EPILOGUE

Six months later.

The flat in Mumbai was smaller than what either of them was used to, but it was theirs. Sanika had found a job within three weeks of arriving -- marketing head at a startup that valued her sharp tongue and sharper mind. The commute was hell, the hours were long, and the Mumbai rains made Pune's drizzles look like a light misting. But she was happy. Genuinely, unreservedly happy in a way she hadn't thought possible six months ago.

The scars had faded. The one on her back was a thin white line now, barely visible unless you knew where to look. The one on her arm was hidden by her watch strap most of the time. The one inside -- the one Mira had left behind -- that one would never fully heal. But it had stopped bleeding. It ached sometimes, usually at odd moments -- when she heard a song Mira used to love, when she saw someone who walked the way Mira did, when she reached for her phone to share something funny and remembered there was no one to share it with. In those moments, the ache was so fierce it stole her breath. But it always passed. It always passed.

Shruti and Runal had settled into Pune beautifully. True to their word, they were trying for a baby, and Shruti's recovery had been complete -- physically, at least. She still had nightmares sometimes, Runal had confided to Samar during one of their now-regular phone conversations. But they were getting less frequent. She was writing again -- a blog about surviving violence and rebuilding trust. It had garnered a modest but devoted following. She never mentioned Sanika or the video by name, but anyone who knew the story could read between the lines.

Karan Malhotra had left Pune. Someone told Sanika he had moved to Kolhapur, closer to Mira's family. She didn't know if that was true or what it meant, but she hoped he found peace. He had loved Mira in his own complicated, too-late way, and that counted for something.

Ruhi Sahni was in judicial custody, awaiting trial. The psychiatric evaluation had confirmed what Samar had suspected -- severe personality disorder compounded by years of untreated trauma. She would likely spend the rest of her life in a high-security psychiatric facility rather than a conventional prison. Sanika didn't know how to feel about that. Some days she wanted Ruhi to rot. Other days she thought about a fourteen-year-old girl watching her mother burn in a fire started by her own father -- a father who then hanged himself, leaving behind a child whose world had been reduced to ashes both literally and figuratively. On those days, the rage softened into something that wasn't quite pity but wasn't quite anger either. It was closer to grief -- grief for the girl Ruhi might have been, had someone intervened, had someone noticed the darkness growing in her before it consumed everything.

The trial wouldn't be for another year, according to Samar's estimate. The legal system moved at its own glacial pace, indifferent to the urgency of those caught in its gears. Sanika had given her statement. Shruti had given hers, though it had taken three attempts because she kept breaking down. The evidence was overwhelming -- the fingerprint, the bracelet, the supermarket footage, Ruhi's own confession in the restroom at Prisma where she had held a knife to Sanika's throat and whispered, with the calm precision of a woman reciting a shopping list, exactly what she had done to Mira and why.

Sanika still dreamed about that restroom sometimes. The fluorescent light buzzing overhead. The smell of industrial soap and something metallic that she later realized was her own fear. Ruhi's eyes, flat and bright as glass marbles, utterly devoid of the humanity that most people took for granted. The knife against her skin -- not cutting, just pressing, a promise and a threat. And her own voice, steady despite the terror, talking to Ruhi the way Samar had taught her to talk to a cornered animal. Slowly. Calmly. Without sudden movements.

She had survived because Saket had broken through the locked door at exactly the right moment. She had survived because Samar's training had taught her to keep breathing when every instinct screamed at her to panic. She had survived because Mira hadn't, and the weight of that knowledge -- that her survival was built on her friend's absence -- was something she would carry for the rest of her life.

Salim's wife had delivered a healthy baby boy three days after the wedding. Samar was the godfather. Sanika had laughed until she cried when Salim called to tell them, because of course Samar Rane -- the most terrifying DCP in the Crime Branch -- was now going to be responsible for a child's moral and spiritual development.

"Ya Khuda, the kid doesn't stand a chance," Salim had said, and even Samar had cracked a smile.

Her parents had forgiven her for hiding the truth, mostly because her father understood and her mother was too busy planning improvements to the Mumbai flat to hold a grudge. Her brothers still treated Samar with a mixture of respect and the wary suspicion of men who knew exactly what went on behind closed bedroom doors. Samar bore it with the stoic patience of a man who had faced down murderers and knew that overprotective brothers were, in the grand scheme of things, a minor tactical challenge.

It was a Sunday morning. Sanika was in the kitchen, attempting to make filter coffee the way his mother had taught her. She had burned three batches so far. The fourth was currently threatening to overflow.

"You're supposed to let it drip," Samar said from the doorway, his hair still wet from the shower, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked like something that should come with a warning label.

"I am letting it drip."

"You're pushing it."

"I'm encouraging it."

He walked over and stood behind her, reaching around to adjust the filter. She leaned back against him, feeling the warmth of his skin through her thin t-shirt. His chin rested on her head. They stood like that for a moment, watching coffee drip into the tumbler with agonizing slowness.

"Samar?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think Mira would've liked you?"

He was quiet for a long time. "I think she would've made my life hell," he said finally. "Based on everything you've told me, she would've interrogated me, background-checked me, and then told you I wasn't good enough."

Sanika smiled. "And then she would've cried at our wedding and taken a thousand photos and posted them all on Instagram with seventeen hashtags."

"Seventeen?"

"At least." Her smile wobbled. "She would've been the best masi to our kids."

Another silence. Then: "Our kids?"

"Hypothetically."

"Hypothetically," he repeated, and she could feel his smile against her hair. "How many hypothetical kids are we talking about?"

"Two. A boy and a girl. The boy will be named after my father and the girl..." she paused. "Mira. If that's OK with you."

His arms tightened around her. "That's more than OK."

The coffee finally dripped to completion. She poured it into two tumblers, the way he liked it -- strong, sweet, with just enough milk to turn it the colour of caramel. They took their coffee to the small balcony that overlooked the Arabian Sea. It was the flat's one extravagance -- that view. On clear days you could see all the way to the horizon, where the sky met the water in a line so sharp it looked drawn by a ruler.

Today was a clear day.

They sat side by side in the plastic chairs that Sanika had bought from the neighbourhood store and Samar had assembled with a torque wrench and an engineer's precision. She tucked her feet under her and sipped her coffee. He stretched his legs out, crossed at the ankles, and did the same.

Somewhere below, the city was waking up. Auto-rickshaws honked. A chaiwallah called out his wares. A dog barked at nothing in particular. The morning azaan drifted from a nearby mosque, layering over the distant chime of temple bells. Mumbai, in all its chaotic, beautiful, impossible glory.

"Samar?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm happy."

He looked at her -- really looked, the way he had that first morning outside their houses when she had been furious about his bike and he had been quietly, irrevocably falling in love. "I know," he said. And smiled.

She punched his arm. "You're supposed to say 'me too.'"

"Paagal." Mad.

"Tu hi paagal hai." You're the mad one.

His eyebrows shot up. "When did you learn Marathi?"

"I have my sources." She grinned and sipped her coffee.

The sun climbed higher, painting the sea in shades of gold and amber. Two people sat on a small balcony in Mumbai, drinking coffee and watching the world wake up. They had survived threats, and loss, and grief, and a killer who had tried to silence them. They had survived their own stubbornness and fear and the peculiar cruelty of hearts that refused to trust.

They had survived.

And this -- this quiet morning, this shared silence, this coffee that was slightly burned and absolutely perfect -- this was what surviving looked like.

This was what living looked like.

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THE END

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In loving memory of Mira -- who believed in happily ever afters.

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Authors' Note:

Stifled was born from a simple question: what happens when an innocent act of fun triggers something dark in someone whose pain has never been acknowledged? The answer, as it turned out, was a story about friendship, love, loss, and the extraordinary resilience of ordinary people.

This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The city of Pune, its streets, its traffic, and its weather are, however, very real and very much as described.

We would like to thank our families for their patience, our friends for their encouragement, and our readers for taking this journey with us.

-- Atharva Inamdar, Tanmay Saraf, Manasi Sule, Roshni Bhagwat, Ashwini Erande & Aishwarya Kulkarni

Updated Edition, 2026