Within forty five minutes, Wajeeh’s doorbell rang. He came to answer the gate. I was standing outside and instead of greeting him I spoke:

“Give me the gun!”

“Look, I just can’t hand it over without enquiring about it.”

“Give it to me now!”

He got silent and appeared angry. I spoke nicely this time:

“Please my friend, just give me the gun. I’ll return it to you.”

“I don’t want it back. I need to know what you’re going to do with it.”

“I need it for my own protection. There are some goons, they are messing up with me. I just need to present some terror, that’s all.”

“Oh… but there’s another solution to that”

Seeing the angry look on my face he stopped speaking and went inside. He came after five minutes holding the hand gun and some bullets. He reluctantly handed them over but I snatched the items dropping one bullet in process.

Next minute, I was outside his building waiting for a taxi. I was destined for my ex-wife’s husband’s house. Within thirty minutes, I got the taxi and reached the house.

Quite fortunately he was standing outside his bungalow washing his car by himself. I was a bit afraid but I was also angry seeing him so happy in his life. He had stolen my life’s happiness. I gave the taxi driver his due and asked him to leave. I then looked at my enemy and loaded the gun.

Two Weeks Earlier

Eruj was lying almost unconscious on her bed. Her eyes were open but it appeared as if she was sleeping. Her son was standing right next to the bed she was lying over. He was calling her mother but she was hardly responding.

Her house’ doorbell rang. She didn’t respond to it. Her son spoke out:

“Mom, some one’s at the door.”

She just moved a bit and blinked her eyes but did nothing further. Seeing this, her worried son left the room and rushed to answer the gate.

Outside there were two women of Eruj’s age. They were their neighbours. One of them asked:

“Where is your mother? Is she okay?”

“I don’t think so; she’s not moving.”

“Oh dear,” she spoke entering inside, “we must see her.”

They walked towards the room where she was lying. Seeing her the way she was, one of the women uttered:

“Oh, this is serious!”

“Yeah but what is wrong with her?” replied the other while asking.

“I think she has lost someone she loved,” Eruj’s son answered.

“Who?”

“I don’t know, his name was Abdullah.”

“Abdullah?” one of them repeated. “She never mentioned him in front of me.”

“Well, she met him at some grocery store.”

“Oh, so what do you think happened to him?”

Eruj spoke up while she was lying:

“He’s died!”

They all noted the wrong grammar in her sentence but apparently they were surprised that she was still conscious.

“You mean to say he’s dead?” the neighbour asked.

“Died and leave me,” Eruj answered like an abnormal person.

“I think she is seriously ill. We must take her to the hospital right away.”

They called the ambulance and planned on admitting Eruj to some hospital.

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

That same day’s night, Omama was walking downstairs in streets around her house’ building. She was very deeply depressed but stable. She was thinking about me and was upset about her thoughts. She wanted to get rid of the thoughts that were coming to her mind concerning me.

He couldn’t have betrayed me she wondered by herself, there’s something else that has happened.

She had faith in me. She knew that I hadn’t lied to her. But yet she was worried and had lost hope as I hadn’t contacted her for weeks.

The night was too dark and she was walking until she lost all the street lights. The only light was moon’s light. She felt a bit terrified thinking anything might happen during this hour. She decided to head back for home but she stopped and wondered:

What will I do with my life as I’ll return home? It’s way better to die here alone…without Saad.

She closed her eyes and waited for death.

“Omama,” she heard my voice.

She opened her eyes with astonishment. She looked around left and right and called out:

“Saad?”

She walked ahead searching for the voice. She had high doubts that the voice she heard was mine. So she followed until she came back closer to the street lights. There she saw that she had returned back to the building where she belonged. She turned around to see if she really heard me but then again it seemed hopeless.

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

At Farheen’s home, she was counting some money that she just received from her brother. She was angry on her recent break up and was wondering as to why I hadn’t contacted after that. She was dying to talk to me and was desperately waiting for my call.

I just don’t understand why. She asked herself. Why did he leave me like that? Was I not good enough?

All the while she was wondering about that, she heard the doorbell. She stood up to answer the gate. She walked towards it and opened it.

Present Day

The three students had almost completed their report. Their professor was having a coffee while he was seated right in front of them. One of the students however asked:

“So Sarim Waqar was murdered?”

“Yes,” Professor Zeeshan answered.

“And he was killed by Shehla?”

“No!” the other two students and the professor all replied together.

“It wasn’t Shehla who killed him,” one of the students explained.

She got confused.

“He was killed by Karwani,” the professor explained.

“Karwani? You mean Zubair Karwani?”

“Yes, see what happened was…”

“Not now sir,” the other student interrupted and stopped Professor Zeeshan from explaining. “I have almost completed the report and I will explain it to her myself once I’ll be clear with it.”

“That’s good, even better!”

“But wait” the previous student continued, “I just want to be clear on how did that happen.”

“How did what happen?” the professor asked back.

“How is it that Shehla was not the one who murdered Sarim and it was some guy Zubair Karwani who killed him? And who is Zubair Karwani anyway?”

“Your questions will be answered soon. Don’t worry about it…”

“He is not dead!” they all heard some woman’s voice.

They looked at the direction from where they heard it. It was Omama, she was standing with a nurse and some visitor who came to meet her. So Omama continued:

“He did not die. Saad was always alive and is still alive. I saw him myself. You people don’t know but he’s still alive.”

The three students were a bit surprised and confused on what they just heard. The professor spoke to them raising his voice:

“Just ignore her! She’s ill…”

The students were however secretly considering the possibility that Omama might be telling the truth and I Sarim Waqar might be still alive.

Maybe it was true. Maybe not.

Two Weeks Earlier

Farheen answered her house’s door after she heard the doorbell. Outside, it was me. She saw me and got delighted.

“So you’re finally here” she spoke with relief.

“Yup. Some people think that I’m dead but I’m not.”

“What?” she got confused.

I smiled and chuckled and then asked her:

“Will you let me come inside please?”

“Sure, of course,” she spoke leaving way for me to step inside.

After she shut the door, we walked towards the living room and sat on the couch together.

“So what happened?” she asked me.

“I was attacked…!”

“What? How?”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t feel like talking about that at the moment.”

“Oh…Anyways can I say something about our previous meeting?”

“Sure sure, say whatever you want to,” I spoke nicely.

“I’m seeing that you are very troubled. Something about your past has seriously troubled your mind.”

“Well, you are right but it’s not that I’m not over it.”

“That story you told me the other day.”

“Yes!”

“About being slaves of money. So that young boy in the story, who was he?”

“You caught him right?” I said avoiding eye contact.

“So, it was you…”

“Look Farheen, I know I’m a miserable person and I’ve been through a lot. But now I’m ready to move on and start a new life.”

“And I’m glad you chose me to be with.”

I smiled back. Seeing me enlightened she asked:

“Now would you please tell me about the attack?”

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

Omama was at her home watching T.V. feeling extremely depressed. Her favourite food spaghetti was kept right in front of her on the table but she wasn’t even touching it as she was so broken inside. She could hardly think of anything besides the guy she loved.

Her cell phone began to ring. She checked the caller’s id and saw that it was an unknown number.

“Hello?” she answered the call with some hope of good news.

“Hello Omama, how are you?” she heard my voice from the other line.

She got so delighted that her heartbeat turned faster than before.

“Saad, is that you?” she spoke hastily.

“Yes it’s me dear.”

“Oh my God, where have you been?”

“Can’t tell you right now about that.”

“Why not? What happened?”

“I was attacked but now I’m fine. Can we meet?”

She got even more excited that tears started to fall off from her eyes. Before she could answer, she heard some knocking on the gate. It was a familiar knock and she was a bit surprised to hear this one. She reluctantly went to answer it knowing who was on the gate.

As expected, it was her father.

“Dad, why are you here at this time?” she spoke being uncomfortable looking at her father.

“Just relax and come with me.”

“Where?” she spoke moving backwards feeling a bit terrified.

“I have to take you to the hospital,” he said moving closer towards her.

“But why?”

The two female compounders made their way into her house and held her through her arms.

“What are you doing?” Omama resisted. “Let go off me.”

“My kid you have been acting really strange lately. I have to take you to the hospital.”

“That was for few days only. I was upset because of Saad. But now I’m fine, he just called me.”

“The guy you’ve loved for such a long time was not Saad.”

“What?”

“His name is not Saad. And he doesn’t love you back. I knew him dear.”

“Don’t say that dad,” she replied sadly, “you know nothing about him.”

Her father looked at the compounders and instructed:

“Alright take her, I’ll come along later.”

She was taken away. The moment she got so happy after such a long time of misery, her father snatched away her happiness.

Her life was meant to be miserable as long as she expected happiness from me.

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

At Farheen’s home while she was dialing some cell number through her own cell phone, she accidentally hit the T.V. trolley with her knee. It was a hard hit and it caused all the DVDs kept inside to fall outside.

“Oh no,” she got irritated, “now who’s going to pick them up.”

She didn’t care and just kept on walking forwards dialing the cell number. She stopped and went back to have a look on the covers of the DVD. While she was looking at those covers, she was getting panicked and haunted like never before. She held her hair tightly as she looked at those DVDs and convinced herself:

“No it’s not true. No this didn’t happen.”

She was talking like this with tightly closed teeth. She kicked the DVDs and started to walk away from them in fast speed. She was losing a lot of sweat as her blood pressure was getting higher. She fell over her knees and spoke out:

“Ahsan! Save me!”

Slowly she fell completely and fainted.

It was a complete blackout.

Two days later as she opened her eyes, she found herself in some hospital that was actually a mental institute that she didn’t know about. But there she was.

“Where am I?” she asked in a low voice.

She repeated her question raising her voice:

“What is this place? Where am I?”

But she got no reply.

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

Present Day

Professor Zeeshan and only one of the students were seated at the cafeteria near the ward. Professor Zeeshan was reading the report that the student had just finished. After reading it thoroughly he claimed:

“Very good, the report is perfect!”

to be continued...