“Oh, my God! You? You’re alive?” Rahman uttered with shock.

Jafar gave a little sinister laugh and then said,

“Did you think destroying me would have been that easier?”

Rahman remained silent as he was in a state of shock.

“I had no plan of getting you here. You can call it fate. But meeting you here has given me an opportunity to be even with you.”

Rahman gasped with fear and realised that his opponent was looking forward to

kill him.

“Don’t worry,” Jafar continued, “I will spare you alive today. But once you appear before my eyes again, trust me I will not show

any mercy.”

Rahman who wasn’t afraid anymore and was willing to fight said to him,

“I’m leaving your territory today. But mark my words, I will be back soon. And once I return, I would confront you all alone.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, I will be alone. If you have any courage at all then you will have to confront me all alone. But I know you, you are too afraid to do that by yourself.”

Jafar laughed out again

and said,

“Goodbye for today, I’ll be waiting for you here.”

Rahman turned and started walking towards another direction. The young guy with green eye appeared before him again. Rahman felt disgusted seeing his eye again.

This guy walked towards Jafar and asked regarding Rahman,

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, I have a very long history with him.”

“How?”

“He and I are cousins. Well, half cousins to be precise.”

“Is that why you spared him? He is the first guy ever who left our street without paying the extortion money.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. He’ll be back. And he shall pay more than anyone ever has.”

*************

Next morning, Rahman rang his father’s house doorbell. After quite a while, his old mother Alia came to answer the gate. She was very happy to see her son. He asked her,

“You? Where is father? Is he not here at home?”

“Actually he left,” she said opening the door completely as if allowing him to come inside.

“Where is he?” Rahman asked.

“He left for another city. He is going to collect that package himself.”

“Himself? Why did he go

all alone?”

“He had to. He was getting impatient.”

“But why didn’t he tell me that he was leaving?”

“I don’t know,” Alia said, “something just got into him. He packed his bags and left without even telling me when he was going to return.”

“Did he leave on a bus?”

“He said he was taking

the train.”

“Train?”

“Yes.”

“He must be really impatient about it.”

“Come inside.”

“You know why I came here. I met someone yesterday. My father won’t even believe it.”

“Who?”

“Jafar.”

“Jafar who?” his mother asked trying to recall.

“We know only one Jafar.”

“Wait, Hannan’s son?” she asked getting surprised.

“Yes. Our biggest enemy.”

“Oh, my God! But wait, wasn’t he dead?”

“I know, I’m surprised. He survived the bomb blast.”

“How could he?”

“I don’t know how. But I’m sure that he will make things worse for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I assume that the mischief shall continue once again.”

On his way back home, while he was waiting for the bus at the bus stop, he thought of reading that mysterious note once again. As he checked his first pocket, it wasn’t there. He then, tried to find it in the other pockets of his pants but to his surprise it wasn’t anywhere.

Oh, my God! Where is it? He said in his thoughts.

He tried to recall, but he couldn’t remember anything now.

The last time I remember, it was in the right pocket of this pant.

All of a sudden he remembered and realised what might have had happened.

The previous day, there was a moment when he was trying to resist and struggle his way out from the hold of Jafar’s goons.

Oh, my God. He whispered.

He was speechless for a moment and then said,

This is it. This is exactly what happened.

He held his thigh remembering how the young guy was trying to get hold of him.

So, these guys were pocket pickers?

He kept on thinking about this for a while but then said,

I cannot waste my time here. I have to go back there. These guys are thieves, I have to attain what belongs to me, as far as this city is concerned.

He then changed the mode of his thoughts and asked himself,

What about my Dad? He doesn’t know plenty of stuff. He left without informing me, but there’s a lot that I want to share with him.

He was getting really double minded as he couldn’t make a decision regarding what he must approach at the moment.

He took out his phone and said,

I think I must get on with having this conversation with my father.

He placed the phone next to his ear and continued saying,

After this, I will go back to get that note. The address is in that paper, I won’t be able to solve the mystery unless I have that paper.

He waited for his father to answer the call for quite a while but his father did not answer the call. He said,

He must not be able to hear it because of the noise at the train station.

He kept the phone back inside his pocket.

v v v

Meanwhile in the old home, Hannan was standing at the entrance all alone. He heard some foot-steps from the left side. He turned his head slowly to see. He saw an old man coming with his young son. The father was weeping silently. Hannan got curious and wanted to know what exactly was going on so he paid attention towards them.

As the father and son were about to separate, the tall heighted son said to his father,

“Alright, so this it. I’m leaving now.”

“Are you sure son?” the father asked trying to control

his sorrow.

“Yes, don’t worry I will spend my money on your expenses. In exchange we can meet once in two months.”

“Can we turn this other way round?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean instead of hardly meeting and you bearing my expenses, can we make it meeting everyday and not a single penny being spent from your side.”

“You made grammatical error, but I understood what you meant. Anyways, my answer is no. Stay here, I’ll collect you someday soon, good bye.”

The arrogant son turned and left his father alone.

The father continued crying as he saw his son leaving. Hannan slowly walked towards this old guy and said,

“Don’t worry, you and I are

the same.”

The old man looked at him and asked politely,

“Who are you sir?”

“My name is Hannan Tariq. And I’m the victim of same tragedy.”

“Really?”

“In fact, my tragedy was worst. Your son sent you to this old house right?”

“Yes, right.”

“My son sent me to the central jail of this city,” Hannan replied trying to control his emotions.

“The jail, why?”

“There’s a long story behind that. But trust me, you are here now, you will see plenty of people who share the same story as ours.”

Hannan offered his hand for a handshake and then said,

“We’ll be good friends, I’m sure.”

The old man reluctantly shook hands with him and said,

“I appreciate the gesture but

I don’t want to be a part of

this place.”

Hannan chuckled a bit and said,

“You’ll be fine, I’m afraid there’s no turning back once you enter this place.”

Hannan turned to walk towards another direction as he was trying to show his new friend the way, but since there was water on the ground, he slip and fell forwards.

Hannan fell badly on the ground and was about to faint, before he closed his eyes, his life’s memorable conversations and moments appeared before him and echoed around in his mind.

He remembered his conversation with his brother Rizwan:

“You do know that you are not related to us through blood?”

“Don’t start this conversation, this is absolutely a lie.”

“You were adopted, and you know it. And now you think that you are entitled to kick me out of this family?”

Hannan then remembered his fight with Rizwan at the parking lot. The conversation that took place after the fight appeared in his mind,

“Why did you kill my wife?”

“I had nothing to do with Sidra, I swear I had nothing

against her.”

“This file, this document did not belong to you. It belonged to your father once but he had donated it some charitable organization. You have captured it illegally.”

“I have not captured it.”

“One day, I will be back and I’ll have my revenge.”

Hannan felt the pain in his chest and saw some workers running towards him, and he then remembered his other conversation with Rizwan,

“You are the enemy of this family. But your son, he is worse than usual enemies. He has kidnapped my grandson. I need an explanation from you.”

“I have exiled him just the way you had exiled me.”

Hannan remembered his last peaceful conversation with his brother:

“We are here to talk about our child’s issue.”

“Oh yes, what about it?”

“We’ve been informed by some anonymous person that your son Jafar is involved in this.”

After this, Hannan finally blacked out remembering one last sentence from the police officer:

“We have a warrant for your arrest.”

Hannan had fainted and the workers of the organisation came to pick him up.

v v v

Back at Jafar’s territory, Rahman was walking as if looking for someone. He saw the young kid at some distance and got excited. He rushed towards him and as he reached closer he exclaimed,

“Listen kid, I want to talk to you.”

The young adult with green eye responded,

“Oh, dear Lord! My master was right. You would return here. And you returned sooner than I expected.”

“Listen kid, I am here to make peace. I will pay you whatever you need. Just tell me, did you or your partner happen to see a piece of paper?”

“Oh yeah, I have that.”

“Alright, first of all can you tell me your name?”

“Moiz.”

“Listen Moiz, you’re a good kid. You are not made for such things. I’m just saying that I can get you a better job. In exchange, all I want you to do is give me that letter. I want that paper, now.”

“Whoever you are, I am faithful to my master. I simply cannot help you. If you want that paper then you’ll have to give us extortion money first.”

“Okay.”

“And double extortion money.”

“I understand. I agree,” Rahman spoke in a cooperating tone and then said, “but first I want you to bring that note in front of me.”

Rahman heard a voice from behind him,

“Are you talking about this note?”

He turned to see who it was. It was his half cousin Jafar. Rahman took out his cell phone seeing the paper in his hand and then said,

“Don’t worry, I’m here to cooperate with you guys.”

“Of course, you are,” Jafar taunted.

Rahman switched on the laser light through his phone and aimed it immediately towards Jafar. Jafar got confused for a moment as his eyes were in pain. Rahman opportunistically snatched the paper from his hand and hit Jafar on his face with his cell phone’s edge.

Jafar who was hit on his eyes, fell backwards and blacked out for a moment.

Rahman who had the paper in his hand immediately rushed towards the exit of the street. He had covered quite some distance until Moiz held him from behind. Rahman held this kid from his collar and said,

“You should be ashamed of what you’re doing at this age.”

“I’m doing this for my master.”

“Why do you look upon him like that?” Rahman asked keeping the paper in his pocket.

“Do you see my eye?

I am blind from this eye.”

Rahman was a bit shocked and disgusted, so he asked,

“What exactly happened with this eye?”

“Nothing happened. I was born blind. My master raised me and managed to give me a vision from one eye.”

“You were born blind?” Rahman asked getting more than just curious.

“Yes, my real parents threw me away. Jafar picked me and gave me a life.”

Rahman let go of his collar and said in his thoughts,

Oh, my God! Is this my nephew, Harun?

to be continued...