Raman sighed when he saw the notification. Another review. Another message from the stranger who had lived in his life for three years, as if he owned a part of it. He clicked. The words appeared on the screen—short, casual, cruel.
“Nice to see your eyesight’s better than three years ago.”
He stared at the sentence. His eyes followed the letters, his body stayed still, his shoulders locked tight, his chest heavy with that familiar pressure. Another review. Three years. Three years of this. Each day a small dose of fear, a little sweat, a little hope that tomorrow he might fix this, that tomorrow he could change it, and the nightmare would end. It never did.
Another email arrived. No jokes this time, no teasing. Just a blunt demand:
“Normally a hundred to remove the review. This one’s worth two-fifty.”
Raman placed his head in his hands. It felt like pressing on an open wound.
Mira had noticed the review last week. Then came her message, short and innocent: “Appa, is that a friend of yours?”. He could picture her face—curious, slightly annoyed, her brow creased as she read aloud the words on her phone. He’d frozen, staring at the screen. His stomach twisted, his fingers shook. He had to say something. Anything.
“No idea,” he typed back.
Even as he wrote it, the lie tasted bitter. But what else could he do?
He couldn’t tell her.
He couldn’t say that for three years someone had been blackmailing him with her secret— a secret that had once been an act of love, and now was a chain around both their necks.
Shame moved through him like knife.
He felt small, fragile, a man being drained by a faceless thief.
There was no one to run to, no one who could help.
He opened his notebook and counted the cash from the register. He took his laptop and calculated what he had left after the bills, after the rent, after everything. Barely $ 100. Not enough for the $250.
Not enough to stop the panic. Not enough to make the cold hand in his gut let go. The secret pressed on him, alive and breathing, a shadow that sat in the room with him, watching.
The hacker had become like a second presence in his life, a demon that whispered when he tried to sleep. A voice without a face. A predator without a name.
Raman leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
He whispered, barely moving his lips, “It never ends. It never ends.” The cool air drifted in through the open kitchen window, but it didn’t help. The light from the laptop flickered across his face, highlighting every tired line, every reminder of how long this had gone on.
He took a sip of his tea—it had gone cold.
He thought of the future: what would he do? How long could a man keep paying for a mistake he didn’t make?
Then another chime. That soft, cruel sound.
A new message.
His cheeks grew hot,his pulse thudded in his throat. For a moment he couldn’t breathe.
He reached for the mouse— and saw the sender’s name.
Not the hacker. The delivery service.
He blinked, confused. Relief and dread tangled inside him.
A normal email. Just a package update. But it was enough to break him. A tear slipped down his cheek. He placed his hands on the keyboard, fingers resting there, unmoving. He knew one thing for certain: it couldn’t go on like this. Something had to change— one way or another.