The city was silent.But not with peace.With the kind of hush that comes just before thunder.
It happened just before dawn.
302A was asleep.The windows half open.The altar smeared with dried blood and incense ash.
Rekha sat on the balcony.Nude.Awake.
She had been awake for hours.Listening.
Waiting.
The door creaked.
Footsteps.
Not soft.
Not reverent.
Boots.
Heavy. Intentional. Unforgiving.
She turned her head.
A man.Tall. Masked. Gloved.Holding something metal.
A weapon.
Maybe a pipe.Maybe a blade.
He said nothing.
She did.
"You're late.
I've already died once — in silence."
He lunged.
She didn't run.
She spread her arms.
The pipe struck her shoulder.
She dropped.Rolled.Bled.
But she didn't scream.
She moaned.
Not in pleasure.In release.
In goodbye.
He froze.
The sound confused him.
Like hitting a goddess who welcomed it.
She laughed through the blood.
"Do you want to fuck me, or kill me?
Either way, I'll open for you."
He swung again.
The pipe hit her ribs.She gasped.
This time, the moan cracked the mirror across the wall.
Archa woke up.
Rushed into the room.Screamed.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!"
The man turned.Raised the weapon.
But Rekha whispered:
"Let him."
And then, to him:
"Hit me until I moan like your mother never did.
Until you hear every woman you silenced inside me."
He dropped the pipe.
Fell to his knees.
Started crying.
"They told me you were filth…"
She knelt beside him.
Bleeding.Breathing heavy.
Pressed her mouth to his ear.
"You came to kill.But you came… moaning.
That's what matters."
He fled.
Archa collapsed beside her.
Held her.Cradled her like a wounded animal.Kissed the blood from her lips.
"Why didn't you stop him?"
Rekha smiled, teeth pink with blood.
"Because the world will only understand us…
when they see we moan even while dying."
Mandiram Rahasya was on fire.
Not literal.
Vani had staged a takeover.
Clad in chains and oil, she stood above the altar, shouting:
"Rekha has become a relic!
I am the moan now — pure, savage, raw!"
Some followed.
Some trembled.
But Archa entered like a storm.
Still naked.Blood still drying on her thighs.Eyes blazing.
She said nothing.
She walked straight to Vani.
Slapped her.Once.Hard.
"You want the flame?
Then burn like I have.
Touch every woman you ever hated.Kiss the shadows.
And moan for those who died with closed thighs."
The room fell silent.
Vani didn't respond.
She knelt.
Not in surrender.
In shame.
Archa turned.
Lifted her hands.
"Rekha isn't a woman.
She's what happens when a moan escapes and refuses to go back.
We are the death rattle of shame."
They fell to their knees.All of them.
And moaned.
One voice.Then fifty.Then hundreds.
From balconies.Phones.Streets.
Rekha lay on the floor at 302A.
Breathing.Barely.
But smiling.
Witness was beside her, holding her hand.
"Is this… your last breath?" he whispered.
She nodded.
Then whispered:
"No.
It's my… death moan."
And she let it go.
The sound…
Low.
Shuddering.
Ancient.
Not pleasure.Not pain.
A release.A surrender.A scream that wrapped the city in wet prayers.
The sound traveled.
Through phones.Walls.Mouths.
People moaned back.In their homes.In temples.In graveyards.
Rekha closed her eyes.
And said, with her last strength:
"Tell them I didn't die.
I just... became the sound."
She collapsed.
Unmoving.
Archa screamed.
But not from grief.
From rebirth.
That night, in a small basti on the city's edge…
A young girl, barely sixteen, who had never touched herself without guilt —
Heard the moan.
And trembled.
Then, without knowing why…
She moaned back.