This Time, We Choose (Part II)

The fight for Dharohar Chetna Bhawan had just begun, and the stakes were higher than I could have ever imagined. Dhruv, ever the wildcard, leaned against the desk. “Alright, alright—this is usually where your monologue begins and tell us what’s really going on.”

The nurse exchanged glances with the men beside her before sighing. “Fine. You want the truth? This is not a wellness centre or a hospital. It is an erasure centre. You were all a burden to the society. An unwanted section, always stirring up new problems and demanding sensitisation. But why should we bare your tantrums and personality disorders, when you could all be just… reset. First, we erase what you feel. Then what you remember. Then what you were born as. And one day, you wake up someone else entirely. Someone more powerful.”

I felt a cold chill creep through me. “Reset? What does that mean?”

Her expression darkened. “It means you were never supposed to remember. And now, that’s a problem.”

“You claimed it to be a ‘breakdown’, lady” Dhruv chimed in, nonchalantly, looking down on to his finger nails sassily.

“But it became a breakthrough”, Ira smirked, feeling the adrenaline pulsing through her veins.

“Why?” I choked out.

“Because neurodivergence is chaos. You lived it. You know. We offer peace.”

“By wiping identities?”

“By freeing people from their suffering.”

“By making them compliant,” Ira snapped.

The nurse tilted her head. “Wouldn’t the world run better if no one had mood swings? Inattention? Meltdowns? Isn’t that worth a little restructuring?”

“You think you were helping us?” Dhruv snapped, voice trembling. “You weren’t fixing anything. You were deleting. I don’t twitch as much now, sure. But I also don’t remember what it felt like to hyperfocus on something I loved. You didn’t cure me, you rewrote me, into someone I will never resonate with.”

Ira’s laugh was dry. “You don’t want better versions of us. You want versions that fit in silence.”

The nurse, ever so calmly, posed a question as if she was too bored to be a part of this conversation, “Why is altering personality such a big deal? Aren’t people supposed to get better?”

That’s when I snapped, bile rising to my chest, “ ‘Getting better’ isn’t supposed to mean forgetting who you are. Personality isn’t a stain to be scrubbed off. It’s memory, feeling, identity. You didn’t help us heal, you made us hollow. You didn’t alter us. You replaced us. That’s not recovery. That’s erasure in disguise.” I don’t even remember speaking these words. I was too hurt to comprehend what was happening around me and the words just continued to slip out of my mouth. “You call it better? I call it silence. I call it loss. You didn’t take away pain—you took away the parts of us that knew how to feel it.”

Dhruv stepped in, “You don’t get it. Our minds aren’t broken. They’re just different. You’re not curing. You’re controlling.”

As we proceeded and kept on moving ahead, the truth continued to bleed through. So, this was the complete picture: DCB wasn’t a hospital. It was a facility designed to erase neurodivergent traits under the guise of therapy. The project had a name—Eunoia. Funded by underground pharma syndicates and performance-obsessed wellness lobbies, its goal was to create optimized citizens. Not cured. Corrected.

Then came the unmistakable sound of boots rushing down the hallway—more guards, closing in.

Dhruv grinned. “Well, I hope you’ve got a plan, because I refuse to get brainwashed again.”

He cracked his knuckles and continued. “Oh, buddy, I live for this kind of chaos.”

And just like that, we were off—racing into the unknown, searching for answers, and escaping into a life we never knew we had.

We burst through the emergency exit like characters in a low-budget action movie—minus the slow-motion and orchestral soundtrack, sadly. The cold night air slapped us awake as we sprinted through the overgrown garden behind the building, the hospital—no, facility—shrinking behind us like a bad memory trying to cling on.

Dhruv was panting beside me, still grinning like a lunatic. “I knew I was too good-looking to be just a side kick in someone else’s story.”

Ira rolled her eyes. “You were probably a narcissist.”

“I prefer ‘charismatic operative,’ thank you.”

And they continued to bicker until the forest swallowed us whole, branches snagging at our clothes, moonlight barely lighting the way. The adrenaline was wearing off, and reality was trying to sneak back in—but we didn’t let it. Not yet.

We had files. We had evidence.

But mostly? We had each other. A therapist, a patient, and a maybe-(the-funny-protagonist-of every-story) with a headache and trust issues. An odd trio, sure—but sometimes, the world’s strangest problems need the world’s weirdest team.

Somewhere behind us, alarms still wailed, people shouted, and probably someone was angrily filing a very intense report.

Ahead of us? Answers. Freedom. Maybe a little bit of coffee if we were lucky.

And as Dhruv muttered, “Next time I get into a therapy, remind me to read the fine print,” I couldn’t help but laugh.

As we tore through the trees, branches clawing at our clothes and adrenaline still pulsing through our veins, Dhruv suddenly slowed down. He stopped in the middle of a clearing, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.

“Wait,” he said, his voice quieter now, less frantic. “What if… what if this wasn’t a prison?”

We all halted. The wind rustled through the treetops, and somewhere in the distance, the wailing sirens began to fade, like the last cries of a nightmare slipping back into sleep.

Ira turned to him, brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

Dhruv stared back at the shadows of the building behind us. “What if Dharohar Chetna Bhawan wasn’t meant to lock us up? What if it was… a shield? A broken one, sure, but still a shield. What if they didn’t trap us because we were dangerous—but because the world outside still didn’t know what to do with people like us?”

Silence fell over the clearing. It was the kind of silence that says more than words ever could. The kind that holds a mirror to your soul and makes you look.

But here’s the thing: We were still standing. Still thinking. Still choosing.

 “Maybe we were just… different. People with minds that don’t fit the boxes the world gives us. And instead of listening, they tried to rewrite us.”

Ira’s voice was soft, but steady. “Maybe that’s why it all fell apart. Because you can’t medicate away complexity. You can’t ‘fix’ what was never broken to begin with.”

A breeze tugged at our clothes, like the forest itself was waiting for our decision.

“We could keep running,” I said, meeting their eyes. “Disappear. Start new lives, never look back.”

Dhruv gave a small shrug. “Tempting. Very Jason Bourne of us.”

“Or,” I continued, “we could go back. Not to surrender. Not to get locked up again. But to rebuild. To make it into what it should’ve been from the start.”

Ira’s eyes lit up with something I hadn’t seen in days—hope. “A place where people like us are understood. Seen. Heard. A place that celebrates neurodivergence instead of suppressing it.”

Dhruv let out a laugh, low and a little disbelieving. “You two are serious, huh?”

I smiled. “We’ve come this far. Might as well do something that actually matters.”

So, we turned around.

Not as broken people trying to escape their own minds.

But as something else entirely.

As founders of a new beginning.

To create a place, where healing didn’t mean hiding. Empowerment didn’t mean erasure.

We helped people like us escape that brain re-wiring hell-hole. And people like us helped us to raise funds, begin an organisation or more like a movement, to empower the ones who need empowerment. It became a sanctuary for minds that moved at their own pace, danced to their own rhythm. Artists. Thinkers. Survivors. Dreamers. People who had been dismissed, misdiagnosed, or misunderstood. People like us.

And slowly, word began to spread. One story, one voice, one brave soul at a time.

Because we were never broken.

We were brilliant.

Just in ways the world hadn’t been ready to see.

That was three months ago.

 We had turned around.

Not as broken people trying to escape their own minds.

But as something else entirely.

As founders of a new beginning.

To create a place, where healing didn’t mean hiding. Empowerment didn’t mean erasure.

We helped people like us escape that brain re-wiring hell-hole. And people like us helped us to raise funds, begin an organisation or more like a movement, to empower the ones who need empowerment. The footage we smuggled out went viral.

A lawyer came forward. A former technician. A working software engineer. A content designer. More names emerged. Protests followed. DCB was shut down—publicly, at least. Every industry came up, in their own ways, to boycott this disastrous place. Some say it still operates under a new name. Others say the patients who “disappeared” are being reintegrated, reconditioned, cleaned up like messy files.

On the other hand, our movement picked up pace. It became a sanctuary for minds that moved at their own pace, danced to their own rhythm. Artists. Thinkers. Survivors. Dreamers. People who had been dismissed, misdiagnosed, or misunderstood. People like us.

And slowly, word began to spread. One story, one voice, one brave soul at a time.

Because we were never broken.

We were brilliant.

Just in ways the world hadn’t been ready to see.

They had tried to erase us.

But they forgot something.

We choose now.

Every time we remember a flash, a glitch, a feeling—they lose.

Because we are not errors.

We are not files to be rewritten.

We are stories.

And we will be told.