Below the Surface
852 Words
The car pulled into a dimly lit alley—long forgotten by the city planners, but remembered well by men who dealt in shadows.
Motion sensor lights flickered on overhead as his car slid to a halt in front of an iron shutter. Three knocks. A pause. Then two more.
The steel gate opened.
Inside, the air was colder—thicker.
Concrete walls. No names. No signs. Only silence, and the weight of things not meant to be spoken.
He stepped out of the car.
A man in a grey suit was already waiting. Nervous. Sweating beneath the surface.
“Shipment’s in,” he said, voice taut. “Five crates. Marked and sealed. No tracking.”
He didn’t respond. Just walked past him.
Down a corridor.
Through a biometric lock.
The room beyond wasn’t large, but it held things that didn’t belong in daylight.
Weapons. Tech. Documents. Surveillance boards with faces that didn’t exist in official databases.
Three men stood to attention the moment he entered.
He moved straight to the crates. Metal. Sealed. Marked with a code only he used.
One nod.
A guard stepped forward, opened the first crate.
Inside: firearms wrapped in blackout foam. Clean. New. Untraceable.
He inspected them silently.
Not for flaws.
For certainty.
Everything had a cost. Everything was part of something larger. He didn’t deal in loyalty or trust. He dealt in leverage. Control. Silence.
“Who delivered it?” he asked, finally.
“Same source. South port. No eyes on the route. We changed trucks twice.”
Another nod. Still silent.
Then, without looking up:
“I want the names of every handler who touched this between dock and here.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to another screen—live feed from the port. Zoomed. Paused.
He tapped a shadow on the far end of the footage.
“That’s not one of ours.”
The guard leaned in, swallowed hard. “I’ll pull facial ID.”
“You’ll pull more than that,” he replied, voice cold, precise. “You’ll find out why someone thinks they can watch my shipment and walk away breathing.”
No threats. Just instructions.
And that made it worse.
He stood still for another moment—watching the feed. Watching the way men moved when they thought no one was looking.
Power didn’t shout.
It waited.
He turned toward the exit. Gun still in hand. Phone silent in his pocket. Nothing had changed. No one questioned him.
But somewhere between shadows and orders—
That face flashed again.
Just for a second.
Not weakness.
Not care.
Just a glitch he hadn’t accounted for yet.
But he would.
He always did.
And when he did—
It wouldn’t be a second longer than necessary.
__________________________
The evening wind tugged at the edge of her dupatta as she walked home.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Just… moving. As if the body knew the way, even if the mind had splintered off somewhere back on the road.
She didn’t tell anyone.
Didn’t cry.
Didn’t scream.
That wasn’t her way.
Her shoes left soft marks in the dust, and the dust stuck to the sweat along her ankles. The sun had already dipped, leaving everything tinged in bruised light—purple, grey, gold. Like a sky caught between breath and silence.
At the doorstep, she paused.
Her hand hovered over the door.
She wasn’t ready to go inside.
Not because anyone would ask.
No one ever did.
Not really.
They’d glance. Comment. Maybe call her name if she was late for dinner. But no one asked about the silence under her fingernails. The bruises no one saw.
She stepped in anyway.
Dinner was already half served. A dull fan spun overhead. Her younger brother shouted over a video game. Her mother was complaining about gas prices again.
She mumbled a salam and slipped past, head down.
No one noticed her scraped hands.
No one noticed the slight tremble in her step.
In her room, she locked the door—quietly.
Dropped the bag.
Sat on the bed.
And just… sat.
The window was open. The curtain fluttered like it was trying to say something.
She stared at it.
Then at her palms. The skin still raw. Red. As if the ground had tried to remind her she was real.
But she didn’t feel real.
She felt like a soundless scream.
A cracked glass no one had heard shatter.
Her thoughts spun in circles: Why did he stop? Why did he say that? Why did she listen?
No answers came. Just the memory of his voice.
"STAND."
She hated that it echoed. Hated that it made her knees feel like water. Hated that she obeyed.
Hayat had been invisible all her life.
But that man... had seen her. Not with softness. Not with interest. Just—seen.
Like she had no place to hide.
And for the first time, she felt stripped of her silence.
Her armor.
She leaned her head against the wall.
Not crying.
Not shaking.
Just… unraveling.
Quietly.
Because sometimes, the deepest breaks don’t make a sound.
________________________
- Writer
