Chapter 3 - Amygdala

The emotional control room.

The clock had crossed 12:30 AM.
Outside, the city lay in a half-sleep�"streetlights flickered in the distance, dogs barked at shadows, and the wind carried the faint smell of dew. Inside our home, everything was still.

Alisha slept peacefully beside me, her head resting on my shoulder, unaware of the turmoil inside my mind. Her soft breathing was the only sound in the room, steady and comforting. Yet, sleep refused to come near me. My thoughts were louder. Heavier.

The writing kingdom… my kingdom… was slipping away.

The small bedside lamp cast a warm halo, but even that dim light seemed to disturb Alisha’s rest. She turned slightly, her eyebrows tightening. I watched her for a moment�"my calm, patient wife who carried my absence without asking questions.

Gently, I reached out and switched off the lamp. Darkness settled over the room like a blanket. Alisha relaxed instantly, drifting deeper into sleep.

But I couldn’t stay.
Not tonight.
Not with the weight of my future pressing against my chest.

Quietly, I got out of bed and walked to my writing room.

The moment I opened the door, the familiar smell of old papers, ink, and wooden shelves greeted me. Moonlight slipped through the narrow gap in the curtains, spreading a silver path across the floor. My desk sat at the far end of the room�"silent, waiting, almost breathing.

This room had seen every shade of me�"joy, frustration, loneliness, victories. It understood me better than anyone else.

I closed the door behind me and walked towards the desk.

On top of it sat the brown box Gowtham had given me earlier that day. The box looked harmless on the outside, but I knew what it contained could shape my life�"or shatter it.

I opened it slowly.

Inside, the capsules lay arranged in perfect rows.
Different colors.
Different emotions.
Different versions of who I could become.

Gowtham’s voice echoed faintly in my mind:

“These drugs don’t just give emotions, Irshad. They intensify them. Use them carefully.”

I exhaled.

Careful was not something I could afford anymore.

I picked up one capsule�"the one that Gowtham said would activate hatred and frustration, the foundation of any strong narrative. It was small, almost insignificant-looking, yet it held the power to turn imagination into fire.

I swallowed it with a small sip of water.

At first, nothing.

Then, a slow warmth spread through my chest.
Not painful.
Not pleasant either.
More like a door unlocking inside me.

My heartbeat steadied.
My breathing deepened.
And all the scattered thoughts inside my mind began to arrange themselves neatly�"like pages aligning before a new chapter.

The room felt different.

The moonlight appeared brighter.
The air felt sharper.
Even silence sounded clearer.

I felt emotions rise�"
fear, loneliness, frustration and hatred.

But none of them frightened me.

Instead, I felt ready.
Ready in a way I hadn’t felt in years.

On the desk, beside the brown box, lay two things that had been waiting patiently:

a pen, and a fresh block of untouched paper.

The paper looked pure�"blank, wide, demanding.
The pen looked heavy, as if it knew the burden it was about to carry.

I lifted the pen slowly.
Its cold metal pressed against my fingers, sending a small shiver through my arm.
The blank paper stared back at me, daring me to begin, mocking my fear, inviting my courage.

This was the moment that separated writers from dreamers.
The moment when imagination became action.

I sat down on the chair, pulled the paper closer, and took a deep breath.

Everything inside me went still.

The characters, the scenes, the emotions that were swirling within me suddenly aligned into a single, sharp thought.

This is the story that will bring me back.

My fingers tightened around the pen.

The first line of a new world formed clearly in my mind.

And at last�"
after days of doubt and nights of suffocating fear�"
I lowered the pen to the blank page.

I began to write.

Raghavan was forty-eight years old, though life had aged him far more than the number suggested. An introvert by nature, he worked in a corporate office buzzing with a young, energetic crowd who spoke fast, laughed loud, and moved in groups that never had space for him.

He had been with the company for years, yet he still felt like a temporary visitor�"someone who didn’t quite belong in the photographs pinned on the cubicle walls.

That evening, there was a quiet excitement running through the office. Chairs moved. Backpacks were zipped. Perfumes sprayed. Someone mentioned team dinner.

The younger employees gathered near the aisle, whispering among themselves as they finalized plans.

Raghavan wasn’t invited.
He wasn’t even glanced at.

He tried convincing himself that they might still call him.
Maybe they were waiting for the right moment.
Maybe they assumed he’d join automatically.

But the truth reached him anyway.

Two colleagues stood near the coffee machine, speaking in tones low enough to hide, yet careless enough to be heard.

“Let’s keep it small, okay? If he comes, it becomes too… quiet.”

“Yeah man, he just doesn’t blend. Better not loop him in.”

No gossip.
No insults.
Just a decision made with casual ease�"
the kind that hurt more because it wasn’t meant to hurt at all.

Raghavan felt something sink inside him.
Not anger.
Not shock.
Just that familiar ache of being invisible in a place where everyone else seemed to shine effortlessly.

He pretended not to notice anything.
He forced a small smile at his monitor, as if something on the screen had amused him.
It hadn’t.

Slowly, he closed his laptop, packed his worn-out office bag, and stood up. He didn’t want to wait until the team gathered near the exit and awkwardly avoided looking at him.

He wanted to leave before he became the silent topic in another whispered discussion.

The basement parking was dimly lit, the air slightly damp. Raghavan walked to his old scooter�"a model that had survived two decades with him. The paint had faded, the mirrors rattled with every bump, and it needed two or three attempts before the engine would wake up.

But it was familiar.
It never judged him.
It never made him feel out of place.

He placed his bag in the front basket, put on his helmet, and gave the scooter a kick.
The engine coughed.
He tried again.
This time it started, complaining softly like an old companion forced out of rest.

He sat on the seat for a moment, staring ahead at the exit ramp.
The office behind him was buzzing with excitement.
He left quietly, unnoticed.

Only the security guard gave him a nod as he rode past.
Raghavan returned the gesture with a faint smile�"
the only acknowledgment he had received all day.

As the scooter moved onto the main road, a light breeze brushed against him.
The city lights blurred slightly.
The loneliness that had followed him for years settled on the back seat, right where no one else ever sat.

While riding out of the office campus, Raghavan felt a small sense of relief.
He believed he had escaped humiliation�"just by leaving early, just by not giving anyone the chance to exclude him openly. That small victory felt enough for a moment.

But the emptiness of the road and the quiet hum of his old scooter slowly reminded him of a truth he could never escape.

Humiliation was not just in the office.
It waited for him at home too.
In a permanent form.
In the form of his wife.

As he drove through the dim streetlights, memories began flashing through his mind, one after another. Uninvited, unstoppable.

His wife’s voice�"always edged with frustration.
Her disappointment that never left her eyes.
Her anger, sharp and constant, as if he personally stood between her and the life she deserved.

He remembered the nights she scolded him for the smallest things�"late salary, broken refrigerator, forgotten shopping list�"anything became a reason to remind him that he wasn’t enough.

But what hurt him more were the things he never spoke about.

The fact that he could never satisfy her.
Not emotionally, not romantically.
Not physically.

He wanted to be a better husband.
He wanted to be the man she expected him to be.
But wanting and becoming are two different things.

Her disappointment stayed like a permanent shadow across their marriage.
Some days she didn’t speak to him at all.
Some days she spoke only to express what he lacked.

And somewhere between the silence and the scolding, Raghavan had learned to shrink within himself.

His fingers tightened on the scooter handle.
His breath grew heavier.
His mind was no longer on the road.

The swell of memories, the pain of office rejection, and the deeper humiliation of home all blended inside him into a suffocating blur.

And in that blur�"he lost control.

The scooter skidded, the front wheel shook violently, and before he could steady it, the vehicle toppled.
Raghavan hit the ground hard.
His head struck the road with a dull thud.

For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
The world around him went dark for a second.

He tried to sit up.
There was no one around.
Not a single vehicle.
Not a single person walking by.

Just silence.
A cold, indifferent silence that felt more painful than the fall.

He slowly pushed himself up, wincing. His head throbbed, his palms were scraped, and his scooter lay a few feet away, its headlight flickering weakly.

He looked around again, hoping someone might appear, but the road remained empty.
It was past 10 PM.
Nobody was there to help him.
Nobody even knew he had fallen.

Raghavan dragged the scooter upright, the weight of it pulling on his aching arms. The engine refused to start at first, but after two shaky kicks, it responded with a weak cough.

He got back on the scooter and continued toward home.

Not because he felt fine.
Not because he wanted to.
But because there was nowhere else he belonged.

When he reached his house, the front lights were off.
His wife never waited for him anymore.

He parked the scooter quietly, not wanting to disturb her�"though he knew she wouldn’t care either way. He entered the house slowly, holding the wall for balance as his head pulsed with pain.

She was in the bedroom, sitting on the bed with her arms folded.
The moment she saw him, her expression turned cold.

“You’re late again,” she said, her voice sharp.
No concern.
No question of whether he was alright.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

“Don’t sleep here tonight. I need space.”

It wasn’t new.
It was routine now.

Raghavan nodded silently, not trusting his voice. The pain in his head intensified.
She turned off the light and lay down, already done with him for the day.

He walked to the small spare room�"his room now.

There was nothing inside except a single bed, an old fan, and a window that didn’t close properly. He sat on the bed and held his head for a moment, trying to steady the spinning.

He lay down slowly. The pillow felt too thin, the room too cold, and his life too heavy.

Within minutes, exhaustion pulled him under.

Raghavan closed his eyes…
and slept with the pain rising quietly inside his head�"
a pain that would soon awaken something far more dangerous.

The next morning, Raghavan woke with a mild, dull ache at the back of his head. It wasn’t alarming, just uncomfortable enough to remind him of the fall. He assumed it was nothing �" just fatigue, just stress, just life.

He didn’t know that inside his brain, two important regions �" the corpus callosum and parts of the frontal lobe �" had been silently disturbed.
He got ready and left for the office.

The usual office noise welcomed him �" phones ringing, people greeting each other, keyboards tapping. Raghavan sat at his desk and turned on his system. He tried to focus, but something felt off. His throat was dry. His body felt unusually warm.

He took a deep breath, trying to ignore it, but the dryness didn’t go away.

He reached for the water bottle on the left side of his desk.

But the moment his right hand moved forward,
his left hand lifted suddenly �"
quick, sharp, and completely unintentional.

Before he could understand what was happening,
his left hand struck the bottle and sent it rolling across the floor.

A couple of colleagues looked up.

Raghavan froze.

His left hand stayed suspended for a second, as if confused by its own action, then dropped back to his lap.

He felt a strange coldness inside his chest.
His palms grew sweaty.
His breathing turned shallow.

It wasn’t a simple shake.
It wasn’t tiredness.
It was something else �" something he couldn’t name.

People were still staring at him.
He couldn’t bear those eyes.
He didn’t want to explain any of this �" he couldn’t even explain it to himself.

Without saying anything, he shut down his computer, packed his small bag, and left the office quietly.

Everyone watched him.
No one said a word.

Raghavan was experiencing its first signs �" unaware of the storm quietly forming inside him.

When Raghavan reached home, the mild headache had turned into a heavy pressure behind his eyes. All he wanted was silence and a dark room.

His wife was sitting on the sofa, watching TV. She turned her head as he walked in. Her expression didn’t change �" the same cold, dismissive look she had given him for years.

He lowered his gaze and walked past her.

But in the corner of his eye, he saw her watching him again �" not with concern, but with that familiar irritation.

Maybe it was that.
Maybe it was the injury.
Maybe it was something entirely different.

But before Raghavan could take another step,
his left hand jerked upward again.

This time, it grabbed the glass fish bowl from the table �"
the small bowl with a single goldfish swimming quietly.

And in one sharp, uncontrollable movement,
the hand flung the bowl across the room.

The bowl crashed against the wall, inches from his wife’s face.
Glass shattered.
Water splashed across the floor.
The goldfish writhed helplessly in the spill.

His wife screamed and jumped back in shock.

Raghavan stared at his own hand �"
as if it belonged to someone else.
As if it had acted without him.

Fear rose inside him �" not of her, not of the fall �"
but of himself.

Without speaking, he ran to the small room, shut the door, and leaned against it. His breath was shaky. His head throbbing. Outside, his wife’s voice rose in anger, confusion, and disbelief.

Raghavan sat on the edge of the bed, terrified of the hand resting quietly beside him.

The small goldfish flapped against the tiled floor, its scales catching the faint light. Each movement was weaker than the last. Its mouth opened wide, searching for the water that was no longer there. It wasn’t just dying �" it was struggling, breath by breath, in a battle it was never meant to fight.

I closed my notebook slowly.
My hands were trembling slightly �" I told myself it was just the chill in the room.

I stepped out of my writing room and walked into the bedroom.
Alisha opened her eyes the moment she heard me.

“You didn’t sleep at all,” she said softly.

Something inside me tightened.
Something unfamiliar.

Without thinking, I snapped:

“Just… keep quiet and sleep.”

The tone of my voice startled even me.
Alisha looked at me as if she didn’t recognize the man standing there.

I lay down and closed my eyes.
Sleep dragged me under in minutes.

But Alisha didn’t sleep.

She sat there, looking at me with growing fear �"
the same fear Raghavan had felt in his small room.

None of us knew it yet.

But the pills,
the emotions I forced into myself,
and the story I birthed that night…

had already begun writing themselves
into my real life.

The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure deep inside the brain, one on each side. Despite its size, it plays one of the most powerful roles in human behavior. The overactive amygdala can wake up monsters inside us. The imaginative amygdala in Raghavan’s brain has turned on the amygdala in my real brain as super active.