Zafar had married Nafisa because she was nothing like Aliya. Aliya was calm, soft-spoken, and never challenged him. Nafisa was the opposite. Sharp-tongued, fierce, quick to anger. She was a storm in human form. And maybe that was what he loved most about her: the resistance, the fire, the fight. Aliya was comfort. Nafisa was the hunt. And Zafar… had always been a man who needed the hunt.
He walked to the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. The silver doors closed, sealing him inside with the faint scent of perfume from a previous passenger.
The lift started to move, but halfway down, it gave a sudden hard jolt. He stumbled a step, grabbing the railing on the wall.
The elevator stopped completely between the second and third floors.
"Come on…" Zafar muttered, pressing the button again. Then again. Harder. The panel beeped, but nothing happened.
He glanced at his phone—no signal. He'd have to press the emergency call button and wait for a guard to reset the lift.
From the lower corner where the side wall met the floor, something was being pushed through. A thin silvery pipe, no thicker than a finger. It slid in slowly, as if whoever was on the other side was making sure he didn't notice.
A faint hiss caught Zafar's attention. At first, he thought it was the sound of the ventilation system kicking in, but it was different—more concentrated, coming from the bottom corner of the lift near the wall. He bent down. That's when he saw the pipe.
From its end, a faint shimmer of invisible gas poured silently into the lift. No smell. No color. But Zafar wasn't a fool—he knew what this was.
Carbon monoxide.
A sudden pulse of panic shot through him. He lashed out with his foot, slamming the sole of his shoe against the pipe. It rattled but didn't break. Again—harder. Same result. Whoever had placed it there had secured it from the other side.
He turned to the control panel and hammered the emergency alarm. A tinny buzz filled the cabin. No human voice answered. He shouted, "HEY! HEY! SOMEBODY OPEN THIS DAMN THING!"
Only his own voice came back, echoing off the metal walls.
The lift was a tomb.
Zafar gritted his teeth, grabbed the doors, and tried forcing them apart with raw strength. The metal edges bit into his palms. He leaned all his weight into it, tendons pulling like wires under his skin. Still nothing.
The hiss continued. Steady and Deadly. Minutes blurred. The first symptoms came subtly—lightheadedness, a dull throb in his temples. He blinked, trying to clear the fog creeping into his thoughts. His breaths came faster, instinctively trying to get more air. That was a mistake. Every inhale pulled more poison into his blood.
He banged the doors again. "HELP! DAMN IT, SOMEBODY!"
His fingers trembled when he reached for the panel again. But he staggered back, leaning against the wall for support. His knees threatened to give out. Pain spread across his chest—not stabbing, but suffocating, like drowning without water. His head spun, his vision dimmed at the edges. A burning ache bloomed in his muscles, each one screaming for oxygen they would never get.
His mind fought to stay awake. It dragged up faces—Aliya, Ibrahim, Samir, Nayla. And then Nafisa. The woman who had ruined his life—or maybe, the woman he had chosen to ruin it with.
He dropped to one knee.
The pipe still hissed. Zafar tried to crawl toward the doors, dragging himself by his elbows. He banged weakly against the metal, the sound barely a tap now.
His vision clouded—gray, then black. His body jerked once. He gasped for air that no longer brought life.
Finally, he collapsed on his side, cheek pressed to the cold lift floor. His eyes remained half-open, staring at the seam of the doors.
The hiss went on.
But Zafar Rahman's heart did not.
No one heard him.
No one came.
The lift stayed still—until morning.
Early morning, before the mall opened, one of the staff walked with his keys and cleaning bucket. His duty was to sweep and check the corners before customers came. That side of the mall was always lonely—very few people ever went there.
The lift stood silent with its shining silver door. From outside, nobody could see what was inside. It looked normal, just like every other morning.
The staff pressed the button but as the door opened, his hands froze, and the bucket slipped from his grip. His eyes widened in shock.
Inside the lift, Zafar's lifeless body was sitting against the corner. His head had fallen to one side, his shirt drenched with sweat, his face pale and stiff. The silence of that place suddenly felt louder than anything. The staff couldn't even scream at first—he just kept staring, unable to move.
It was unthinkable. How could this happen? Last night, the mall was closed as usual. Security guards had done their rounds. Nobody noticed that a man was trapped in this very lift. Nobody thought to check before locking the gates. The staff's heart pounded heavily as he ran to call the mall manager.
Soon, the police arrived. They checked his wallet, his ID card. That's when they came to know—he was Zafar Rahman.
News traveled quickly to Rahman Villa.
At first, Aliya couldn't believe it. Her husband? Dead? Just like that? She kept saying it must be some mistake, maybe someone else with the same name. But when she heard the sound of the ambulance pulling up outside her house, and saw men carrying a stretcher covered with a white sheet, her legs gave way. She collapsed, crying, her hands shaking uncontrollably.
Her children stood by the door, too young to understand the meaning of death. Specially Samir and Zainab They kept asking, "Where is Dad? Why is Mom crying?"
Aliya pulled them into her arms, her tears soaking their hair. How would she explain to them that the man they called dad was never coming back? Relatives tried to comfort her, but she couldn't stop. How could she? She had lost her husband, the father of her children, her companion of so many years. And now the whole weight of life rested on her shoulders.
The cries echoed through the villa, the sound of a woman whose world had been torn apart in one single night.
On the other side of this grief stood Ibrahim. The son. The main heir. The boy who had turned into a man too soon. He stood quietly in the corner, his fists tight. He was, receiving condolences, forced to bow his head in front of relatives and family friends who patted his back, holding his hand, whispering words of courage. But inside, his heart was burning. Because while others cried for Zafar's loss, Ibrahim carried the cruel secret—he was both the grieving son and the hidden killer.
"You must stay strong now, Ibrahim."
"You are the eldest. You are the man of this family."
"Take care of your mother. Take care of your siblings."
The funeral happened the same day. People from Kuala Lumpur came to attend, especially Zafar's business partner. The graveyard was silent that evening. Only the sound of shovels cutting into the cold earth could be heard. Ibrahim stood with the others, but soon he stepped forward, holding the shovel himself. His black coat was covered with dust, his strong hands trembling slightly. He had killed many men before, but this—this was different. This was his own father.
The ground was hard because of the winter. Each time Ibrahim pushed the shovel into the soil, it felt like his heart was breaking a little more. He remembered how his father always complained about winter. Zafar used to sit close to the fire, wrapping himself in a shawl, saying he hated the cold. And now… the same man was about to sleep forever inside this cold earth.
Ibrahim's throat burned, but he did not cry in front of people. He kept digging, his eyes red, his face blank. When the grave was ready, they slowly placed Zafar's body inside. Wrapped in a white cloth, he looked so small. This was the man who once stood tall, who gave him his name, his place in the world—and now he was lying still, covered in silence.
Ibrahim's hands shook when he took the first handful of soil. He threw it inside, and the sound of the dirt hitting the white cloth came. His lips trembled, "Dad.... Forgive me. But I won't ever forget what you did."
The men around him continued filling the grave, but Ibrahim didn't stop. He kept throwing soil, faster, harder, as if trying to cover his own guilt with the earth.
By the time the grave was filled, Ibrahim's hands were numb. He stared at the fresh mound of earth. He wanted to touch it, but his fingers froze in the air.
The mound wasn't just a grave; it was a monument to his betrayal. It was a wall built by his own hands, separating him forever from the man who raised him. The tears he couldn't shed were his punishment—a fitting drought for a soul now as empty as the hole in the ground
It was the end of the father-son duo.
An end of a relation. End of an era.