It was raining the evening she decided her story needed to be written.
Not because rain made anything better, but because every drop felt like a small truth hitting the earth — sharp, cold, and honest. The kind of truth people didn't like hearing, the kind that made them look away. But she had lived her entire life as a truth people looked away from.
Her name was Aara.
Aara stood on the balcony of her tiny apartment, watching the water gather on the cracked cement. A street dog curled near her feet for shelter, his fur wet and shivering. She slowly knelt and placed her hand on his head, something about the animal's trembling reminding her of the way she used to sit alone behind the school building, crying so quietly that even the wind did not hear her.
"Even you came," she whispered to the dog. "When people didn't."
The dog closed his eyes as if understanding.
Aara smiled faintly — or tried to — but it was the kind of smile that never fully reached her lips. She had forgotten how to smile a long time ago. Ever since her brother had broken her front tooth in a moment of anger, she had become the girl who covered her mouth every time she laughed, the girl who talked without showing teeth, the girl whose friends whispered behind her back instead of beside her.
It wasn't the broken tooth that hurt the most.
It was the shame.
The endless teasing, the way people would giggle when she walked by, the boys who imitated her lisp after the accident. Even teachers asked her to "speak properly." She tried, she really did, but her voice would tremble, and their eyes would roll.
Eventually, she stopped speaking much at all.
By the time she got the tooth fixed years later… the habit of hiding herself was carved too deep. Her lips had forgotten how to stretch wide. Her laughter had forgotten how to sound like sunshine. And her heart, well… her heart had become a bird with broken wings — still alive, but unable to fly without pain.
---
Aara's phone buzzed on the railing.
A notification from the school she had quit two months ago.
"We need your pending files."
Of course. They needed the files. They didn't need her.
Nobody ever needed her.
She walked inside, the sound of the rain following her like a lonely friend. Her room was quiet except for her pet fish swimming in slow circles, their tiny tails like delicate strokes of paint against blue water. She often talked to them — they never judged her, never interrupted, never rolled their eyes.
Her laptop sat open on the desk, a document titled:
"My Story (Unfinished)"
She stared at it for a long time. The cursor blinked like a heartbeat, steady, patient, waiting. It looked more alive than she felt.
For years she had let other people write her life for her —
with their insults,
their betrayal,
their jealousy,
their cruel jokes.
But the day she walked out of the school, leaving behind the lies and the false accusations, something inside her had whispered:
"Tell your story yourself. For once."
Not for revenge. Not yet.
But because the world needed to know what it meant to be the girl nobody stood up for.
The girl who sat alone in a staff room full of loud voices and louder rumors.
The girl whose best friend left her the moment she became more successful.
The girl whose every achievement was treated like a threat.
The girl who kept giving chances to people who broke her again and again.
The girl who kept believing someday someone would pick her, choose her, stay with her.
But no one ever did.
---
She sat on the edge of her bed, hugging the pillow close, eyes wet. Sometimes she wondered how many tears one heart could hold before it burst. Maybe hers had already burst long ago, and now the tears were just memories falling out.
Her phone buzzed again — this time a message from her ex-best friend.
"Hey, can you send me that lesson plan? You still have it."
Not a "How are you?"
Not a "I'm sorry."
Not a "Thank you for everything."
Just a demand. Like always.
Aara tossed the phone aside as if it burned her.
"Why do I still let people use me?" she whispered. "Why can't I say no? Why can't I stop caring?"
The rain outside grew stronger, as if answering her with thunder instead of comfort.
She pressed her hand against her chest. Her heart felt heavy, tired — like it had lived too long in a world too sharp for it.
---
Aara changed into her gym clothes, tied her hair up, and grabbed her bag. Gym was the only place she felt invisible in a good way. Nobody talked to her there. Nobody mocked her. Nobody asked her to smile. She lifted weights quietly, did her cardio, listened to her music, and returned home.
One year.
One year of silence in the gym.
One year of doing her sets like a ghost.
Sometimes people looked at her with curiosity — a girl who never spoke, never joked, never joined anyone. A girl who moved like a storm trapped inside a body. A girl who carried a sadness so heavy it bent her shoulders.
She liked it that way.
Painful, yes.
Lonely, yes.
But safe.
Safety, for her, was better than belonging.
Belonging always came with betrayal.
---
As she stepped outside the gym that night, the rain had slowed into a mist, like the sky was finally tired of crying. The streetlights blurred into soft halos. A stray cat rubbed against her leg, meowing softly.
"You again," Aara whispered, lifting the cat gently. It pressed its forehead against her chin. Aara's throat tightened.
"Why do only animals understand me?" she said, voice trembling.
The cat purred.
And then she felt it — a sharp pain in her chest, like someone had squeezed her heart from inside. She leaned against the wall, gasping, vision blurring.
Her knees buckled.
The world tilted.
Aara fell onto the wet ground, the cat meowing desperately beside her. The streetlight above flickered. A cold wind swept her hair across her face.
Her breaths became uneven.
Her fingers trembled.
Her heartbeat slowed.
"No… not yet," she whispered. "I haven't written anything… I haven't even begun…"
Her vision darkened, the world fading into a swirl of water, light, and silence.
The last thing she felt was the soft touch of the cat's paw on her arm, as if trying to keep her alive.
And then—
Everything went still.
---
Somewhere between the last beat of her heart and the next breath of the universe, a light opened — warm, golden, endless. Aara felt weightless, free, unbroken for the first time.
But with that warmth came a whisper:
"You will return.
Not to suffer.
But to rewrite."
Aara reached toward the light, tears slipping down her face, her soul trembling.
"Please…" she whispered. "Let me start again."
The light answered without words.
And the girl who had died alone, with only a stray cat crying beside her…
was pulled into her second life.
But she did not know it yet.
Not the purpose.
Not the storm.
Not the darkness waiting to reshape her.
Not the love she would never fully hold.
Not the revenge that would slowly turn her heart into something cold.
For now, all she knew was the light.
And the feeling of being born again.
---