The Original Sin - By Trilok Sai

Written By: Trilok Sai

Category: Psychologival thriller

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Trilok Sai's gripping submission, "The Original Sin," is a psychological thriller that delves into the harrowing aftermath of World War II in Poland. This evocative piece is part of the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, showcasing the author's ability to weave a narrative rich with historical context and emotional depth. The story unfolds in a desolate landscape where hope is scarce and survival is a daily battle, underscoring the complex interplay of memory, guilt, and redemption in a world struggling to rebuild.

About the Work

"The Original Sin" immerses readers in a bleak, post-war Poland, capturing the psychological decay and haunting memories of its protagonist, Red. Through vivid imagery and intense emotional landscapes, Trilok Sai explores themes of guilt, despair, and the relentless pursuit of redemption. The narrative's raw depiction of human suffering and moral conflict creates a suspenseful atmosphere that captivates and challenges the reader.

The Original Sin

Original Submission by Trilok Sai

It was the year 1970. It has been decades since World War II ended and yet there was no sign of a future in Poland. The citizens of Poland had another name for hope; it was the Post-World War II Movement, which was meant to rebuild the country and build a future where the citizens can have three meals a day and proper clothing during winter. But their hope did not last long.

The government was focused on the production of coal and iron, while the civilians were famished and the country was desolated.

The government was constantly trying to prevent the breakthrough of civil war. In between all of this stagnation, "Red"

was an enforcement officer.

"Hi, I am Red. This is the only way I think I can spread the events of my sullied life.

It was the month of November 1970; the hope for rebuilding a new life after the cataclysmic events of the World Wars was dead.

The government had no concern about the needs of common civilians. Workers had to spend 12 hours a day at work, days were freezing cold, the view of the country after the world war looked greyish, and the presence was dreadful. People had money to buy food but no food to buy; the 12-hour shifts meant nothing if there was no food to eat, but still, the daily work was inevitable. Having a family was considered the punishment given by God for the sins the government committed. But fortunately for me, the enforcement officer badge was there to give me food to survive and I was born an orphan. A confidential file was leaked inside the government; it was the change in leadership. A new leadership will take control next month, but the hope for a better future was nowhere to be seen.

During night patrols, I saw higher officials having parties—the civilians knew it as a meeting—and the civilians spent their last bit of energy to breathe. One night during my patrol, I saw an old man lying on the roadside. I went to check on him. Within a 5-foot distance, there came a disgusting smell from him. As I checked on him, he was gasping for air with his mouth open. He was weak, with pale skin. He saw me and, with the little amount of strength he had left, he asked me for water, a simple human necessity which was supposed to be supplied clean and fresh to the citizens. I saw a bottle tied to his pants. I opened the bottle and a burst of awful smell hit me. I pointed my flashlight into the bottle and found things floating inside it; I was baffled. Then I threw the bottle and rushed back to my camp to bring some clean water for the old man. It was the least that I could do for the old man. I ran so fast it would have easily broken my selection record. I came back to the old man with fresh water, only to find the lifeless body of an old man lying on the empty road whose only wish was to drink fresh water. It was his final wish, which I was not able to fulfill. To this day, I still remember the broken, muffled sound he made with his mouth trying to breathe. Ever since then, every night patrol was an escape from the haunting sounds of the old man breathing; they followed me while I walked in the empty streets at night.

Soon the new leadership came to power and surviving became much worse and dreadful. One day, there was a protest at a shipyard about the scarcity of food and the absurd working hours. Men and women all came for their future. Minute by minute, the situation got worse. We were sent to control the protest so they wouldn't destroy any government ships or boats. The sounds became louder and louder, and at a faint moment, the sound was so loud and sharp it sounded similar to the sound of an ejected pin from a grenade. At the same time, a voice from behind me shouted, 'OPEN FIRE.' I stood there like a well-aged statue, not able to decide whether to shoot the same people we were supposed to protect. In an instant, a sudden gunshot came from behind me, followed by the rest. But I stood there like an observer, watching a bloodbath unfold itself rapidly. Between all of the gore, violence, and noise, a scream for help hit me like a gunshot, and at the edge of my eye, I spotted a young lady being dragged into a dark container by a monster disguised as an officer. As I turned my head, her eyes locked with mine. Her bright green eyes, signalling fear and hope for help, looked into my eyes and she shouted, 'SAVE MY BABY,' while holding her stomach with one hand and trying to escape from the monster with the other. I stood there looking deep into her eyes while she was dragged into the darkness, and the last thing she saw was a coward looking back at her. With no time for me to digest the act, a man came charging towards me. Out of fear, I pulled the trigger on him, and the same sound that made me stand there like a statue came from my own gun. Immediately, like a rock hit my head, a drop of blood rolled over my eye. Vision blurred, hands shaking, with legs losing strength, my body collapsed.

After regaining my consciousness, I realized I was in a hospital. The taste of fresh air down my throat, a lightened mind, and the dim warm lights surrounded me in the hospital. As I tried to move my hand, it became almost impossible to move it. Soon, a doctor came to me and told me to lie down. As I asked what had happened, the doctor told me I was unconscious for two days. I was surprised, as I had no dreams or nightmares, just silence and a sense of nothing. Looking back at it makes me realize those were the final days of peaceful sleep I would get. In the hospital, news came that the country was taking large amounts of loans from the West for development. Later, I was sent back to my home. Even to this day, I remember the feeling of coming back to my house. I walked my way back to my house through the freezing streets of artificial hope. I noticed a group of youngsters jumping with joy and smiling with happiness, shouting, "We got jobs!" I hadn't seen people happy like that since World War I. Then I stood in front of my forlorn house. I took one good look at it and said to myself that it was the same as before. Then I slowly opened my door; the silence of my house made the sound of the doorknob much louder. The house was normal, but my presence brought something to it. I looked back at the people on the streets; the bloodbath was no longer in their memory, but just inside mine. I walked all over my house and checked every room, just to make sure nothing was different. Before, I was alone and lonely, but this time I was just lonely. I felt like the memories from the shipyard lived with me inside my house. I wasn't completely scared; I was also guilty, a feeling my mind wanted to be gone, but my physical body couldn't simply get rid of. As days passed, the space in my house was running out with memories from the shipyard. Looking at a corner for too long or being in a room for more than a minute made me remember a scene from the shipyard. I tried telling this to my teammates from the war, but they suggested I visit a psychic. But I was never a theist or an atheist; they both believed in God, but one was just fighting himself. I believed they were both in the same box, but I was outside of it. Soon, I took early retirement from my job and left with a good amount of cash that I believed would let me survive in this country built on artificial hope. I slowly became paranoid of my own house. As days passed, the bit of sanity I had in myself after the shipyard began to leak slowly. I no longer felt safe living in my own house. I felt like I was being watched from the corners, the green eyes watching me while I sleep, eat, and bathe—a weight growing inside me that couldn't be put outside, a weight that could have been avoided only if I acted in that situation. I could no longer sleep in my house. The muffled sound of the old man breathing and the scream of the young lady from agonizing pain and despair surrounded both my ears until one night, while I was on my bed trying to sleep, the voices slowly began to get louder and louder, closer and closer. I was on the bed till a chill went down my spine; it was slow, but my reaction was fast. I jumped out of my bed and, out of fear, I ran straight out of my house. At last, I felt nothing was following me. I started to wander the streets in the night. Ever since then, sleeping was impossible and, as days passed, night wandering became a habit. But it wasn't long for me to realize that the voices wouldn't let me walk freely. They followed me during night and day to everywhere I went. I slowly began to live in the night and rest in the day, but it wasn't enough for my sanity to hold itself. My bedroom was enough for me to get the little sleep I needed to be sane, but soon the green eyes came to look over me even during the day, looking at the man who couldn't save her. As time flew by, the glow in the green eyes grew bigger. I no longer had the comfort to sleep in the bedroom. Wherever I was in my house, I felt I was being watched from the corners behind me, the voices trying to reach me from behind. I could no longer handle them. On one day of tethering, I was taking a nap for the first time in three days. I slowly opened my eyes and noticed that it was about to be dawn, the sign for me to get up. But as I tried to move my body, I couldn't tweak a single muscle in my body. I felt the same feeling,

the feeling of being a well-aged statue, but this time I felt a heavy weight over my chest. As I was struggling to move my body, the sound of the doorknob hit my ear, and at the corner of my eye, I saw the door slowly open. It revealed nothing but darkness. I tried to escape, but there was no use. Then a shadow figure quietly came from the darkness; it was the young lady with her baby. She stood beside me looking into my eyes with the bright green eyes she had. Then she slowly placed her baby on me, and the pressure on my chest increased. I wanted to scream as loud as the voices that tried to reach me, but I simply couldn't. Then the lady suddenly collapsed on the floor; she slowly muffled, "Save my baby." She was aggressively dragged away from the room by an invisible force. She continued to scream "Save my baby" again to a point I felt my ears were about to explode. Then the world around me went quiet. I took a look at the baby on my chest, and the baby started to cry and slowly melted over me. The baby melted over my body as blood. The blood spread all across my bed and the bed absorbed it totally. Then the weight over my chest vanished like my sanity. I slowly gained control over my body and I ran straight out of my house screaming, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!" across the streets. I finally reached the place where my memories came from; it was the bloodbath that paralyzed me with fear. I went to the shipyard looking for the container into which the lady was dragged, and I found it. I slowly opened the doors; it was all dark inside. Luckily, I had my torch with me. I turned it on, pointed it all over the inside, and went into it. The floor was wet and the walls were covered in blood which looked fresh to this day. My vision became blurry. After I gained my vision back, I noticed writing on the container wall. I pointed at it; chills ran down my spine as I read it. It said, 'It is all your fault.' I immediately ran out of it and tripped over something in the darkness and lost consciousness. But the scenes from the shipyard continued to play in my mind on loop: blood all over the place, people screaming for help, and a hand covered in blood falling out of a container pointing towards me. Later in the morning, I was brought back to reality by a few birds. I woke up and looked around, realizing it was a wasteland. I went back to my home—gate wide open, doors unlocked—but nothing about the house changed; everything was the same as before. Then I went to my bedroom, took my blanket and pillows out of the room, and sealed the door shut with some wooden planks. Then I closed all the doors, went to the bathroom with the blanket and pillows, closed the bathroom door, placed those inside the bathtub, sat inside it, and pulled the curtains. It was the only place in my house where I felt unseen, the only place where the green eyes did not follow me. Now my bathtub was my new bed; it was the only place where memories did not occupy, the only place where I could feel unseen in my entire house. I couldn't be found there; I locked myself out of my own house. I continued to sleep inside the bathtub, but even then, the voices never left me, and the green eyes followed me, staying on the other side of the curtain, hoping that I would act and open the curtain. I never left my house. Days became weeks, and weeks became a month, until all the rations ended. Only then did I decide to look at the world around me. I got out of the bathroom, walked slowly towards the front door, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted sunrays leaking from the window. I grabbed the door key. As I tried to open the door, I realized my physical strength also began to decay like my mind. With all the strength I had, I opened the door. The sunrays burst open into my house; the intensity was too strong for me to handle. The light blinded me for a few seconds, but as I got my sight back, I felt energy pouring into myself. I went to take rations for 4 months. The streets looked the same, but with much stronger and brighter artificial hope. I came back to my house, locked myself inside, closing all the doors and windows, not letting the manufactured hope get into my house. Through all of this, the voices never left me. As days passed, my supplies went faster than I thought, so I reduced my intake so that I wouldn't need to go outside too frequently. I was losing my mind so much that I did not even notice that I was surviving on expired food. After 7 months, the rations finally finished. I once again went to the market, but this time looking at the streets made me remember the bloodbath. I never wanted to look at the streets again in my life. I took rations enough to feed a family of 3 for a year. Back at the bathtub every night, I felt the breathing of the old man creaking from the ventilation, and the green eyes illuminated brighter every day. I alone had nobody, no senses, no rest; I was trapped by the voices that hunt me. With the amount of rations I had, I decided to at least eat well. Days passed faster than ever, and on a day where I was trying to get a few minutes of sleep, a loud banging began to come from the outside. I slowly went to open the door, only to find two well-dressed people with forced, artificial smiles on their faces. Then they said, 'We are from the government.' I immediately said, 'I no longer work for the government.' Then they said, 'No, Mr. Red, we are not here to take you to work. We are here to honor you for the courageous acts you did in the shipyard protest back then. The person you shot at the protest was the leader of the group responsible for the protest, and only because of his death did the new leadership come to rule. Now our leader has recognized your part in the beautiful country he has built, and for that, he has decided to honor you next week. Be ready for that. And you seem a bit out of shape, Mr. Red; we advise you to get properly dressed when the event happens.' Saying this, they left a letter for me and departed. The next thing that came to my thought was the fact that I am the reason why this is happening. I was the reason why the cruelty continues, and I couldn't even imagine the things he would have done for the country if he were alive. The burden was too heavy for me to carry, and suddenly, as I closed the door, the sound it made felt very similar to the sound that came from my gun. Then I opened the letter, only to find pictures of an injured me and the dead person I killed. I held my injured photo against the mirror and looked for a scar that was long gone, but instead, I got a look at the scenes from the bloodbath. Before I could mourn for the protester, the day came. The whole country came to see my grey blood get honored by the pathetic government. I was forced to look at the people who I wished not to see again. I was being honored for the same thing that made me go insane, the same thing that haunts me in my own house. Ever since then, I was offered to live the shameless, luxurious life of the elites. I had access to all the government benefits and the black market as well. The responsibility to face and talk with the public was given to me—a guy who avoided daylight for months, a guy who sleeps in his bathtub, a guy who fears the night. My rituals changed; instead of sleeping during the day, I had to quit sleeping. The days were all about reading the text I was given by the shameless. The only sleep I was getting was in between meetings. I had to look at the same streets filled with artificial hope and the people who were one foodless night away from starting a protest. The only thing working and in control of my mind was my mouth; every other part of me was filled with the weight of grief and regret. My body felt sloppy. The weight over me is unbearable. My life is the perfect deception of a GOLDEN CAGE. With this, I would like to end this miserable life story of mine."

Writing this in his book, Red finally feels light in his heart. He gets up from the bathtub and takes the book to place it in the middle of his living room, then gets back to his bed to get the sleep which hasn't had pity on him. Red had all the power, but no control over it; he was the one under control. Every lavish party by the elites made him hate them and himself more. They had a name for themselves: it was the 'NOMENKLATURA.' But Red always had a different name for them: it was 'THE SHAMELESS.'

With the little power he had control over, Red used to feed one person a day, but that too didn't last for long as the state could no longer afford to export food for the citizens. So Red continued to feed people from his rations until, one day, as Red was returning to his house after feeding a person, he heard the cries of a boy screaming in pain and saying, 'Mom, my stomach and throat hurt,' with his hands on his stomach. The scene was too cruel for Red to bear. He went to his home, got into his bathtub, and with tears in his eyes, said to himself, 'If I had a chance, I would slice my hand and cook it to feed that kid.' The sounds of the old man breathing, the protesters shouting, the young lady screaming for help, and now the kid crying for food were all echoing in his ears, and the green eyes looked at him with pity and anger from the darkest corners of the room. The next day at night, on his way back home, he spotted a woman with her child sitting on the footpath. Red rushed to give them food. The woman asked for water. He handed over the water bottle and took the little girl into his hands. The girl was unconscious; Red sprinkled some water on her. The child woke up. Red gave the girl a piece of bread. The child took a bite of it and, with an innocent voice, asked her mother, 'Mom, is this the cake you talk about?' Red was trying hard to hold back his tears. As Red was handing the child to her mother, the child suddenly stopped moving. Red and the woman both tried waking her up, but there was no use; the child died in the hands of Red.

Red silently stood up, gave all the money he had to the woman, and told her to get cake for the little girl's funeral. With a dreadful expression on his face, he slowly walked home. He closed the door, and suddenly, as if the house brought his emotions back, Red started crying, shouting, and throwing everything in his house to the ground. In the process, he kicked the book he wrote, and at that moment, Red lost his sanity completely. He took a pistol and went outside to take one good look at the house which shared his memories, and at the corner of his eyes, he spotted the green-eyed lady looking at him at the window, smiling. Red rushed into his house, took a sledgehammer, and slammed it into the bedroom door upstairs. He finally opened it, and as he entered his long-abandoned bedroom, the same old smell of his past hit him. Red then stood against the window and, instead of his reflection, he saw the green-eyed lady. Then he slowly raised the pistol to his head, locking his eyes with the lady, and as a final effort to drown out the voices in his ears, he screamed at the top of his lungs and finally pulled the trigger, putting an end to the torment and getting the rest he wanted. Red concluded his life.

THE END

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious event that invites writers from around the world to share their unique voices and stories. This competition is a celebration of creativity and expression, offering a platform for emerging and established writers to engage with a global audience.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to Trilok Sai for his contribution to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 with "The Original Sin." His compelling narrative and masterful storytelling have left a profound impact, inviting readers to reflect on the enduring consequences of history and the human condition.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.