlight

Each swallow burned and froze at once

Her arms fought then faltered

Her chest convulsed as if begging for release

I felt the beauty in it

The terrible beauty of silence filling her where voices once lived

The surface drifted farther away until it was only a smear of silver above

The world slowed

Each second a painting

Each heartbeat a drum muffled in water

When the last air escaped her lips it bubbled like pearls

Her eyes closed not in peace but in surrender

The cold clung to her bones and then nothing

I gasped awake into the void again

Water still filled my throat though there was no water

I coughed and nothing came out

Only silence

On my wrist a second line burned itself raw beside the first

Two marks

Two graves carved into my skin

The angel’s laughter rang like bells at a funeral

Beautiful he hissed

Do you see how exquisite emptiness can be

I lowered my head

For the first time the emptiness inside me stirred

Not yet sorrow

Not yet empathy

But something fragile beginning to ache

And the void split open again to drag me into another body

Life 3 – The Addict

I woke inside a man

The taste of ash coated his mouth

His body shook before I moved a single limb

Needles lay scattered across the floor like broken bones

Empty bottles tipped over in puddles of their own rot

His skin was thin wax stretched across a dying frame

Every vein was a road he had traveled too many times

Every breath rattled like a rusted machine about to fail

The stench of sweat and vomit filled meIt clung inside my throat until I gagged

He wanted to end it

Not because he feared pain but because he lived inside it

His body was a ruin his mind a fog thick with voices that lied

They told him just one more would fix it

Just one more would finally free him

But freedom never came only another chain

The angel’s voice slithered in from the dark corners

Decide

There was no poetry in him

No beauty to carve from his wounds

Only filth and waste and the certainty that society had buried him long before the ground would take him

So I gave him what he always reached for

The needle still sticky with residue

The last dose already waiting like a loaded gun

I pushed it in

The sting was sharp then numbness spread cold and heavy

His body begged for air but his chest locked tight

I felt his heart convulse fast then faster then too fast to count

It was a drum breaking itself against its own skin

Sweat poured from every pore as if the body was trying to escape itself

Mouth foaming

Eyes rolling back into white emptiness

I screamed but no sound came out

Because it was his scream not mine

Because it was my scream too

The end was not slow

It was jagged violent

One final convulsion snapped through his chest and then nothing

I fell back into the void gasping

My wrist burned hot and the third line etched itself beside the others

Three scars

Three deaths

The angel was laughing again

But there was no grace in his laughter this time

It was loud crude savage

The kind of laughter that belongs to someone crushing an insect under heel

No beauty there he sneered

But suffering is still a stage worth watching

My body shook though there was no body

For the first time I wanted to escape

But the void opened and dragged me down again

Life 4 – The Factory Worker

I woke inside a woman

Her hands were blistered her back bent her lungs thick with dust

The air tasted like iron and oil

The world was nothing but gears and belts and the endless groan of machines

Day after day she moved in rhythm not her own

Day after day she gave her body to steel

Her mind was quiet yet heavy

Not silence by choice but silence forced

No one had asked her who she was

They only asked her to work

To move the same pieces into the same place again and again until her bones forgot she was alive

I felt her ache

Every joint screaming yet ignored

Every thought small like a spark swallowed by the roar of engines

She wanted release

Not freedom not joy only the end of repetition

To stop being a cog inside the machine

The angel’s whisper bled through the noise like metal scraping

Decide

I looked at the machines and I understood

She would not die by knife or rope or flame

She would die the way she lived

Consumed by the thing she served

So I walked her closer to the great gear that spun like a black sun

Its teeth dripped with oil its rhythm was older than her life

She laid her hand against the steel and I felt the vibration rattle through her bones

Her eyes closed

Not in prayerIn surrender

Then I pushed her in

The gears took her arm first

Bones splintered with a sound sharper than thunder

The body jerked but she did not scream

The machine screamed for her

It pulled her deeper tearing through flesh ripping muscle grinding bone

Every inch of her body was swallowed by the beast she had served

Blood sprayed hot and metallic against the iron walls

Her breath ended in broken fragments until the last of her was gone

Silence followed

Not peace only silence

The machine kept turning as if nothing had happened

As if her life had been nothing more than fuel

I fell back into the void

My wrist split with a fourth line carved deep into skin

Four tallies four graves

The angel’s voice hummed low almost admiring

How fitting he said

She worked until the end and the end worked her

I tried to close my eyes but there were no eyes to close

The pain of torn flesh still sang inside meIt was not hers now it was mine

And before I could draw a breath the void ripped again

Part -2:

Life 5 – The Refugee

I woke inside a man

His stomach clawed at itself with hunger

His lips cracked dry as old stone

His feet were torn from walking too far on ground that never ended

Around him lay the wreckage of what once had been a village

Charred walls leaning like broken ribs

Smoke still clinging to the air though the fire had died long ago

Bodies half buried under dust

Some small some still clutching rags of clothing that had once been loved

His arms carried nothing now

They had once carried children but the weight was gone

I felt the memory of their warmth still pressed into his skin

Gone in fire gone in smoke gone in screams

The angel’s voice slid through the ruins

Decide

But there was no choice here

Death had already decided long before I arrived

This man had been dead the moment the first shell fell from the sky

His body only hadn’t caught up yet

I felt the weakness in his legs as he stumbled into rubble

The walls trembled with distant blasts

Each sound closer than the last

The ground shook and stone rained down from the sky

It struck him hard across the backSpine cracking like dry wood

He collapsed with dust flooding his lungs

Blood poured from his mouth and nose hot and choking

He clawed at the earth as if he could dig his way out of death

But the rubble pinned him harder with every breath

One stone broke his ribs another crushed his arm another shattered his skull

There was no beauty in it only violence

The sound of flesh breaking beneath rock

The sound of a man vanishing into debris

I felt it all

The weight the suffocation the way the world pressed him flat into nothing

When the last of his air escaped I snapped back into the void

My wrist burned again and the fifth line carved itself beside the others

Five marksHalfway to the end

The angel’s laughter was crueler now sharper than before

So many ways to fall he said

And yet every end feels the same

I looked at the scars on my wrist glowing red in the dark

I felt the hunger still clawing inside my belly

The broken ribs still crushing my lungs

The faces of children still screaming in my head

I wanted to stop

For the first time I wanted to stop

But the void tore open again and I was dragged through

Life 6 – The Neglected Child

I woke inside a boy

His hands were small his eyes wide yet hollow

The room around him was dim and cluttered

Plates unwashed clothes scattered

A house where no one looked at him long enough to see him

I felt his hunger

Not only in the belly but deeper in the heart

He wanted someone to notice when he spoke

He wanted someone to hear when he cried

But the walls never answered

The footsteps of his parents echoed without stopping at his door

He had grown invisible

Every word swallowed before it left his lips

Every gesture ignored until he stopped making them

The silence pressed against him harder than hunger ever could

The angel’s voice drifted in soft and cruel

Decide

I lifted his head and guided his eyes to the open window

Beyond it stretched the night sky painted with stars

They seemed close enough to touch

Closer than any hand had ever been to him

He climbed quietly onto the ledge

The cool air brushed against his skin like the first kindness he had ever felt

He spread his arms as if they were wings though he had never flown

I felt his small heart beating like a trapped bird

And then he stepped forward

For a moment it was not falling

It was flying

The world spun beneath him as the night carried him down

Air rushed past his ears like whispers

His arms still stretched wide as if he might rise instead of fall

Then the ground struck

Bones shattered in silence

Blood spread across the pavement in a shape no one would ever see

His body lay twisted yet still no voices came

No hands reached out

Even in death he remained invisible

I woke in the void gasping

The sixth tally cut across my wrist

The marks deeper now darker as if carved by fire itself

The angel’s laughter was hushed this time almost reverent

Beautiful little bird he whispered

He flew only once and even that was enough

I lowered my head

For the first time I felt tears threaten though they did not fall

The ache was not only his now

It was mine

And before I could hold it longer the void split once again and dragged me down

Life 7 – The Corrupt Politician

I woke inside a man

His skin was heavy with sweat his chest thick with rot

His hands trembled not from weakness but from greed

He clutched papers that promised power

He clutched money that smelled of ash

Every corner of the room whispered names he had betrayed

His mind was loud

Voices clawed at him from shadows

Accusations threats curses

Faces of people he had crushed under laws and deals

Mothers starved children wept men broke their backs and he had eaten their pain like bread

Now every face sat behind his eyelids screaming until he could not rest

The angel’s voice licked the walls

Decide

I felt his fear boil

Not sorrow not regret only terror

The paranoia that someone waited for him in every alley

That every knock on the door was death come to collect his debt

He wanted to end it but he was too afraid of surrender

So I gave him what he feared most

I walked him through a narrow hall that bled into black

The air pressed hot against my lungs

From the shadows hands reached out

Rough and sharp

They pulled him down with ropes of rage

They cut his skin with knives not sharp enough to be quick

Every slice jagged tearing slow through fat and flesh

Blood poured thick and hot over his suit

He screamed until the sound shredded his throat

But no one listened

No one cared

They carved him apart like a feast

Bit by bit the body split open

I felt it all

Organs trembling in air that stank of iron

Bones cracking like branches under a boot

The eyes gouged out so he could not look at what he had built from ruin

When the last shred of his breath rattled out the shadows dropped him cold

Nothing remained but meat and silence

I fell back into the void

The seventh line burned into my wrist until smoke rose from the wound

Seven tallies glowing red against skin that no longer felt my own

The angel laughed again but softer now

Not cruel not amused

Almost thoughtful

Power is only flesh he said

And flesh always rots

I shook

Not from fear

From exhaustion

Every death cut deeper than the last and my body carried them all like anchors

The void ripped open again and pulled me down

Life 8 – The Forgotten Old Man

I opened my eyes and found myself in a chair

The smell of dust and medicine weighed on the air

The room was small with a window that looked out on a garden no one tended anymore

A clock ticked too loudly as if it were mocking me for still breathing

I felt his bones ache

His chest shallow

His mind frayed at the edges like an old sheet

He did not remember the faces of those he once loved

But he remembered the silence when they stopped visiting

He remembered the birthdays missed the empty chairs the phone calls that never came

His family had moved on as if he had already been buried

Loneliness hung heavier than age

It crushed the lungs more than sickness

It whispered that he no longer existed

That he was a ghost wandering the halls of a body too stubborn to collapse

The angel lingered in the corner

His smile curled but not cruel this time

Almost tender almost worse

Do you see how easy it is to erase a man without touching him he asked

The old man did not want fire or blades or drowning

He only wanted rest

To fade in a way that no one would notice

To become air and nothing more

So I closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair

I let his breath slow until it barely touched the room

I let his heartbeat stretch farther and farther between strikes until silence filled the space

It was not violent not brutal

It was emptiness swallowing itself

The world blurred like mist over a lake at dawn

I felt myself dissolve with him

Each thought thinning each memory scattering like leaves in autumn

No screams no blood no spectacle

Only the long cruel weight of being forgotten

When the final thread snapped my wrist burned

The eighth mark seared itself beside the others

Eight tallies carved deep into my flesh like bars on a cage

I stared at them in the dark void

One more remained

One final life

The angel’s voice coiled low almost kind

The end waits for you where you began

Then silence

The void shivered

I knew what came next

I would return to myself

Life 9 – The Beginning 

I woke in my own bed

The same sheets

The same stale air

The same silence that had once swallowed me whole

My chest rose heavy but alive

I touched my wrist and felt the scars carved deep

Eight tally marks like a prison wall Proof that death was not freedom but another chain

The angel waited at the window

His wings blurred with shadow

His smile the same cruel slash

He looked at me like a puppeteer admiring strings that could never be cut

You wanted nothing he said

So I gave you everything

You felt their despair you wore their deaths you learned the cost of escape

Now you will live because you no longer have the courage to die

I hated him

I hated how he was righ

Each scar throbbed with the weight of lives that were not mine yet lived in me still

Mothers who drowned children who begged old men erased by silence

I had killed them all and felt it all

And now the thought of taking my own life tasted cowardly even pathetic

The knife was still in the drawer

The window still opened into the night sky

But I knew I would not use either

The scars would not let me

They whispered stay not out of hope but out of guilt

A leash disguised as wisdom

I rose from the bed

Not to live but because I could not die anymore

Breathing was not victoryIt was sentence

The world outside looked pale and tired

Like me

Behind me the angel was gone

But the echo of his laughter lingered in the air

Not kind not cruel

Simply amused

I pressed my wrist to the glass

The tally marks looked like a joke

Eight failures etched into my skin

And I knew there would never be a ninth

Not because I was strong

But because the angel had already broken me into obedience

Life stretched ahead

Not as redemption

But as punishment

And I would endure it