Once the Victim, Now the Villain

The page in front of her blurred.

She'd read the same line six times:

"Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants…"

Khushi slammed the textbook shut and rubbed her eyes. Her head throbbed. Not from stress ... but from the chaos of two lives clashing in her mind.

One side of her brain remembered science formulas.The other remembered blood on the basement floor.

She leaned back against the headboard and exhaled, her breath shaky. No matter how hard she tried to focus, the pages in front of her felt distant. Like someone else's handwriting. Someone else's life.

The door creaked open, and Meera entered with a warm glass of milk and a sleepy smile.

"You've been up since five in the morning, Khushi. Take a small break."

Khushi tried to smile. "I can't. The syllabus isn't finished."

Meera walked over and set the glass on the table. "But beta, you already finished this chapter. Look..your notes are perfect!"

Khushi hesitated, then quietly replied, "They're not my notes."

Meera laughed softly, brushing her hair back. "Stop being dramatic."

But Khushi looked down, biting her lip. She wanted to say it aloud .. that these neat notes, this calm home, these soft voices .. didn't belong to her. Not the real her. The girl she was before didn't color-code notes. She didn't sleep in silk bedsheets. She didn't have a mother who brought her milk and whispered blessings into her hair.

The Khushi of before had learned to study under a broken fan. She memorized formulas while waiting for Sonali to stop crying behind the door. That girl was carved from pressure and pain.

But this world ... this polished world of Joshi Tech's daughter ... wasn't hers.

Yet something inside her refused to give up. Her soul... wherever it had landed .. still burned.

She may not have chosen this life, but she would own it.

Each day passed like fire on her fingertips. She studied for twelve hours straight .. eyes burning, back aching, fingers moving with muscle memory she didn't recognize but somehow possessed. It was like her mind was divided, yet working in sync. Khushi Joshi's memory and Khushi Patil's determination ..colliding, merging, evolving.

At night, she dreamed of the basement.

Of Ron's scream.Of Nisha's laughter.Of the cold silence after the door slammed shut.She remembered crawling… bleeding… falling.

And then ... nothing.Then this.

She would wake up gasping, drenched in sweat. But Meera never asked questions. She only placed a comforting hand on her back and whispered the same words every time: "You are safe."

Safe.

That word. It was both foreign and addictive.

It was enough to rise again the next morning and push harder.

The night before her exams, the Joshi bungalow was unusually quiet. No business calls echoed through the hallway. No staff bustling. Just silence. And in that silence, Khushi found herself in the mandir room, holding a small diya with trembling hands.

She lit the flame and stared at it.

"God," she whispered, "if you're listening... don't bless me. I don't need luck. I need revenge. Let me succeed so I can destroy the ones who destroyed me."

Behind her, a soft shuffle of feet.

Arvind Joshi stood tall and still, his expression unreadable.

"I know this exam means everything to you," he said quietly. "But it's just the beginning. Not the end."

Khushi didn't turn around. She only nodded.

"That's what I'm afraid of," she murmured.

Meanwhile, in a quiet corner of Mumbai, Pandurang flipped through the morning paper. His wrinkled fingers paused on a headline:

"Top Scorer Recovers From Coma ...- Khushi Joshi to Appear in Boards."

His eyes narrowed. He pulled his glasses higher and stared harder. The girl in the photo ..those eyes. That intensity.

He called for Namrata, his voice rough with disbelief.

"Namrata… look. Doesn't she…?"

Namrata took the paper, her fingers cold. Her heart stuttered. "It can't be," she whispered. "She looks like our Khushi. But… it's not possible."

Far across the city, another household had the same news playing on TV.

Sanjay sat stiff on the couch, Neha beside him. Nisha, sprawled out on the floor with her phone, rolled her eyes at the image on screen.

"Another Khushi? India is full of them," she muttered.

But Sanjay wasn't listening. His face had gone pale, lips pressed tightly together.

"Shut it," he snapped suddenly.

Neha frowned. "Why are you acting so shaken? That girl just has the same name."

But Sanjay's heart beat in panic. It wasn't just the name. It was the way she looked. That fire in her eyes. That haunting familiarity. It rattled him.

"She's not our Khushi," he said finally, barely audible, "but she… feels like her."

Nisha scoffed. "So what if she does? What can a schoolgirl do?"

Sanjay didn't answer.

But something in his gut twisted.She was back.Somehow… she was back.

The morning sun rose softly over the exam center. Students buzzed with last-minute notes, chai cups in hand, voices buzzing like bees in panic.

Khushi stood still.

Her uniform was neat, her ID card hanging crisply around her neck. Her bag was light, her mind focused.

She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly.Ron's voice echoed through her memory: "Tai, you can do anything."

A smile tugged at her lips.

When the gates opened, she walked in like she owned the building.

Each page of the paper was a battlefield.Her pen .. a sword.

She didn't hesitate.

Paragraph after paragraph, answer after answer flowed out of her.

There were moments her hand hurt from writing, but she didn't stop.

When the invigilator called time, Khushi handed in her answer sheet, her fingers stained with ink and her heart pounding like a war drum.

Her soul .. alive. Electric.

Back home, the Joshi family waited with bated breath.

Meera paced the floor, Arvind stared blankly out the window. Even the house staff moved quietly.

When the door finally opened and Khushi stepped in, she raised her hands in the air and shouted, "DONE!"

The silence shattered with cheers.

Everyone clapped. Even the cook peeped in to smile.

Meera rushed to her and wrapped her in a hug so tight, Khushi almost melted.

"You did well?" Meera asked, eyes wet with hope.

Khushi beamed. "I didn't just do well. I won."

Later that night, the lights were out, the city quiet, and the house asleep.

Khushi lay awake.

Staring at the ceiling, she let the silence soak in.

She had done it. Again.

Two lives.

Two exams.

Two identities.

One soul.

One fire.

She closed her eyes.

"Now it begins," she whispered.