In the heart of a city where life pulses with the rhythm of countless beating hearts, a tragedy unfolds – silent yet deafening, invisible yet inescapable. The streets that once echoed with laughter and hurried footsteps now bear witness to a horror that is too often repeated, yet never truly confronted. A woman, a healer, a bearer of life, walks the corridors of a place meant for palliation, only to encounter darkness in its cruellest form.
A shadow falls. It is not the natural dimming of light but a weight, heavy and suffocating, descending without warning. The white of her coat, a symbol of care and service, is no longer white. It is stained – not just with blood, but with the resilience that refuses to let her collapse. She came to save lives, yet her own was torn apart by those who wear the masks of men but possess the souls of monsters.
Her scream should have shattered the silence, should have woken the city, should have made the earth tremble with rage. But it is swallowed – by rain, by indifference, by the terrifying normalcy of it all. The world keeps moving as if nothing happened. And maybe, for those untouched by such horrors, nothing really did. But for her, and for every woman who has ever been through this, a part of her existence ceases to be.
It scares me now. Not in an abstract, distant way, but in the most real, immediate sense. Wherever I go walking through my college hallways, grabbing a coffee in the canteen, passing by an empty room in the hospital – I feel it. The fear clings to me like a shadow, whispering reminders of what can happen when the world turns its back. And it’s not just about me, it’s about everyone that lives along with me. The one who smiled this morning while giving an injection, or someone who dons her stethoscope, unaware that it could harm her too. I used to think these places were safe. They aren’t. Nothing is. Nothing ever will be.
This fear is not just mine. It is going to spread. To every girl who steps into a building late at night. To every woman walking home alone. To every daughter whose parents hesitate before letting her pursue her dreams, not because they don’t believe in her, but because they don’t trust the world she has to face.
We were raised with rules: Don’t stay out too late. Don’t wear this. Don’t go there alone. We followed them, but it was never enough. Because the problem was never us. It was them. The ones who lurk in the shadows, hiding behind power, knowing the system will always bend in their favour.
What follows such an incident? Headlines, hashtags, and promises. The machinery of justice grinds into motion, yet it is a machine that often produces more dust than results. Will the system stitch the wounds left behind? Can a verdict, even if reached, ever erase the scar of what was stolen? It cannot return dignity, nor can it erase the fear that lingers in the air like an unshakable spectator.
For centuries, the history of womanhood has been written in blood and silence. Each page filled with battles fought in whispers, with victories that are mere pauses before the next storm. Today, yet another chapter is inked – not in triumph, but in sorrow. How many more before we turn the tide? How long before the world sees that this is not an individual’s suffering, but a collective wound?
There is a stark irony in the fact that the same hands that are meant to heal are left trembling, powerless against the cruelty inflicted upon them. We are all made of the same fabric – flesh, bone, and soul—yet some wield power as a weapon, while others are left to bear its force.
However, amidst the darkness, a flicker remains. Hope does not die so easily. She may be broken, but she is not erased. The pulse of her existence, though faint, still beats. Her voice, though shaken, must not fade into whispers. It must rise, not as a lone cry but as a roar – a force that cannot be ignored, a demand that cannot be silenced.
Justice is not just a verdict – it is a world where no one has to fear walking alone, where no one has to wonder if they will be heard, where no one has to live with the burden of silence.
The shadow may have fallen, but it does not have to stay. The light it shattered can be reclaimed – not by waiting, but by fighting. And maybe, just maybe, hope will not remain a distant dream, but a reality we finally dare to build. This is not just her story; it is ours. It is a call to look beyond fleeting outrage and into the heart of a system that allows such shadows to thrive. My heart remains steadfast in the hope that the billions of years of evolution behind us cannot have made humans so deaf to our pleas that justice isn’t served. We plead, pray and beg from the deepest crevices of our hearts, but my heart yearns to flee from the clutches of my brain. No matter how much I wish to hope, my brain tells me a different story.
We like to believe that if we scream loud enough, if we demand justice hard enough, something will shift. Even so, history tells a different story. The same crimes happen. The same excuses are made. The same cycle repeats.
Nothing is going to change. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Not until we stop pretending that laws alone can fix what is deeply, fundamentally broken.
So what is left? Fear? Silence? Or a fight that most of us are too exhausted to keep fighting?
I don’t know anymore.
But I know this: Hope is a fragile thing. It is stolen too easily. And if we let this go unanswered, if we let this become just another forgotten story, then we are telling every woman that her pain does not matter. That her life does not matter.