A massive traffic jam had brought the road to a standstill. Car horns blared continuously, creating chaos and frustration in the air. Among the trapped vehicles sat Arjun, gripping his steering wheel, his face tense with worry.
Inside his mind, panic grew stronger with every passing second.
Mom's condition at home is getting worse… and I'm stuck here. When will this traffic clear?
His phone rang, jolting him back to reality.
"Hello, Maa," Arjun said anxiously. "I'm coming very soon. The traffic is terrible, but I'll leave immediately."
Knowing that every minute mattered, Arjun opened an app called My Brother, a service that provided instant bike transport during traffic jams. One rider would stay behind to look after the car, while another would take the customer on a bike to their destination. Arjun booked the service without hesitation.
Within fifteen minutes, the rider arrived. Arjun quickly mounted the bike and sped toward home. On the way, he called the family doctor and requested an urgent visit.
Arjun reached home almost at the same time as the doctor. The doctor immediately began examining his mother.
After a tense check-up, the doctor turned toward Arjun.
"Your mother has a dangerously high fever, and her blood pressure has dropped very low," he said gravely. "For now, apply cold wet cloths to her head continuously. I'll prescribe some medicines—bring them as soon as possible. I'll also give her an injection to provide temporary relief."
Without wasting a moment, Arjun rushed back out on the bike and headed to the nearest medical store.
At the first shop, he handed over the prescription.
"We don't have these medicines," the shopkeeper replied. "We do have a similar one, but with lower strength."
"No," Arjun said firmly. "That won't work."
As he stepped outside, a sudden realization struck him. Someone needed to stay with his mother and apply cold compresses. His father was not at home. Desperately, he called his friend Aaradhya.
"Aaradhya, please listen," Arjun said, his voice shaking. "My mother's condition is very bad. I'm stuck searching for medicines. Can you come to my house and take care of her? She has a high fever—please apply cold compresses to her head."
"Hey, calm down," Aaradhya replied gently. "I'm coming right now. Don't worry—leave your mother to me."
"Thank you so much," Arjun said.
"Thank you won't work," she teased lightly. "You'll have to take me out for dinner."
"Fine, fine—just please hurry," Arjun replied.
Aaradhya lived only five minutes away. She reached Arjun's house quickly and began caring for his mother, carefully placing cold cloths on her forehead.
Meanwhile, Arjun searched two more medical stores, but none had the required medicines. Finally, he rode nearly ten kilometers to a large pharmacy where the medicines were available. By the time he returned home, more than an hour and a half had passed.
Inside the house, he saw his mother sleeping peacefully while Aaradhya continued applying cold compresses.
"Thank you, Aaradhya," Arjun said with relief. "You can go now—you've been here for a long time."
"It's okay," she replied. "I told my family I wouldn't be back until night. Right now, you need me. How can I leave?"
Arjun nodded silently.
"Wake Mom up," he said softly. "She needs to take her medicine."
Aaradhya gently woke his mother and helped her take the prescribed medicines. Soon after, she fell asleep again. Aaradhya sat nearby, scrolling through her phone quietly.
Suddenly, Arjun remembered his car—still stuck in traffic with the My Brother service. The service charged by the hour, and nearly four hours had passed. Panicking, Arjun booked another bike, rushed back to the location, paid the full amount, and drove his car home.
Arjun merged into the lane behind a rusted tractor, its engine coughing out thick plumes of black smoke. Stacked haphazardly on its trailer were dozens of long, ribbed iron rods. They bounced with every pothole, their silver tips hanging over the edge like a row of spears aimed directly at his chest.
Stay back, Arjun thought, his foot hovering over the brake. Too dangerous.
But then, the quiet hum of his cabin was shattered by his phone's sharp ring. He glanced down at the center console. The screen glowed with a picture of his mother.
His heart skipped. Was she okay? Had her fever spiked again?
In the split second it took for his eyes to leave the road and his hand to reach for the phone, chaos erupted.
A small child, chasing a stray ball, darted directly into the path of the tractor. The driver didn't hesitate—he slammed his foot onto the brake pedal. The heavy machinery groaned, tires screeching as they locked up, sending a cloud of burnt rubber into the air.
Arjun looked up, but the world had already moved too fast.
There was no time to scream. There was only the bone-chilling sound of the rods sliding forward—a metallic shink—as inertia took hold. The windshield didn't just crack; it vanished, exploding into a thousand crystalline diamonds.
The first rod struck with the force of a high-speed train. It didn't feel like a sharp pain at first—it felt like a massive, icy weight punching through his chest. The second rod followed a millisecond later, higher up.
The world turned silent. The blaring horns of the traffic jam seemed miles away. Arjun stared through the jagged remains of his glass, watching a single drop of blood hit his steering wheel. He tried to breathe, but his lungs felt like they were filled with lead. He tried to think of his mother, but his thoughts were flickering out like a dying candle.
As the shadows closed in, the last thing he saw was the blue sky through the broken windshield. Then, everything went black.
Bystanders screamed and immediately called an ambulance. Arjun was rushed to the hospital, his body bleeding heavily. The sterile, white corridor of the hospital felt like a tunnel with no end. The rhythmic, frantic squeak of a gurney's wheels against the linoleum floor was the only sound until the double doors of the Operation Theatre swung shut with a heavy, metallic thud.
Behind those doors, Arjun was disappearing.
In the waiting area, the air felt thin, as if the oxygen was being sucked out of the room. Arjun's mother was collapsed into a plastic chair, her body trembling with a rhythmic, silent sob that eventually broke into a raw, guttural plea. Her hands, wrinkled and shaking, were clutched together so tightly her knuckles were white.
"Not him," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Take me, but let him breathe. Please."
Aradhaya stood over her like a silent sentinel. She didn't offer empty platitudes; she simply anchored the older woman, her hand pressing firmly against her shoulder. Aradhaya's own face was a mask of pale marble—still, frozen, and terrified.
One hour passed—a lifetime compressed into sixty minutes of ticking clocks and muffled hospital pages. When the doors finally opened, the doctor didn't walk; he trudged. He removed his surgical mask, revealing a face lined with the exhaustion of a lost battle.
He stopped before Arjun's mother. The silence that followed was deafening.
"We fought for every second," the doctor began, his voice barely a murmur. "But the trauma... it was total. The steel rod didn't just strike him; it claimed him. It pierced through the heart, and it tore through the brain."
He looked down at his hands, then back at the mother's breaking eyes. "The world has found ways to replace a heart, Ma'am. We have machines and donors for that. But the brain... the brain is where Arjun lived. It is where his memories, his laughter, and his soul resided. And that... that is beyond our reach."
The scream that left Arjun's mother wasn't human; it was the sound of a heart physically tearing in two. She collapsed forward, her grief a tidal wave that threatened to pull Aradhaya down with her. Aradhaya caught her, pulling the grieving woman into her chest, her own tears finally spilling over as she looked past the doctor into the cold, blue light of the recovery room.
Inside.
Arjun lay under a pale sheet, looking unnervingly peaceful despite the chaos of wires surrounding him. On the cardiac monitor, the green line was no longer a mountain range of life. It was a shallow, tired wave—a fading pulse that grew slower and flatter with every passing second.
Beep...
Beep...
...Beep.
The light of his life wasn't flickering; it was dimming, retreating into the quiet dark, leaving only the scent of antiseptic and the echo of a mother's cry behind.