She wanted to write a love story.

Not just a collection of words bound between pages. Not just ink staining paper. She wanted to create something real. Something that could hold her, whisper her name in the dark, chase away the emptiness that curled around her like an old ghost.

She had always been alone. An orphan, not just by fate, but by existence itself.

She had no childhood home, no photographs tucked into dusty albums, no arms waiting for her at the end of the day. Loneliness was not just a condition—it was a presence, heavy as the air before a storm.

But if the world refused to give her love, she would write it into existence.

And so, she created him.

Adhiran.

A name that tasted like rain when whispered. A presence that filled the spaces between her ribs. A man with a voice like dusk—soft, low, endless.

He was everything she had never known. His laughter hummed through the pages, his touch burned in the words she wrote. And as the nights passed, and the ink bled deeper into paper, he became more than fiction.

He became hers.

At first, it was nothing.

A flicker in the corner of her eye. The soft rustle of paper when the air was still. A shadow that stretched a little too far across the room.

Then it became something.

The feeling of being watched. The scent of something unfamiliar—jasmine, rain-damp earth, the lingering trace of someone who shouldn’t exist.

Then, one night—

"Swini."

She heard it. Clear as the wind that slipped through her open window.

She turned so fast her breath caught, but—nothing. Only her empty room, the soft hum of the city beyond her walls.

She closed her eyes, heart rattling against her ribs.

She was tired. She was imagining things. She had to be.

But then;

The pages of her manuscript turned on their own.

She stopped questioning it.

She let herself believe.

She spoke to him now, out loud, in the fragile quiet of her room. Sometimes, she heard his answers in the sigh of the wind, in the faint echo of her own voice.

Other times, she felt him.

A warmth beside her. A shift in the air, like someone had just moved. The slight pressure against her arm, as if fingers had brushed her skin.

She started leaving space for him on the couch. She set out two cups of tea, watched the steam curl into the air, waited for the impossible.

And then, one evening, as she stood before the mirror, she saw him.

Not a blur. Not a shadow.

But him.

Tall. Real. Heartbreakingly beautiful, in the way forgotten dreams always are.

His gaze met hers through the reflection.

And then, in a voice as soft as dying light—

"When will you finish my story?"

She turned, breath caught in her throat but the room was empty. She stopped writing. She couldn’t bear to finish his story. Because endings meant letting go and she had already lost too much.

But Adhiran didn’t leave.

Instead, he became stronger.

"Swini..." His voice came at night, curling through her thoughts like smoke. "If you never finish my story, how will I ever know how it ends?"

She wanted to answer. But the truth was—she didn’t know.

She had never known an ending that wasn’t loss. She had never known love that stayed.

So how could she give him something she didn’t believe in?

One night, she woke to the feeling of fingers trailing down her arm.

Not cold. Not frightening. Warm.

Her eyes fluttered open, and there he was—standing at the edge of her bed.

For the first time, he was not just a whisper. Not just a fleeting presence in the air.

He was real.

She sat up slowly, her breath uneven.

"Adhiran." His name was barely a whisper.

He knelt before her, taking her hand as if it had always belonged in his. His touch was warm, steady, real in a way she could no longer deny.

"Come with me," he murmured.

"Where?" Her voice trembled.

"Where I can stay."

She found herself on the rooftop.

The night stretched around her, vast and endless. The city glowed below—so unaware, so indifferent.

And there he was.

Standing beyond the rooftop, in a place that should not exist.

A meadow stretched behind him, golden with sunlight that did not belong to this world. Flowers swayed in a wind she could not feel. The sky was painted in hues she had never seen before—violets melting into gold, stars dusting the horizon like scattered petals.

A world untouched by sorrow. A world where he could stay.

"Come with me," he said again.

"I can’t," she whispered.

"You can." He held out his hand, his gaze unbreaking. "Just take my hand."

She turned back, looking at the world she knew. Concrete. Cold edges. A life that had never felt like hers. Then she looked at him.
Warmth. Home. A love that would never fade.

"If you want me to stay forever, come without me with my world."

The wind curled around her, whispering secrets only she could hear.

She closed her eyes.

And stepped forward.

The city woke as if nothing had changed. No one noticed the girl who had disappeared into the night. But someone found her notebook. It lay open by the window, pages fluttering in the soft morning breeze. The ink was slightly smudged, as if touched by something unseen.

A girl—young, curious—picked it up.

She ran her fingers over the last words written in delicate strokes:

"I gave him love, but I could never give him an ending. So I followed him into one of my own."

The words sent a shiver down her spine. She turned the page.

Blank.

Her fingers trembled as she picked up the pen lying beside the book. Without knowing why, without understanding the pull she felt, she wrote the first line.

"His name was Adhiran."

A whisper echoed behind her.

A shadow moved in the mirror.

And somewhere, unseen, a presence stirred once more.