Flashback the cursed path
Hashim lay still.
His body bruised, his forehead split, blood trickling slowly down his temple. The fall through the cursed path had taken its toll — a winding cave swallowed by darkness, echoing with the screams of those who dared to cross it. For others, it had only been a passage of myth. For him, it became a turning point.
He awoke hours later, dazed and surrounded by silence. No voices. No light. Only shadows moving across the jagged walls. But inside his mind… a whisper began.
"Read me."
There was no book. Not then. Not now. But his cracked mind told a different story.
In the hallucinations that followed, he imagined pages glowing in the dark, words etched in blood, ancient wisdom guiding him toward power. "The book" told him he was chosen. That pain was strength. That cruelty was divine. The more he bled, the louder the voice became.
But it was all him. Just him.
His loneliness. His pain. His wounds.
The world had broken him, and in the void, he created a new reality.
Days passed.
Hashim returned to the palace, colder, sharper, eyes carrying the gleam of obsession. In every mirror, he saw a different man —
He plotted vengeance. Not against fate, but against love.
Princess Nayab became his target, not for what she did, but for what she had — joy, peace, people who truly cared. It drove him mad. If he couldn't have peace, no one could.
He followed her in silence. Watched her laugh. Then gritted his teeth.
Tonight… he told himself.
Tonight, he would make her cry.
But then — he saw her. Not Nayab. Not his enemy.
Fatima.
Standing by the gardens in the moonlight, her eyes closed in prayer, her shoulders trembling.
Something inside him cracked.
He stepped forward, fists clenched, but his footsteps were loud enough to make her turn.
"Hashim?" she whispered, her voice a strange mix of fear and hope.
He stood there frozen, sweat on his brow, the "book" screaming inside his head — Finish it.
But he didn't move.
Instead, he dropped to his knees.
"Fatima..." his voice cracked, "I need help. I don't know what's real anymore."
She stared in disbelief.
"There's no book, Fatima," he confessed, choking back sobs. "I thought there was. I kept seeing it… hearing it… it told me what to do. But it was just me. All along. Just my own broken mind. I hurt people. I became… I don't know what."
Fatima's breath caught. Tears welled up in her eyes.
She stepped forward, knelt beside him, and without hesitation… embraced him.
"You're not lost, Hashim," she whispered. "You're hurting. And that hurt turned into hate. But if you can still tell the truth… there's still hope for you."
He sobbed in her arms.
In that moment, the voices stilled.
The madness retreated.
Fatima's Thoughts:
She didn't want to love him.
Not after what he'd done.
But as she held him, she remembered the boy who used to kill people's and hurt them but now he was infront of her he was helpless
And if he stayed near her, he seemed to remember who he once was.
But when she left, even for a while — he slipped. His eyes went wild. His hands shook. He would scream at walls. Hear things that weren't there.
Only her presence tethered him to reality.
How much longer could she carry that weight?
Meanwhile…
Abdul Rehman moved through the heavy leather-bound book pressed tightly against his chest. His fingers traced the old calligraphy — a legacy left by his father. But now, it was more than legacy. It was a weapon.
He had mastered the strategies hidden within.
He had trained his body to move with precision, trained his mind to see through deceit. And now… he was coming for Hashim.
"I will stop him before he does more harm," he vowed.
But he didn't know yet… that Hashim was already falling apart.
At the Training Grounds
Qasim stood beside Umm-e-Farwah, their shadows cast long by the setting sun. She held a curved dagger clumsily in her grip, but Qasim simply smiled.
"Not like that," he said gently, moving behind her. "Here… steady your wrist."
He wrapped his hand over hers, guiding her slowly.
"You're too tense," he added. "You remind me of Abdul Rehman when we were kids. He always played around, while I listened carefully during his father's training."
Umm-e-Farwah smiled. "That doesn't sound like him."
"It's true," Qasim chuckled. "He used to sneak dates during training. Once, he even fell asleep in the middle of a sword lesson."
They both laughed.
But her laughter faded slowly as she looked into his eyes.
"Qasim… are you scared?"
He paused. Then nodded.
"Yes. Because I've seen how quickly the people we love… can be taken away. And because I know Hashim is still out there."
"And you'll fight him?" she asked quietly.
He turned to her fully, his hand still over hers.
"I don't want to fight," Qasim said quietly, his eyes fixed on the horizon. "But if I don't… if I choose to stay silent, he will hurt more innocent people. People who've done nothing wrong. That's why… I have to fight. Not for revenge. Not for myself. But for those who can't protect themselves. For the ones he wants to harm for no reason."
Umm-e-Farwah gave him a soft, bittersweet smile. There was sorrow in her eyes — the kind that speaks without words.
"I believe in you, brother," she said, her voice trembling just slightly.
But then something shifted in her gaze — a distant sadness rising to the surface. She looked away for a moment, as though the weight of memory pressed too heavily on her shoulders.
"You know…" she began, barely a whisper, "I've lost someone too. Someone I loved more than life itself. My younger brother… Abid."
She inhaled deeply, her eyes brimming with tears that refused to fall.
"And this feeling…" she continued, placing a hand over her chest. "It's like... you want to talk to them. Every single day. You want to say so much, but you can't. And that helplessness... it chokes you."
Her voice cracked, but she kept going.
"Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe… just because I can't speak to him anymore. Just because he's not there to answer. And after him… no one else ever feels enough. Nothing else reaches the heart the way he did. Like... there's a silence inside you that never ends."
Qasim turned to her slowly, eyes filled with empathy. He didn't speak — not yet. He just listened. Because sometimes, silence was the only way to respect someone's pain.
And in that moment, as the wind gently swept across the courtyard, two souls — one burdened by duty, the other by grief — sat together in unspoken understanding.
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Written by
Sabir Ali
Thanks For reading .