"Oh god… Who am I even married to?" You muttered under your breath, groaning as you watched Yug sit on the floor, chewing absently on the collar of his kurta like a lost, broken child. His eyes — hollow and hooded — darted toward you for a moment, then back to the blank wall, as if following something only he could see.

This wasn’t what you had signed up for. This wasn’t the fairytale. You had expected tall, dark, and handsome. A strong man with ambition in his step, not someone who needed help tying his own shoelaces or remembering what day it was.

But instead, you got Yug. A mentally unstable man. A stranger with a paper-thin grip on reality — and, unfortunately, your husband.

No one had told you before the wedding. No whispered warnings, no uncomfortable confessions. Just a smile from your in-laws, a quiet ceremony, and a life sentence hidden behind the sindoor.

They had fled back to the other side of the world, leaving you stranded in Jharkhand with him. Alone.

And now he was yours to care for. Yours to fear.

He was tall, unnervingly thin, with skin stretched tightly over his bones and a permanent slouch like his soul was too heavy for his frame. His voice, when he spoke, was low and raspy — the kind that made you flinch even when he whispered your name. Especially then.

He would watch you. Constantly. From across the room, behind the door, even from the reflection in the glass — eyes always following, never blinking enough.

You slept on the floor, away from the bed. You ate in the kitchen, far from his reach. You locked the bathroom door, even when showering.

On your wedding night, you hadn’t let him touch you. Instead, you had tied his wrists to the bedposts with dupattas, trembling, praying he wouldn’t scream or bite or beg. He just lay there quietly, blinking at the ceiling, murmuring to himself about birds and stars.

Sometimes, he’d try to touch your hair. Just reach out like a child curious about the sun — innocent, yet terrifying. And every time, you recoiled like he'd pulled a knife. He never did. But you could never be sure.

Yug was unpredictable. That’s what made him dangerous. That’s what made you stay awake at night, listening for footsteps, clutching your phone like a lifeline.

And yet… Something in him — in his soft hums, in the way he curled up by the window to watch the rain — made your heart ache just a little. Pity? Guilt? You weren’t sure.

But love? No. That was long dead, if it ever existed at all.