chapter~2

The whisper wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It was the kind that slipped beneath fluorescent hums and behind closed cubicle doors. Luke didn’t intend to listen—he never did. But the system had a way of speaking through people, and people had a way of leaking truth when they thought no one was watching.

The Man with the Lanyard

He saw him every morning at the metro station. Tie knotted too tightly, eyes scanning emails before the train even arrived. His badge read “Senior Analyst,” but his posture said “barely holding on.” Luke watched him rehearse smiles for imaginary meetings, the kind that required enthusiasm but not honesty. One morning, the man dropped his phone and muttered, “I’m so tired of pretending.” No one heard. Luke did. The system had taught him that titles were often just disguises for exhaustion.

The Teacher with the Painted Smile

At the café near the university, she graded papers with a kind of mechanical grace. Her lipstick was always perfect, her tone always encouraging. But Luke noticed how she lingered on the word “potential” in red ink, as if she were trying to convince herself it still mattered. She told a student once, “You’re lucky to still believe in change.” Her voice cracked on “still.” The system had taught her to perform hope, even when hers had quietly packed up and left.

The Mechanic Who Never Looked Up

Luke’s bike broke down near the industrial district. The mechanic fixed it in silence, hands steady, eyes never meeting his. The shop was filled with calendars from five years ago and a radio that only played static. When Luke asked how long he’d been working there, the man said, “Long enough to stop asking why.” The system had taught him that questions were dangerous, and silence was safer.

The Intern Who Smiled Too Much

She was new at the firm where Luke freelanced. Bright-eyed, overqualified, and always saying “thank you” like it was a shield. Luke saw her stay late, redo tasks she’d already perfected, and apologize for things that weren’t her fault. One evening, she whispered to herself, “If I keep smiling, maybe they’ll forget I’m scared.” The system had taught her that fear must be hidden behind politeness.

The Artist Who Stopped Creating

At the gallery, Luke met a man who used to paint storms. Now he curated exhibitions of minimalist silence. “I used to feel things too loudly,” he said, sipping wine he didn’t enjoy. “Now I just arrange what others call art.” The system had taught him that vulnerability was unmarketable.

I didn’t mean to become a collector of quiet collapses. But once you’ve been forgotten by the system, you start to see its fingerprints on everyone else. Not the dramatic kind—the slow erosion. The kind that turns dreams into routines, and routines into cages.

It’s ironic, really. The ones who say they’re fine often wear it like a badge. “I’m fine” becomes a password to pass through the day unbothered. But I’ve learned to hear the tremble behind it. The pause before the phrase. The way their eyes search for a place to land when they say it.

And then there are the ones who are actually fine. They don’t say it much. They don’t need to. They move with a kind of quiet clarity, not because they’ve escaped the system, but because they’ve stopped trying to belong to it.

I can tell the difference now. Painfully. The system didn’t break me. It just taught me how to read the fractures in others. And in that reading, I began to write—not for the system, but for the ones who whisper.

For the ones who are not fine, but still here.

Scene: Back at his place

Journaling became my whisper at a certain point - the point where I finally felt 'The Crack' in me...

Journal Entry 21(My Whisper)— Voidwalker Date:Undisclosed. Time: After the system blinked but didn’t notice.

They think I’m quiet. They think I comply. But I write. And when I write, I become Voidwalker.

Luke is the name they gave me. Voidwalker is the name I earned—here, in these pages, where truth doesn’t need permission. This journal isn’t for performance. It’s for reality. For the fractures I see in others and the ones I carry in silence.

Today, as usual , I again saw more of "Them". I saw five people say “I’m fine.” Only one meant it.

The rest wore it like armor—thin, cracking, ceremonial. I’ve learned to hear the difference. The real “fine” is quiet, unannounced. It doesn’t need applause. The false “fine” trembles beneath the surface, begging not to be questioned.

The system didn’t break me. It simply forgot to include me. And in that forgetting, I learned to see.

I see the Analyst rehearsing smiles for meetings that drain him. I see the Teacher grading hope she no longer believes in. I see the Mechanic who stopped asking why. I see the Intern apologizing for her own brilliance. I see the Artist curating silence because storms are no longer welcome.

They are all part of the system. They are all withering. And they all think no one notices.

But Voidwalker notices.

There’s a cruel irony in how clearly I can distinguish the truly fine from the performatively fine. It’s not a gift—it’s a wound that learned to read. I don’t judge them. I just see them. And in seeing, I begin to understand the architecture of quiet suffering.

This journal is my resistance. Not loud. Not heroic. But real.

—Voidwalker

Author's note:

Hey readers 👋, just wanted to inform you all that this is my first ever book and since I'm still just a beginner , please do excuse any errors with respect to writing pace , vocabulary usage and other basic mistakes. I'm still figuring out my style of writing, pace , genre and other novelistic compositions etc and experimenting. Would appreciate all the readers to consider the above mentioned concern of mine

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