Aisha Verma
Part 1
The first time Neil saw Siya, she was hurling a half-eaten vada pav at a man twice her size in front of Andheri Station. It hit the man square in the chest, splattering red chutney like a bloodstain on his white shirt. A crowd had gathered, of course. Cameras were out. Someone was live-streaming. Neil had been passing by, DSLR in hand, mind elsewhere, when the chaos sucked him in like Mumbai traffic at peak hour.
“Don’t touch me!” Siya yelled, her voice sharp as a glass shard. The man, red-faced, lunged at her, but Neil stepped in instinctively, camera still swinging from his neck. He didn’t know what he was doing—his legs moved before his brain did. All he remembered was shouting “Bhai, bas karo!” and the blur of tension snapping like a rubber band as the man backed off, muttering curses.
Someone captured that moment—the precise second Neil put himself between a stranger and danger. The video hit Instagram like a wildfire.
The caption read: “When chivalry isn’t dead. Who is this mystery guy?”
Hashtags followed: #MumbaiHero #RealMenExist #ChaiAurJustice
By the time Neil got home to his 1BHK in Goregaon East, his phone was buzzing like a swarm. His follower count, which had been a modest 312 thanks to some occasional photo reels and a painfully aesthetic tea feed, had ballooned to 27k. Brands were already DM-ing him. Influencer pages tagged him. Even his old school friend messaged: “Bro! Viral ho gaya tu!”
Neil didn’t know whether to feel proud or exposed. He kept refreshing the video, watching himself step into a frame he hadn’t meant to enter.
And then came the DM—from Siya.
@siya.unfiltered:
“Thanks. I don’t know if I needed saving, but I appreciate you stepping in. Want to meet for chai and discuss how we broke the internet?”
Her profile was locked. Profile picture: black and white photo of her nose ring and an eye. Bio: “Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Probably late.”
Neil stared at the message for a long minute before replying: “Only if there’s samosa.”
They met two days later at a rooftop café in Bandra. Siya arrived late, unsurprisingly, in torn jeans, a baggy kurta, and smudged eyeliner that somehow looked intentional. She was unapologetically loud, eyes sharp, questions sharper.
“So, Neil with the knight-in-shining-camera moment—do you always play hero?”
“I was just passing by,” he said, half-laughing. “Didn’t expect to go viral over vada pav warfare.”
Siya snorted. “People love drama. Especially if there’s a man protecting a woman. Feeds the patriarchy.”
Neil blinked. “Didn’t realize I was feeding anything.”
“You looked good doing it though,” she said, sipping cutting chai. “You’ve got the ‘accidental savior’ aesthetic. Instagram eats that up.”
The conversation spiraled from filters to feminism, memes to mental health. Siya talked fast, like her thoughts were sprinting. Neil listened more than he spoke, but when he did, his words were precise, careful. They argued about capitalism and laughed over old TikTok trends. It was chaotic. It was electric. It felt like the start of something messy and unforgettable.
That night, Siya posted a reel.
Text on screen: “When the boy you met through virality is better than your therapist.”
Background: A clip of Neil sipping chai and looking out over the city skyline.
The comments exploded:
“WHO IS HE?”
“This is my new fav ship.”
“I want this kind of reel life love.”
Neil’s inbox filled with heart emojis. He wasn’t used to attention. He edited videos for food brands, shot freelance music gigs, and mostly stayed in the quiet corners of the internet. But now, every notification felt like someone knocking on the door of his private life.
They began collaborating—photo shoots, reels, funny skits. Siya taught him how to use trending audio. Neil taught her how to color grade like a pro. Together, they became a brand.
#SiyaxNeil trended. Followers soared. A chai brand offered them a campaign. People called them “the Internet’s new couple.”
But no one knew the whole story.
No one saw the cracks.
Siya had a habit of disappearing for days. Sometimes mid-conversation. Sometimes mid-collaboration. Neil would get frustrated. She’d reappear with a cryptic meme or a blackout poem on her story.
One evening, after a photoshoot near Juhu Beach, Neil confronted her.
“Where do you go, Siya?”
She shrugged, eyes on the sea. “Offline. To remind myself I exist beyond screens.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She turned to him, suddenly tired. “You think just because we post together, we know each other? We’re selling a story, Neil. You know that, right?”
His jaw tightened. “Yeah. But I didn’t think I was the only one who thought it was real.”
For a moment, the only sound was the waves. Then Siya said quietly, “I want it to be real. But I’m scared it is.”
Neil didn’t reply. He took a photo instead. Her silhouette against the sunset. No filters. Just her.
They didn’t post it.
But someone else did.
The next morning, Neil woke to hundreds of DMs.
A new account: @FilterFreak had posted a private screenshot—Siya’s old chat with a different boy. Intimate. Raw. Timestamped just two weeks ago.
Caption: “Your favorite Insta couple is built on lies.”
And in the comments, the feeding frenzy began.
Part 2
Neil stared at the screen as if blinking might change what he was seeing. His heart thudded—louder than the city outside, louder than the ping of new notifications. The screenshot showed Siya’s chat with someone named @deaddaisies_07, and the last line read:
“You’re the only real one left in this fake world.”
Timestamp: two weeks ago.
The same week she’d kissed Neil for a reel captioned “This wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did.”
The internet didn’t wait.
“So she was two-timing?”
“Neil deserves better.”
“These influencers will do anything for clout.”
Siya hadn’t posted anything in sixteen hours. A lifetime in Instagram time.
Neil called her. No response. He sent a voice note. Deleted it. Tried again.
“Siya, we need to talk. Call me. Please.”
He sat in his editing suite, a cramped, low-lit room filled with soundproofing foam and the lingering smell of instant noodles. It was the only place that still felt like his. Like before all of… this. He replayed old drafts of reels they’d never uploaded. Siya laughing, mid-bite of a messy sandwich. Siya flipping him off when he zoomed in too close. Siya curled up in his hoodie, scrolling through hate comments with an unreadable face.
It had been real. At least to him. He thought it was real.
That night, a new message popped up in his DMs.
@FilterFreak:
“One down. Nine to go. You should’ve stayed behind the lens.”
Neil’s breath caught. He scrolled up—no other messages, no name, no face, just a default black circle as a profile picture. He tried to screenshot it. The app crashed. When he reopened, the message was gone.
His skin prickled.
Siya finally texted just past midnight:
Siya: “Meet me at the old radio tower. No phones. No filters. Just truth.”
Neil found her sitting on the rusted stairwell, legs swinging over the edge, cigarette burning slowly in her left hand. She looked smaller, shrunken. The city glowed far beneath them, detached.
“I didn’t cheat on you,” she said without looking at him.
“Then what was that message?” Neil asked, voice low.
She dropped the cigarette. “It was from before I met you. I didn’t delete it. I should have. That guy… he wasn’t good for me. He used me. Said he’d end himself if I ever left.”
“And now he’s sending threats through ghost accounts?”
She nodded. “That, or someone who wants us to fall apart.”
Neil sighed, pacing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to be that girl,” she muttered. “The one with baggage and a messy past. I wanted you to see me for who I am now. Not for what someone did to me then.”
“I liked you before the likes,” Neil said quietly. “I still do.”
She looked up at him, her eyes reflecting the distant headlights. “Then don’t leave. Not when it’s getting harder.”
He sat beside her. Silence settled. Uncomfortable, but honest.
A gust of wind passed. Neil broke it. “We stop posting. For now. Go quiet. Let the noise die.”
She nodded.
They both deactivated their pages the next day.
Followers mourned. The #SiyaxNeil fan accounts speculated: pregnancy, break-up, even death. A trending reel used the caption: “They left when we loved them most.”
But they were done being entertainment.
Days turned into a slow rhythm. Neil returned to editing client content. Siya went back to her offline zine project, interviewing people who didn’t know what “aesthetic feed” meant. They’d meet in cafés with no Wi-Fi. Talk about books instead of trends. Whisper poetry on rooftops instead of voiceovers for reels.
But @FilterFreak didn’t stop.
A new email. No subject. An attachment—edited audio of Neil saying something he never remembered saying: “She’s just a story. I never loved her.”
Deepfake. Clear as glass. Perfectly mimicked tone.
Another message:
“Truth is just the right edit away.”
Neil slammed his laptop shut. His hands shook.
“I need to know who this is,” he told Siya. “This isn’t just trolling. This is surgical.”
She hesitated. “There’s one person who knows enough about both of us. About how to cut things just right.”
“Who?”
Siya’s jaw clenched. “Ruhan.”
Neil blinked. “Your ex?”
“My ex-producer,” she corrected. “He helped me start my page. Taught me how to game the algorithm. I left when he wanted me to fake a suicide post for engagement. He said I’d regret it.”
Neil felt something drop in his gut. “Where is he now?”
“Bandra. Running a low-tier podcast. Still angry.”
They made a plan.
Neil reopened his Instagram—but private, no posts. They baited Ruhan using a throwaway story: “Coming back soon. The real story. Stay tuned.”
@FilterFreak reacted within thirty minutes: 🔥
They tracked the IP. A friend of Neil’s in cyber-security helped. VPNs can hide many things. Not slip-ups.
It wasn’t Ruhan.
It was someone much closer.
Neil’s best friend—Jay.
Jay, who had filmed that first viral video. Jay, who had always said Neil had no “camera face.” Jay, who had fallen out with Siya after one heated party argument no one ever really explained.
Jay, who felt like the sidekick in someone else’s fairytale.
Neil confronted him in person. Jay didn’t deny it.
“You were never meant for her,” he said flatly. “She’s chaos. You’re a homebody with chai stains and mild depression. You think love is enough, but love isn’t algorithm-proof. She would’ve eaten you alive.”
“And exposing her was your way of protecting me?” Neil’s voice trembled.
Jay smirked. “No. It was my way of showing you reality. That your dream girl was a brand. That all of it—was performance. I gave you truth.”
Neil’s hands curled into fists, but he didn’t hit him. He just said, “You don’t get to define my truth.”
He walked out. Siya waited outside, wearing his hoodie again, her arms crossed.
“Was it him?” she asked.
Neil nodded. “Yeah. The one who saw everything, but never really looked.”
They walked away.
Not hand-in-hand, not dramatically, not even as a power couple reborn.
Just two people, choosing to start again—offline.
For the first time, their story wasn’t being recorded.
And that’s what made it real.
Part 3
They deleted their old reels one by one.
Each time Neil clicked “Delete,” he remembered the sound behind the scene—the laugh Siya gave after a line flopped, the way she nudged his hand when he got too serious about lighting. The posts had millions of views, but now all that remained was the silence after. The algorithm didn’t mourn. It simply moved on. Their followers moved on too.
But Neil and Siya didn’t.
There’s a particular stillness that follows digital chaos. A kind of slowness no one prepares you for. After trending hashtags and viral explosions, after angry comments and exposés, there’s just… you. Sitting with what’s left. And what was left of Neil felt like the quiet space after music stops in a room that was never really his.
Siya texted:
“Come to my place. I want to show you something.”
Her place was nothing like her digital persona used to be. No neon lights, no framed prints that screamed ‘influencer aesthetic’. Just a mattress on the floor, half-read books piled beside it, an old laptop with cracked keys, and posters of Indian indie bands peeling from the wall.
“Welcome to the chaos headquarters,” she grinned, opening the door in pajama shorts and a tea-stained tank top. Her hair was in a bun so loose it defied gravity. Neil thought she looked like a painting no one had finished but didn’t want to mess up either.
He sat cross-legged on the floor. She handed him a notebook.
Handwritten. Pen-smudged. Pages dog-eared.
“What’s this?”
“My real drafts. Poems. Stuff I never posted because it didn’t rhyme with dopamine hits. This one’s about you.” She opened to a page and read aloud without asking.
He edits out noise for a living
But heard the wreckage in my voice
He doesn’t save me in reels
He stays when there’s nothing left to film.
Neil stared at her. “You could’ve posted this. It’s… good.”
She shrugged. “Too raw. Not glossy enough. Didn’t test well with the audience inside my head.”
“I’d have liked it.”
“That’s the problem, Neil. I didn’t write it for likes. I wrote it when I thought I’d lost you.”
Neil didn’t know what to say. So he reached out and touched her wrist. Not dramatic. Just enough.
They sat in that half-lit room for hours, no filters, no phones, just stories. Stories about Siya’s college days when she sold thrift earrings for pocket money. About Neil’s failed dream of becoming a travel vlogger before motion sickness destroyed his confidence. They talked about their parents—absent, present, confusing. They talked about fear. Regret. What they’d become. What they still might.
“I think we should build something new,” Siya said finally. “Not a page. A project.”
Neil raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
She bit her lip. “A podcast. No camera. Just voice. Call it Unfiltered. Real stories. Raw thoughts. No likes. No edits.”
Neil smiled. “And who’s going to listen?”
She grinned. “Who cares? It’ll be ours.”
They launched Unfiltered on a sleepy Wednesday.
The first episode was called: “The Screenshot That Shook Us.”
They talked about going viral. About betrayal. About the weight of performing love versus living it. They named no names. They didn’t need to.
The podcast didn’t explode. It simmered.
A few hundred listens. Then a thousand.
One message read:
“I was in a toxic relationship and didn’t even know it. Your episode made me leave.”
Another:
“Thank you for showing us that breaking doesn’t mean you’re broken.”
It wasn’t fame. It was impact. And it felt better.
Weeks passed.
Neil went back to freelance work—this time, refusing jobs that demanded unrealistic filters or manipulative thumbnails. Siya got offered a brand deal to “rebrand her story”—she declined with a polite middle finger in emoji form.
They weren’t perfect. They fought. Over edits. Over wording. Over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. But they fought, not for followers, but for understanding. For honesty.
One afternoon, they were recording Episode 7—”Love Without Wi-Fi”—when Siya’s phone buzzed.
Her smile faded. She turned the screen toward Neil.
A new account.
@ScreenshotedTruth
One post: a blurred photo of Siya and Neil arguing near the station. Caption: “The truth behind your favorite podcast couple.”
There were only two comments, both from fresh accounts:
“So they’re lying again?”
“Nothing unfiltered about two liars.”
Neil exhaled slowly. “Another troll.”
Siya nodded. “But it’s different. This one knows where we were.”
“You think it’s Jay again?”
“No. He wouldn’t use the same tactic twice. This one’s smarter. Quieter.”
Neil stood. “Then we play smarter too.”
They changed their settings. Locked their location. Filed a cyber complaint. But more than that—they talked about it. On Unfiltered.
Episode 8: “When the Past Still Wants to Film You”
They told their listeners:
“You don’t owe your truth to the people who want to twist it. You just need to hold it close enough that even you don’t forget it.”
And that episode? It went viral. Quietly. Organically. Not on reels or trends. But through word of mouth. Book clubs. Mental health forums. Late-night listeners.
Suddenly, Unfiltered wasn’t just theirs.
It became a space.
For others. For stories. For voices that had no hashtags to hide behind.
Neil got a message from a girl named Tanvi:
“Your voice helped me come out to my parents.”
Siya got one from a boy named Kartik:
“Your story made me believe love can be gentle.”
And that meant more than any brand deal ever could.
One rainy evening, Neil and Siya stood under a broken bus stop roof. It was pouring. Their umbrellas didn’t help. Their podcast mics were zipped in Siya’s tote bag. They were drenched, breathless, laughing.
Neil looked at her. Water dripping from her lashes. A smudge of kajal down her cheek.
And he knew. This was the reel he wanted. Not the kind that gets views. But the kind that stays in memory like a bookmarked line in a book.
“Still scared it’s real?” he asked, half-smiling.
She stepped closer, touched his cheek. “Still scared. But I want it anyway.”
He kissed her. The kind of kiss that didn’t need captions.
And somewhere, far from feeds and filters, their story kept recording—only this time, just for them.
Part 4
It had been six months since they’d recorded Episode 8 of Unfiltered. Six months since they’d decided to leave behind the noise, to stop letting digital validation be the currency of their existence. The storm of online trolling had calmed. They were no longer the subjects of hashtags or conspiracy theories. They were just two people, trying to figure out what came next in a world where connection seemed to break down just as quickly as it built up.
But digital wounds don’t always heal so cleanly.
One night, as Neil was reviewing the final cut of their latest podcast episode, his phone buzzed on the table beside him. He ignored it at first, focused on aligning the audio, but then the buzz came again—louder this time. Reluctantly, he glanced at the screen.
A message from Siya: “We need to talk. Please call me.”
His stomach tightened. He grabbed his phone and dialed her number immediately.
“Siya?” he said, trying to keep the tension out of his voice.
“I saw it,” she said, her voice trembling. “They posted it. The screenshot. Again.”
Neil’s heart skipped a beat. “What screenshot?”
“The one from the station. The one where you and I… where we were arguing.”
He sat up straighter. “But we’ve deleted all of that. We haven’t even posted anything about the past in months. What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know, Neil.” There was a long pause, and he could hear her breathing shakily. “It’s out there again. And this time, they’ve tagged everyone. Our friends. Our followers. Even your family.”
Neil’s thoughts raced as panic slowly crept in. This couldn’t be happening again. “Who’s doing this?”
“I don’t know. But I feel like I’m being watched. Like someone is still… following us.” She hesitated. “I think they know we’re vulnerable.”
Neil clenched his fists, frustration bubbling up. “This isn’t how it ends, Siya. I’m not going to let them drag us back into that world. We’ve worked too hard to escape it.”
“I’m scared, Neil,” she whispered. “I can’t handle this again. I thought we were finally free.”
Neil took a deep breath, trying to ground himself. “Listen to me. We’ve been through worse. We’re stronger than this. We won’t let them control us anymore.”
Siya was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “I’m scared of what this is doing to us. I feel like we’re spiraling. Like we’ve spent so much time running from the past that we’ve forgotten what we’re fighting for.”
Neil rubbed his face in frustration. “We’re fighting for us, Siya. We’re fighting for what’s real. That’s all we ever wanted. And I’m not giving up on it. Not now, not ever.”
“I’m afraid it’s already too late,” she said softly.
“Siya, it’s never too late,” Neil replied firmly. “We’ll fix this. Together.”
He didn’t know if he truly believed it himself, but he needed to. He had to believe they could make it through whatever this was.
They spent the next few hours combing through their digital footprints. It wasn’t just the old screenshots. There were messages, comments, and old posts resurfacing—places where they’d shared more than they had intended, places where their vulnerability had been exploited. It wasn’t just the public view anymore; it was their private lives being dragged into the spotlight again.
Neil’s fingers moved frantically over his laptop as he scrolled through their inboxes, deleted posts, and profiles that had been hacked and re-shared without their permission. Everything felt like it was falling apart again, like they were losing control.
Siya sat across from him, her face lit by the cold glow of the screen, her eyes exhausted but determined. “We’re not going to let them win,” she said quietly, breaking the silence.
Neil looked up at her. Her voice was steady, though there was an edge of fear in it. He nodded, trying to reassure her, though he was just as scared as she was.
“We’ve been through this before,” he said, trying to sound confident. “We can’t let this define us. Not again.”
She didn’t respond, but he saw her hand tremble as she reached for her phone again. There was a new message waiting for her.
@FilterFreak: “You can’t hide from the truth. You never could. Everyone’s going to see who you really are.”
Siya stared at the message, her face going pale. “It’s happening again,” she whispered. “They’re not letting us go.”
Neil stood up abruptly, the weight of their situation pressing down on him. “We need to find out who’s behind this. Now.”
Siya looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear. “How? We don’t even know who this is. We’re playing a game with no rules, no boundaries. It’s like they’re one step ahead, always.”
Neil clenched his fists. “I don’t care. We’ll track them down. We’ll make them stop.”
He had no idea how they were going to do it, but he was tired of running. Tired of hiding in the shadows of their past. He wouldn’t let this person—whoever they were—continue to play puppet master with their lives.
The next few days passed in a blur of investigation. They enlisted the help of a cyber-security expert who Neil knew from his freelance days. Together, they traced the origins of the anonymous messages, but the trail was cold, and their findings were vague. There were signs of tampering, hacks, and traces of old IP addresses that led to dead ends. Whoever was behind this was clever.
But Neil and Siya didn’t stop. Every clue they uncovered only fueled their determination. They weren’t going to be pawns in someone else’s game anymore. They were going to fight back.
One evening, as they sat together in Neil’s apartment, plotting their next move, Siya turned to him. Her face was soft, her eyes tired but resolute.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” she said quietly. “Not of them. Not of this. I’m afraid of us forgetting why we started. Why we chose each other.”
Neil met her gaze. His heart swelled with an emotion he hadn’t realized he was holding onto.
“We’re stronger than this, Siya. I know it.”
She smiled, though it was weary. “Then let’s do this. Together.”
For the first time in months, Neil truly felt like they were back on solid ground. They were going to make sure their story was told on their terms—without filters, without fear.
And this time, they weren’t running away.
Part 5
It was around midnight when Neil received the audio file.
It came as a Google Drive link from an anonymous email titled simply: “For the truth seekers.” Normally, Neil would have ignored it, but something about the subject line—cold, clinical, calculated—felt too specific to dismiss.
He clicked the link, half-expecting a virus, but the file loaded.
The voice was unmistakable. It was Siya.
“I don’t think I love him. He’s too quiet. Too… good. I need chaos. I can’t breathe in this ‘real love’ story.”
— Siya, supposedly.
Neil froze. His stomach twisted. The words played again in his mind even after he paused the audio.
He didn’t want to believe it was her. But the pitch, the tone, even the slight rasp at the end of a sentence—it was her voice.
But it wasn’t her.
He knew that.
Still, he called her. Not with anger, not with suspicion, but with something heavier: hurt.
“Neil?” she answered sleepily.
“I got a file,” he said, voice flat. “Your voice. Saying you don’t love me.”
She went silent for a moment. Then, “Play it.”
He did.
On speaker.
As the words filled the quiet of his room, Siya’s voice on the phone overlapped the ghost of the one in the recording. “That’s not me,” she said firmly. “I’ve never said those words. Not like that. It’s… pieced together. I recognize phrases, but they’re from different conversations.”
Neil breathed. Just once. Deep and shaky. “I figured. But it still hit like a punch.”
“I know,” she whispered. “They’re trying to turn us against each other. To fracture the only thing we’ve managed to keep intact.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Siya,” he said. “Not again.”
There was a pause.
Then, “Come over.”
The next day, they met the cyber-security expert again—Neha, a no-nonsense coder with sharp eyes and an even sharper tongue. She wore a hoodie that said “I’m silently correcting your code.”
She played the audio, analyzing its waveform.
“Deepfake AI,” she confirmed. “Trained on hours of voice content. You guys posted too many podcasts. Too many voiceovers. Someone’s been collecting your voiceprint for months.”
Neil exhaled. “That’s terrifying.”
Neha nodded. “And very illegal. But catching them is tough. They’re masking through Tor and using burner clouds. We’ll need a social trap. Something emotional.”
“Bait,” Siya said.
Neha smiled. “Exactly.”
They set the trap that night.
A story on Neil’s reactivated profile:
“We’re breaking up. I’m done pretending.”
A single black-and-white photo of him looking away from the camera. No captions. No explanations.
Within thirty minutes, the internet was on fire.
Comments flooded in. Old followers returned from digital silence. #SiyaxNeil trended again—this time in mourning.
And from the ashes, the predator stirred.
A new post appeared from @ScreenshotedTruth.
A video.
Edited.
Siya crying in an old reel where she’d accidentally spilled tea on Neil’s shirt. The audio replaced with the fake voice:
“You think I care? I only stayed for the fame.”
Caption: “Told you. She’s a fraud. He’s a puppet. The truth speaks louder than lies.”
The views climbed quickly. Comments multiplied. DMs poured in. And for a moment, it felt like they were back at the beginning—helpless, hunted, exposed.
But this time, they had Neha.
“That’s it,” she said, fingers dancing over the keyboard. “They forgot to encrypt their metadata. I’ve got a location ping.”
“Where?” Neil and Siya asked in unison.
Neha turned the laptop.
It wasn’t a stranger.
It was someone they both knew.
Aarav Shekhawat.
Former creative director at one of the agencies Neil freelanced with. Polite, ambitious, hyper-competitive. Neil remembered him as the guy who always had something to prove. He’d once tried to date Siya before Neil entered the picture. When she turned him down, he’d been… weird. But not threatening. Not at the time.
They drove to the address Neha found—an upscale co-working space in Lower Parel, sleek and sterile with floor-length glass windows and air-conditioning that smelled of ambition.
He was there. Sitting alone. Typing, earbuds in.
Siya walked straight to him.
“Aarav.”
He looked up. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even pretend to be surprised.
“Siya. Neil. What a coincidence.”
Neil clenched his jaw. “We know what you did.”
Aarav leaned back in his chair, smiling like someone enjoying a private joke. “Define what. Because I’ve done a lot. You’ll have to be specific.”
“You faked her voice. You tried to ruin our lives.”
He tilted his head. “You’re acting like victims. But what did you really lose? Your followers? Some brand deals? Boo hoo.”
“You manipulated people,” Siya said coldly. “Used our trauma to feed your ego.”
Aarav’s face hardened. “You two built a fantasy and sold it as truth. I just… deconstructed it. Isn’t that what art is?”
Neil stepped closer. “You broke the law. You crossed every line.”
“I’ll be gone before anyone proves anything. Delete your accounts. Fade away again. Or next time, I’ll release full audio.”
“We’re not scared of you anymore,” Siya said, pulling out her phone.
“Recording?” Aarav smirked. “Careful, consent laws apply.”
She shook her head. “Livestreaming. Instagram.”
His face finally shifted—eyes narrowing. He lunged for the phone, but Neil blocked him.
Comments poured in. Viewers watching live. Seeing the face behind the lies.
And just like that, the predator was exposed.
That night, they went live again.
Not as influencers. Not as performers.
Just Neil and Siya.
They told the full story. The betrayal. The fake audio. The harassment. The mental toll. The nights they wanted to disappear.
It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t rehearsed.
But it was real.
Viewers stayed.
Some cried. Some apologized for believing lies. Some shared their own stories of manipulation, bullying, and fear.
By the time they ended the livestream, over fifty thousand people had watched.
They didn’t trend. They didn’t go viral.
But they were finally free.
A few days later, Neil and Siya sat on the edge of Marine Drive, their feet dangling over the rocks, the sea breathing softly below.
Siya leaned her head on Neil’s shoulder.
“Do you think it’ll ever stop? The watching?”
Neil looked out over the dark water. “No. But we’re not powerless anymore.”
She smiled. “You really are the quiet revolution type, huh?”
“I just want peace. And podcasts. And you.”
She laughed. “I can give you two out of three.”
He grinned. “Deal.”
Behind them, the city moved. Trains screeched. Cars honked. Lives scrolled endlessly on glass screens.
But in that moment, on that edge, Neil and Siya were unplugged from all of it.
Their story wasn’t perfect. It was broken, patched, and rewritten.
But it was theirs.
And it would never belong to the internet again.
Part 6
The aftermath was quieter than either of them expected.
Aarav’s exposure had created a brief storm—his fake accounts dismantled, his access revoked, a legal case filed that he was now battling with expensive lawyers and a PR agency. But after a few weeks, the headlines moved on. People scrolled away, thirsty for the next scandal, the next viral couple to love, then hate, then forget.
Neil and Siya stayed. Not trending. Not disappearing. Just… existing.
For the first time in over a year, their lives felt unbroadcasted.
No countdowns to live videos. No waking up to comment sections full of strangers dissecting their relationship. No hidden cameras disguised as admiration. Just long mornings with silence, burnt toast, and chai.
They began working on Unfiltered again—only this time, not for applause. They rebuilt the podcast with a new structure, inviting anonymous guests. Each episode was now someone else’s story.
One was about a boy who faked his entire relationship on Instagram to make his ex jealous.
Another featured a girl who sold edits of herself crying to a YouTube channel that used it in break-up compilations.
One man confessed to stalking his favorite influencer for five years—then seeking therapy after hearing Siya’s episode.
These weren’t clean stories. They were messy, raw, real.
And slowly, Unfiltered became something more than content.
It became a movement.
One Friday afternoon, Neil received an unexpected email.
Subject line: “Panel Invite: Digital Intimacy & Online Consent.”
From a media studies professor at Delhi University.
They wanted Neil and Siya to speak at a student seminar—about virality, boundaries, deepfakes, and healing.
At first, Neil laughed. “Us? Lecturing a university? You sure they want cautionary tales on stage?”
Siya looked over his shoulder, reading the mail. “Maybe that’s exactly what they want.”
She agreed almost instantly. Neil hesitated for a day. He wasn’t afraid of public speaking—he’d just never liked the idea of being considered an “expert” in anything born from trauma. But then again, who better to speak of boundaries than those who had none left once?
The seminar hall was buzzing. Rows of young faces, phones in hand but screens dimmed out of respect—or curiosity. Behind them, a banner read:
“Digital Intimacy: The Cost of Connection”
Neil adjusted the mic. Siya sat beside him, legs crossed, wearing a black kurta with sleeves rolled up, minimal makeup. Just her. No filter.
He began, voice even, gaze steady.
“I didn’t sign up for fame. I was editing videos for local chai stalls and small music labels. Then someone filmed me stepping between a man and a girl he was harassing. That girl was Siya.”
There were a few soft gasps. Some already knew the story. Others leaned in, wide-eyed.
Siya took over. “The internet called it romance. Bravery. But it was chaos. They built a story around us that wasn’t ours. And we—maybe foolishly—played along. Likes became currency. Love became content.”
Neil continued. “What no one tells you is that the screen remembers everything—even the moments you want to forget. We stopped being people. We became characters in a show we didn’t write.”
They talked about manipulation. About fake audio. About how betrayal online hurts just as deeply as it does offline—but lingers longer because screenshots never die.
At the end, a girl from the audience raised her hand.
“How do you know if your love is real when the world is always watching?”
There was silence.
Then Neil said, “When it still feels safe in silence.”
And Siya added, “When you stop performing for each other.”
There was applause. Not the loud kind. The respectful kind. The kind that came from people who got it.
Afterward, students approached in small clusters, asking for advice, for hugs, some just wanting to say thank you. Neil saw something familiar in their eyes—not fandom, not idolization. Recognition.
That night, back in their hotel room, Siya stood by the window, watching Delhi’s nightscape blur with traffic.
“You were good today,” she said.
Neil looked up from his notebook. “You too.”
She turned to him. “Do you ever miss it?”
“What?”
“The madness. The rush. The buzz after a viral post. The feeling of being… noticed.”
Neil thought for a moment. Then nodded. “Sometimes. But then I remember the exhaustion that came with it. And how it never let us rest.”
Siya smiled faintly. “You’re not made for noise.”
“And you?” he asked.
“I was. Once.” She looked out again. “But now, I want a quieter kind of impact.”
He stood and walked to her. Slipped his arms around her waist. Rested his chin on her shoulder.
“You still make noise,” he whispered. “But now, it’s the good kind.”
She leaned into him. “Like what?”
“Like poetry. Or waves. Or that sound your phone makes when I text you first.”
She laughed, soft and real.
Back in Mumbai, they launched a new season of Unfiltered. Titled: “What We Didn’t Post.”
The trailer was just a simple recording:
“No background music. No editing. Just us. This season, we share the stories that never made it to the feed.”
The episodes weren’t about drama. They were about healing. About resilience. About rebuilding trust in a digital age.
Listeners wrote in with their own stories—some anonymous, some public. They created a community, not just followers. Not an audience, but a space. A place for people who had been seen too much—and not seen enough.
One night, as they lay in bed, Siya scrolled through the podcast stats.
“Neil,” she whispered, “We crossed a million downloads.”
He didn’t respond immediately. Just pulled her closer.
A million people. A million plays. But this time, it wasn’t noise. It was resonance.
One morning, Siya woke to a note on the bedside table.
“Meet me where it all began. No phone. No filters. Just you.” —N
She knew instantly.
She got dressed, no makeup, hair tied in a messy knot. She took an auto to Andheri Station.
And there he was. Same corner. Same place where chaos had once introduced them.
Neil held a tiny paper cup of chai in one hand. The other, behind his back.
She raised an eyebrow. “What’s behind you?”
He smiled. “Something simple.”
He brought out a small photo. It wasn’t a selfie. It was a printout of the CCTV still from the day he stepped between her and the man.
She stared at it.
He said, “That moment wasn’t about saving you. It was about finding you.”
She looked up, heart caught in her throat.
Then he pulled out a tiny velvet pouch.
Siya’s eyes widened. “Neil…”
“It’s not for likes,” he said softly. “Not for reels. Just a question.”
He knelt.
“Will you stay unfiltered with me… forever?”
She laughed. Then cried. Then nodded.
No cameras. No audience. No performance.
Just a yes.
And a story that would never be posted.
Part 7
They didn’t announce the engagement. Not on Instagram. Not on any platform. No boomerangs of rings, no close-ups of clasped hands under fairy lights, no montage reels with soft acoustic background music. There was no #SheSaidYes or countdowns or curated hashtags like #NeilWedsSiya or #UnfilteredTogether. In fact, no one outside their closest circle even knew.
And that was the point.
They didn’t need the world to clap for their forever.
Siya bought a silver ring for Neil from a street vendor in Colaba Causeway. It was imperfect, a little scratched, but it fit. And Neil loved that she didn’t wait for diamonds. It was just after their recording of Episode 10 — “Not All Love Needs a Livestream” — when she slipped it on his finger.
“No big speeches,” she said. “Just this.”
Neil kissed her forehead. “Just this is enough.”
They moved into a new flat, a rented 1BHK in a quiet residential colony on the edge of Bandra East. It had peeling yellow walls, an old Godrej cupboard with a broken hinge, and a balcony that overlooked a tree full of angry crows. But it was theirs.
They filled it with used books, thrifted chairs, fairy lights they bought from a roadside shop during Diwali sales, and mismatched mugs that Siya insisted gave “personality.”
Their neighbors were mostly retired aunties and uncles who didn’t care about followers or podcasts. One even offered homemade rasam every Sunday because “you two look like you work too much and eat too little.”
And slowly, the world inside that apartment became the only one they wanted.
They still created. They still recorded Unfiltered. But now it wasn’t about proving anything.
One morning, Neil was editing an episode when Siya came in holding a notebook and two cups of masala chai.
“You know what I’ve been thinking?” she asked, curling up beside him on the floor.
“That our fans probably miss our faces?”
She snorted. “They’ve seen enough. No, I’ve been thinking… we should do a live show.”
Neil blinked. “Like… a podcast event?”
She nodded. “Real people. Real room. No screens. No cameras. Just storytelling. Like the old addas our parents talk about. Remember those poetry meets you used to attend?”
He smiled. “In cafés with broken mics and leaking roofs. I do.”
“Let’s make our own version. Storytelling meets. For misfits. The Unfiltered Circle.”
Neil stared at her, pride swelling. “You’re dangerous when you get good ideas.”
“I’m unstoppable when I’m in love,” she grinned.
They hosted the first event in a basement library in Fort. No stage. Just cushions and a circle of strangers. They kept phones outside in a basket labeled:
“Stories belong to the room, not the feed.”
People came—hesitant at first. A girl who spoke about breaking off an engagement with someone perfect-on-paper. A queer boy who had never told anyone he was in love with his best friend. A single mother who found comfort in late-night podcasts after her toddler fell asleep.
Neil and Siya didn’t host with mics or introductions. They just sat, listened, and when it felt right, shared too.
It was intimate. Honest. No applause. Just a collective exhale.
And when it ended, no one reached for their phones first. They hugged. Smiled. Stayed.
Word spread.
Months passed. The Unfiltered Circle became a monthly thing. New cities. New spaces. Always the same promise: nothing was recorded, and no one was judged.
Neil quit freelancing for corporate ads. He started teaching editing workshops instead. Siya took up a part-time role as a writing mentor at a non-profit for underprivileged girls. They began mentoring young creators who were too soft for influencer culture, but too passionate to stop telling stories.
They built not an empire—but a garden. One where things grew slowly, messily, beautifully.
But not all weeds were gone.
One morning, Siya opened her inbox to find a familiar name.
Aarav Shekhawat.
The subject line read: “Closure?”
She almost deleted it.
But something stopped her.
Neil saw her sitting with her laptop, shoulders stiff.
“Is it him?”
She nodded.
Neil said nothing. Just sat beside her.
She clicked.
“I’m not writing to apologize. I know that won’t mean much. I just wanted to say… watching you build something honest after everything I tried to destroy—it made me realize I lost the plot. Maybe I always had.
I’m in therapy now. You didn’t deserve what I did. Neither did Neil.
You don’t have to forgive me. I just… needed to say it.”
Siya closed the laptop. Exhaled. For a long while, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “I won’t forgive him. But I’ll move on.”
Neil took her hand. “That’s enough.”
And it was.
A year later, they stood under a tree in Auroville, barefoot on grass still wet with morning dew.
Their wedding wasn’t a wedding.
Just a circle of twenty people. No rituals. No stage. No wedding planner.
They exchanged notebooks instead of vows. Each wrote three pages to the other. Promises not of forever, but of today, tomorrow, and try again if we fall.
Siya’s note said:
I promise to fight with you and for you. To disappear sometimes but always return. To be imperfect, and still yours.
Neil’s note said:
I promise to stay. To choose love, not content. To never record your tears. To never turn you into a caption.
They cried.
Someone sang an old Bengali love song in the background.
No posts. No stories. Just memory.
Later that evening, as they lay under the stars, Siya turned to him and said, “You know what scares me the most?”
“What?”
“That we’ve stopped being scared of being seen.”
Neil thought for a moment. “Maybe because we’ve finally seen ourselves.”
She smiled.
And in that quiet, after all the screenshots, all the fake headlines, all the chaos—Neil realized something.
Some stories aren’t meant to go viral.
Some are meant to go inward.
To be lived, not liked.
Part 8
Rain came early that year.
Mumbai was still wiping off its summer sweat when the clouds, heavy and dramatic, decided to descend without warning. Neil had always loved the monsoons—more for the silence they brought than the chaos. The way it slowed everything down. The way it forced the world to pause, if only for an hour.
But that morning, rain didn’t come with pause. It came with a memory.
He stood at the kitchen counter, pouring hot water over tea leaves, when Siya walked in, barefoot, holding her phone like it had bitten her.
“Neil,” she said, her voice sharper than usual.
He turned, alarmed. “What happened?”
She held out the screen.
It was a YouTube thumbnail.
“THEY LIED TO US — The Untold Truth of Siya & Neil | Unfiltered Exposed”
The channel was called Mirror/Media. Newly created, anonymous. But the thumbnail had their faces side by side, red arrows, dramatic font, the works. The kind of clickbait built to shatter reputations.
Neil took the phone. Clicked. Played.
The voiceover was artificial. Modulated. Possibly AI.
“They claim to be healers of trauma, the champions of digital consent. But what if the story is fake? What if Unfiltered was just a carefully marketed comeback by two influencers who knew how to play victim for sympathy?”
Clips played—of their old reels, carefully chopped to sound arrogant, dishonest. Audio spliced to make them sound like attention-seekers. Old live videos taken out of context.
Siya sat down, hand to her head. “Not again.”
Neil paused the video. His voice was steady but low. “It’s not Aarav. He’s gone quiet. This is someone else.”
“Someone new?”
“Or someone old, wearing a new mask.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the tea forgotten. Rain lashed against the window.
“We built all this,” Siya said, gesturing vaguely at the apartment, the life. “From scratch. From pain. And still…”
“They want blood,” Neil finished. “Even if it’s dry.”
This time, they didn’t panic.
They called Neha.
Again.
She answered on the second ring, already chewing gum. “Tell me it’s not another deepfake.”
“Worse,” Neil said. “Someone’s building a narrative against us. Calling Unfiltered a fraud project. There’s a video.”
“Send it.”
Fifteen minutes later, she called back.
“So here’s the breakdown,” Neha said. “Channel’s new, but the production quality? Professional. They’ve scrubbed metadata, but I traced a few source files to a drive that once belonged to someone named Sahil Batra.”
Neil stiffened. “I know that name.”
Siya frowned. “Who?”
Neil looked at her. “He was an intern on my first freelance set. Quiet guy. Obsessed with content strategies. I once found a folder called ‘Virality Blueprints’ on his laptop.”
Siya blinked. “Creepy.”
Neha added, “He’s apparently running a ghost consultancy now—helping creators ‘discredit rivals’ for money. I checked Reddit. There are whispers. Anonymous gigs. Paid sabotage.”
Neil muttered, “So this was never personal. Just business.”
“Maybe both,” Siya said. “To him, we’re a blueprint gone wrong. A story that escaped control.”
Neha sighed. “You want me to shut the video down?”
Neil and Siya exchanged a look.
“No,” Siya said.
Neha was surprised. “No?”
“We respond. In our way,” Neil said. “No counter-drama. No reaction reel. We speak. Calm. Honest. That’s always been our way.”
Neha smiled. “I respect that. But if you change your mind, I’ve got… nuclear options.”
They uploaded an episode that night.
No music. Just them.
Episode 12: “What You Didn’t Hear in the Exposé”
Neil started. “There’s a video circulating online. Calling us frauds. Calling Unfiltered a lie. And it hurts. Of course it does. But here’s the thing—”
Siya took over. “We never claimed to be perfect. We’re messy. We’ve made mistakes. But we’ve never lied about our journey. And we certainly never monetized our pain for sympathy.”
Neil again: “Healing isn’t aesthetic. It’s not a six-slide post with pastel colors. It’s quiet. Ugly. Slow. And sometimes public, not by choice, but because the world won’t stop watching.”
Siya: “To those who believe in us—thank you. To those who doubt us, we get it. The internet makes trust difficult. But the truth doesn’t shout. It listens. It stays.”
They didn’t ask for support. Didn’t beg for validation.
They just spoke.
And clicked upload.
Within 24 hours, the exposé video was taken down—either due to copyright violations or backlash from viewers who began posting side-by-side comparisons, exposing the edits. The creator of Mirror/Media disappeared, their channel wiped, their links dead.
They never found Sahil Batra.
But they found something else.
A DM from someone named AayushiWrites.
“Hey. I was once hired by someone to edit against you. I refused. But I wanted you to know—there are people who believe in Unfiltered. Not because it’s perfect, but because it dares to be imperfect publicly. Thank you.”
It wasn’t a win. Not in the trending sense. But it was a reminder.
Even when the mirror cracks, truth reflects.
Weeks later, they stood at another Unfiltered Circle event. This time in Bangalore. 30 people. One dimly lit room. No phones. A typewriter in the corner for anyone who wanted to write something anonymously.
Siya read a poem she wrote on the flight down.
There’s no applause at the end of pain.
No highlight reel for healing.
But if someone stays after the story ends—
That’s when you know it’s real.
Someone cried. Quietly. No one asked who. No one needed to know.
Neil sat next to a man who had come all the way from Chennai, just to say thank you. They didn’t talk much. Just held hands in the dark for a moment that passed like smoke but stayed like ink.
That night, as rain tapped on their hotel window, Siya turned to Neil.
“You know what we are?” she asked.
He looked up from his notepad. “What?”
“We’re the deleted scenes. The unposted photos. The real stuff no one thinks is worth saving.”
Neil smiled. “And yet here we are. Saved.”
She kissed him, softly. “Maybe some stories are better without endings.”
Neil whispered, “Maybe some stories aren’t stories at all. Just lives. Lived.”
And with that, they turned off the lights.
Let the rain write the rest.
Part 9
By the time Unfiltered turned two, Neil and Siya had built something they never planned for—a quiet, underground revolution.
They never hit a million followers. Never received a YouTube plaque. Never went back to brand deals or trending tabs. But they built trust—thread by thread, voice by voice. A community scattered across the country—writers, listeners, survivors, lovers, and misfits who didn’t just want content. They wanted meaning. And a space where no one turned their vulnerability into entertainment.
To celebrate the two-year anniversary, they organized something small. A “thank you evening,” as Siya called it.
The venue was unusual: an old railway warehouse in Byculla, now converted into an indie performance space with mismatched lights, fraying rugs, and shelves filled with forgotten books. The perfect kind of imperfection.
No banners. No stage. Just a handwritten chalkboard that read:
“Unfiltered Anniversary — Come as you are. Speak if you wish.”
They weren’t sure who’d show up. But by 6 PM, the space was full.
A girl in an oversized hoodie stood near the back, nervously biting her nails. Neil remembered her from an email months ago—she had shared how Unfiltered gave her the courage to leave a relationship that was eroding her slowly.
An older couple sat cross-legged in the front row. Siya learned later they came all the way from Nashik, having listened to every single episode on drives to the city hospital where they volunteered.
And then there was the boy in a crisp white school shirt, barely sixteen, who walked up to Siya before the event and whispered, “I want to be a podcaster too. But I don’t have your voice.”
Siya smiled and said, “You don’t need my voice. You need yours. Even if it trembles.”
The evening unfolded like a well-loved poem—no fancy beginning, no dramatic climax, just small truths laid out like flowers on bare concrete.
People read from diaries. Performed spoken word. One girl simply cried and said, “This is the first time I’ve said my story aloud.” No one clapped. They just let her breathe.
Neil played a clip from their first ever Unfiltered episode. The audio crackled with rookie nerves, awkward pauses, the shaky laughter of two people who didn’t know what they were creating.
Then he played a new one—recorded just days ago. Polished in sound, but softer in tone. Wiser. Tired in the best kind of way.
Afterward, Siya took the mic.
“We didn’t start Unfiltered to fix anything,” she said. “We were just trying not to break.”
Neil added, “But somehow, in being broken out loud, we made space for others.”
They ended the night with tea and silence. Just people sitting in circles. Talking like they used to before likes, before algorithms, before being seen felt like currency.
Later that night, as they walked home under a bruised sky, Siya said something that Neil carried with him for weeks.
“Do you think we’ve done enough?”
Neil turned to her. “What do you mean?”
She kicked at a loose stone on the pavement. “I mean… this. All this effort. The stories, the healing, the fight. Sometimes I wonder if we were just a passing wave.”
Neil thought for a moment, then said, “If you drop a stone in water, it makes ripples. You don’t always see where they go. But they move. Somewhere. Somehow.”
She looked up at him. “You think we moved people?”
He nodded. “I know we did.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Three days later, a letter arrived.
A physical one. On paper.
Neil opened it, curious. It was from a prison in Pune.
Inside was a handwritten note from a 25-year-old named Rishi Jain.
“I’m writing this from a cell. I made mistakes. I hurt people. But one day, someone played your podcast on the prison radio. Episode 5—‘What Hurts in Silence.’
I hadn’t cried in seven years. But that day, I did.
You don’t know me. You may never respond. But I wanted to say—thank you. For reminding me that even people like me can begin again.
I now run a storytelling group inside here. We call it ‘Second Draft.’
Neil read it twice. Then handed it to Siya without saying anything.
She read it.
Her hands were trembling.
They sat in silence.
And when the tears came, they didn’t stop them.
That weekend, Siya pitched a new series for Unfiltered—a limited six-part edition called Voices Behind Walls.
They wrote to prisons. Reform homes. Shelters. Places where stories often go unheard. It took weeks, permissions, meetings with wary superintendents. But eventually, doors opened.
They weren’t allowed to record voices inside prisons, so they asked for written stories. Letters. Poems. Sketches. Memories. Regrets. Dreams.
Neil and Siya voiced them on the podcast, reading with care, never dramatizing, always preserving tone.
The episodes were painful. Beautiful. Human.
Listeners responded with letters, donations, offers to volunteer.
And somewhere in a corner of the country, Rishi Jain wrote again.
“We heard our stories in your voices. For the first time, we didn’t feel invisible.”
But life, like algorithms, doesn’t reward consistency forever.
One morning, Spotify removed Unfiltered from the home page. A new policy update. More “engaging” shows were taking the spotlight. Flashier hosts. Drama-heavy formats. More shock, less soul.
Neil shrugged. “We’re still here.”
Siya smiled. “We were never supposed to stay forever anyway.”
Still, something shifted.
They started talking about stepping back.
Not quitting. Just slowing.
Making space for other voices.
“We don’t need to hold the mic forever,” Siya said one day, as they watched the rain blur the glass.
Neil nodded. “Let others speak. We’ll just listen.”
They recorded what they thought would be their final episode.
Episode 100: “The Pause”
It wasn’t a goodbye.
Just a breath.
They spoke about fatigue. About change. About how every story deserves its season.
They thanked listeners.
Promised to return, maybe. Or maybe not.
Promised to live off-mic. To write without posting. To love without proving.
And when the episode ended, there was no outro music.
Just the sound of a long pause.
And then a soft click.
Weeks passed.
They walked more. Slept more. Talked less. Not out of boredom—but because they no longer had to fill every silence with purpose.
One morning, Neil woke up to Siya scribbling something in her journal.
“What are you writing?”
She didn’t look up. “Something without a title.”
He smiled. “That’s very you.”
She laughed. “Maybe I’ll call it Untitled Heart.”
He got up, made chai, and watched her from the kitchen.
No hashtags. No followers. No screenshots.
Just her.
And in that moment, Neil knew—
they didn’t need an audience anymore.
They were finally free.
Part 10
It had been three months since the last episode of Unfiltered aired.
No countdowns. No cryptic teasers. No one knew if it was the end or an intermission. But the inbox stayed full—letters, voice notes, little notes slipped under doors at old venues. Not from followers anymore. From people. Real people. Some still healing. Some just beginning.
Neil and Siya had melted back into the world, like warm ink on faded paper.
Siya started teaching full-time—Creative Expression in Digital Media at an alternative arts college in Pune. Her students adored her. Some didn’t even know she’d once been a viral name. That made her happiest. She said it felt like breathing clean air after months of screen static.
Neil picked up photography again. But only for himself. He walked the city in the early hours with a second-hand film camera, capturing stray dogs sleeping under chai stalls, lovers whispering on train platforms, old men playing chess in cracked parks. He printed them. Framed a few. Never posted them.
One of the frames hung above their bed.
A photo of a half-eaten vada pav on a plastic plate—chutney smeared like a story unfinished. Below it, scribbled in pencil: Where it all began.
On a quiet Sunday afternoon, as they sat on the balcony sipping nimbu paani, Siya turned to Neil and said, “Do you ever think about what would’ve happened if that video never went viral?”
Neil smiled. “I probably would’ve still noticed you. Somewhere. Somewhen.”
“Even without the fight?”
“Especially without it. Maybe at a bookstore. Or both reaching for the same packet of tea at Nature’s Basket.”
She laughed. “That sounds too romantic.”
He shrugged. “Or maybe we would’ve passed each other every day and never spoken.”
A pause.
Then she said, “Would you change anything?”
Neil looked at her for a long time before answering.
“No. Not even the worst parts. Because even the lies, the fake audio, the fear—it all brought us here. And here is good.”
She nodded. “Here is enough.”
They visited the old recording studio one last time.
It was mostly unused now. Dusty mics. A broken headphone jack. Stickers peeling off the console. On the wall hung a framed print Neha had gifted them on Episode 50.
It read: “Not everything has to be broadcast. Some things just have to be felt.”
They sat side by side, not recording. Just being.
“I miss the hum,” Neil whispered.
Siya turned. “Of the mic?”
“No,” he said. “Of us figuring it out as we went.”
She smiled. “We still are.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a sealed envelope. Handed it to her.
She opened it slowly.
Inside was a letter.
Dear future us,
If you’re reading this, it means we made it.
Not to fame. Not to perfection.
But to the quiet after.
The after of grief. The after of noise.
The after where we don’t owe anyone anything.
Not even an explanation.
But we write this to remember.
That once, we were loud. Then broken.
Then brave enough to be soft again.
Love,
Us.
Siya folded the paper carefully. “You always were the poetic one.”
Neil raised an eyebrow. “Says the girl who cried writing a caption about tea.”
They both laughed.
Then silence again. Familiar. Safe.
Weeks later, they got an invitation.
A community library in Dehradun wanted to name a quiet corner The Unfiltered Shelf—a space for letters never sent, books never finished, stories told in whispers. They didn’t want Neil and Siya to speak. Just to come. Just to sit.
They did.
It was a cold morning when they arrived. The shelf stood beside a window that overlooked a mossy courtyard. A handwritten plaque read:
“For stories that weren’t ready for applause—but mattered anyway.”
A teenage girl slipped them a note.
It said:
“I listened to you when my parents didn’t. I’m here now. I’m okay now. Thank you.”
They didn’t cry. They just nodded.
And sat on the floor, near the shelf.
Two former viral hearts. Just readers now.
Their wedding anniversary came without fanfare.
They took the local to Karjat. Ate roadside pakoras. Fed biscuits to stray dogs. Walked for hours through fields turning gold under the dying sun.
That night, in a homestay with flickering electricity and leaky taps, Neil wrote a poem on the back of a paper menu.
He didn’t read it out loud.
He just slipped it under Siya’s pillow.
In the morning, she left a reply.
On a napkin.
They never discussed what the notes said.
But both smiled a little more that day.
One evening, a young couple recognized them at a bookstore.
“Are you… Siya and Neil? From Unfiltered?”
They exchanged a glance. Then nodded.
The boy said, “You helped us through a breakup. And then helped us find our way back.”
The girl added, “We still listen to Episode 22 when we fight.”
They smiled. Spoke for a few minutes. Gave no advice. Just kindness.
As the couple walked away, Siya whispered, “We’re not a story anymore.”
Neil said, “We’re a footnote. In many stories.”
She grinned. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Much.”
Years later, no platform ever re-promoted their episodes. No documentary was made. No memoir was written.
But on the walls of bookstores, on bookmarks, on zines passed between college students, the name Unfiltered kept showing up.
Quietly. Steadily.
A whispered reminder that not all truth wears makeup.
And that some stories don’t end with applause—
but with understanding.
One last letter arrived.
No name. No return address. Just one line:
“Thank you for not being perfect. You helped me believe I didn’t have to be either.”
Siya held the note to her chest.
Neil looked out the window, where the rain had just begun.
Same as the day it all started.
Only now, there were no cameras.
No screens.
Just the sound of drops on glass.
And the feeling—
of finally, fully,
being free.
The End.
Thank you for reading “Screenshoted Heart.”
— A story about love, noise, and learning to be unfiltered.
