FLAME OF THE FORSAKEN
572 Words
CHAPTER 09: FLAME OF THE FORSAKEN
"No fire burns alone. It takes everything. And everyone."
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1. THE SENTENCE
Buraq Zaidi turned himself in before sunrise—blood-stained, hollow-eyed, haunted.
He confessed.
To everything.
The r**e tapes. The trafficking rings. The names. The victims. His own sins.
And Rehaan’s murder.
He didn’t ask for mercy. He didn’t shed a tear. Just stared at the wall like it spoke to him.
> “I deserve worse,” he whispered.
The courtroom overflowed. Survivors watched with clenched fists. Reporters fed on the scandal.
When the judge read the verdict—
> “Buraq Zaidi: death by hanging.”
—he simply nodded.
But his punishment had started long before the sentence.
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2. BURAQ ZAIDI GOES MAD
They placed him in solitary.
That’s when he broke.
He began hearing screams that weren’t there. Started scratching his arms raw. Whispered to himself in the dark.
> “She was calling me… I saw her eyes again.”
Sometimes he laughed. Sometimes he howled.
Once, he smeared blood on the wall and wrote:
> “HELL IS MEMORY.”
The prison doctor diagnosed him with late-onset psychosis caused by guilt trauma and self-fragmentation.
But he refused treatment.
> “Let me burn with it.”
He died with a smile.
Not from peace.
From madness.
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3. AYESHA’S DESCENT
Ayesha Zaidi was supposed to be the survivor.
But survival is a cruel word.
The trauma of what Rehaan, Arbaz, and Waleed did to her… and the betrayal of seeing her own brother walk into that room…
She stopped speaking.
She stopped blinking.
One night, at the women’s shelter, she was found whispering into her own reflection:
> “Am I real? Or did they erase me?”
She started burning her fingertips on candles.
Tearing out her hair in clumps.
Screaming in languages no one taught her.
Diagnosis: Acute dissociative psychosis triggered by s****l trauma, betrayal, and prolonged suppression of identity.
She was institutionalized.
Now, she paints fire on every wall.
And repeats one sentence, over and over:
> “He came for me. So I stopped being me.”
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4. EMAAR BREAKS TOO
Emaar Ul Hasan—the only man who refused to hurt Riya—wasn’t spared.
He blamed himself for silence. For cowardice.
He stopped talking. Stopped eating.
Eventually, he was found naked in his bathroom, chanting verses in reverse and clawing at his tongue.
When they dragged him to the asylum, he screamed:
> “The filth is inside me—I never touched her but I let it happen!”
They bound him to the bed.
He never recovered.
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5. RIYA’S LONG NIGHT
Riya Hashim lives in rehab.
She walks the halls slowly, like they might crack under her feet.
She paints every day. Always fire.
Always faceless girls with black mouths.
She never says the names: Rehaan. Buraq. Arbaz. Waleed.
But sometimes she looks into the camera in therapy and whispers:
> “They all watched. Even the walls had eyes.”
Her mother prays for her death.
Her brother has disowned her.
Riya?
She keeps breathing.
That’s her revenge.
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Jamila Hashim kneels on her prayer rug each night.
Once, she prayed for Riya’s healing.
Now, she whispers:
> “Let her die, Ya Allah. Before she burns us all.”
But Riya doesn't die.
She lives.
Wounded. Scorched. Awake.
END CHAPTER 09: FLAME OF THE FORSAKEN
- Writer
