Life is unfair.
Menalla had heard that phrase whispered in countless tones, sometimes as a sigh from an exhausted mother, sometimes as a bitter complaint from the lips of a defeated man. But when she lay in her dimly lit room that night, staring at the ceiling that seemed to sag beneath invisible burdens, those three words no longer sounded like a proverb or an excuse. They felt like the truth carved into stone.
The world was a stage, and everyone was born onto it without choice. The rich came with crowns, the poor with chains. Each day that passed seemed to widen the gap, dreamers keep dreaming while tyrants kept building their thrones higher. Crime flowed unchecked, silence reigned louder than justice, and ideas—real ideas—died unborn in the minds of those too small to be heard.
Menalla clenched the edge of her pillow. Why must one live believing in a future that may never arrive? she asked herself. Why must we pretend to see a light at the end of a tunnel that only grows darker?
But even in that bleakness, she reminded herself of one thing.
I am not like everyone else.
No, she was different, Strong, Relentless. She had carved the word impossible out of her dictionary long ago. Giving up was not in her nature alsy.
Saying no to injustice was the only language she knew. Somewhere inside her, a fire burned with stubborn defiance, a fire that whispered, I know where I am going,I know who I am and one day the world will know too.
When that day comes she promised herself, the proud would be humbled. Those who thought themselves untouchable would taste dust, those who saw themselves as gods, trampling the weak beneath their feet, would be dragged into the light of truth. On that day, justice would rain down not like a drizzle, but like a storm. Every hidden lie would be unearthed. Every mask would be torn away.
A single tear slid down her soft cheek as she sat upright on her bed, staring at the framed family portrait on her desk. The faces smiled back at her—her mother with her gentle eyes, her father with his calm strength, and her little brother whose laughter could melt stones. The sight of them cut her deeper than a blade.
She pulled the blanket over her head and wept quietly, her sobs muffled into the fabric. For a long time, her room was filled only with the sound of her breathing ragged, broken desperate. Then, with trembling hands, she uncovered her face and looked again at the photograph. Her eyes were bloodshot, her once smooth fair skin now flushed from the salt of her tears.
Without thinking, she whispered aloud as if the night itself were listening, her words carrying the weight of an oath.
"They will pay. All of them. I swear it."
Her voice cracked. She clutched the frame tighter. "Soon, the truth will come out… I just need…" Her words collapsed into another wave of sobs. She pressed the photo against her chest, rocking back and forth as if trying to cradle the ghosts of her family.
The room grew darker as the candle by her bedside guttered out. Light faded into silence.
—
Fifteen Years Earlier
It was menalla had just turned eight, it was her birthday when the accident happened or at least, what the newspapers had called an "accident." To her, it was something else entirely.
It had been a rainy evening. She remembered the sound of the tires screeching, the blinding flash of headlights, the violent spin of the car. She remembered her mother's scream, sharp and desperate, like glass shattering in her ears. She remembered her brother's small hand slipping from hers as the world turned upside down.
And then darkness.
When she opened her eyes in the hospital, her mother and brother were gone forever. Her father, the only survivor, lay still and unresponsive. Machines kept him breathing, but his soul seemed trapped behind a locked door.
The doctors had called it a miracle that she survived with only minor injuries. But Menalla knew better. It wasn't luck. It wasn't fate. She had seen something that night, details too sharp for a child to invent.
A second car. A deliberate hit. A shadowy figure watching from the roadside before disappearing into the storm.
She had tried to tell the police, the doctors, the nurses, anyone who would listen. But she was just an eight-year-old girl, trembling in a hospital gown. "It was an assassination," she had said. "It wasn't an accident." They had patted her head, forced a smile, and dismissed her words as the trauma-fueled imagination of a child who had watched too many films.
No one took her words to heart.
No one except her father's old associate, Mr. Adriel. He had whispered to her one evening, leaning close so the nurses wouldn't hear.
"Your parents… they were digging into something dangerous, Menalla. They wanted to reveal the truth to the public. You're too young to understand now, but… remember this. Nothing that happened was by chance."
His words had branded themselves into her memory. But two weeks later, he vanished without a trace. Some said he fled the country. Others claimed he had debts. But Menalla knew. He had been silenced, she was just an helpless eight years old girl then who could nearly understand.
He could have been killed and buried without a trace.
And just like that, the story of her parents faded from the headlines. At first, every news channel had flashed their faces "Prominent Journalists Die in Tragic Car Accident." But within days, the coverage evaporated. No follow-ups. No investigations. It was as if the entire world had agreed to turn the page and forget.
But Menalla never forgot.
For fifteen years she carried the weight of that night. For fifteen years she replayed the scene in her mind, sharper than any memory should be. And for fifteen years she nurtured a vow in her heart—that she would uncover the truth no matter how long it took, no matter how high the walls of silence were built.
That was why she had chosen to become a reporter. It wasn't for fame. It wasn't for fortune. It was for justice.