Chapter 1: The Man Who Returned
The prison gate opened with a long, rusty groan—slow, heavy, as if it didn't want to let him go.
Ibrahim stepped out.
The sun stabbed his eyes like a blade.
He raised a hand to block the light, but the glare was too much.
Seven years inside had erased the color of the world.
Now everything was too bright… too alive… too painful.
He looked thin.
Older.
A man who had carried his guilt like a stone on his chest every single night.
He didn't have a bag.
Didn't have money.
Didn't have a home.
But he had a name on his tongue.
"Malek…"
The word almost broke him.
His son was three years old when Ibrahim was taken away.
Seven years later, the boy would be ten.
Ten years… without a father.
Ibrahim walked through the loud, dusty streets, ignoring the stares.
People knew him.
People always know a man who comes back from prison.
But he didn't care.
His heart beat faster with every step toward the rooftop house where his mother lived.
The same rooftop he had grown up in.
The same rooftop he had left as a free man… and now returned to as something else.
When he reached the building, he hesitated.
He stared up at the endless stairs.
His legs trembled.
His chest tightened.
What if Malek didn't remember him?
What if he hated him?
What if… he was better off without a father like me?
He inhaled shakily and began climbing.
Halfway up, he heard footsteps—small, light, careful steps.
A boy was coming down the stairs slowly, one hand brushing the wall, the other stretched out into the air.
Ibrahim froze.
The boy's head turned slightly, as if listening to the movement of dust itself.
His eyes were covered with a faded strip of white cloth.
Ibrahim's breath shattered.
Malek.
His son.
The boy stopped in front of him.
The two stood in silence—one staring in disbelief, the other facing darkness he could not see.
Ibrahim opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Malek tilted his head, sensing the breathing in front of him.
"Are you… crying?" the boy asked softly.
Ibrahim wiped his face quickly, but his hands were shaking.
"I'm…" His voice cracked. "I'm your father."
The strip of cloth hid the boy's eyes, but Ibrahim felt the shock in the way Malek's fingers tightened on the wall.
"My father?" the boy whispered.
"As in… really my father?"
Ibrahim nodded, forgetting the boy couldn't see him.
"Yes… it's me. It's really me."
Malek took one slow step forward.
Then another.
He reached out a trembling hand.
Ibrahim held his breath.
The small fingers touched his face—his cheek, his jawline, the shape of a father he had never seen, never remembered.
Malek gasped quietly.
"You're… real," he said.
"You're warm."
Ibrahim couldn't hold it anymore.
A sob tore from his chest as he grabbed his son and pulled him close.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the boy's hair.
"I'm so, so sorry."
Malek didn't hug back.
He just stood in his father's arms, confused, overwhelmed… and blind.
But after a moment, the boy said:
"Baba… why are you shaking?"
Ibrahim swallowed the storm inside him.
"Because I'm scared," he whispered.
"And because… I didn't know you were blind."
Malek's fingers tightened on his father's shirt.
"You didn't know…"
His voice faded with a strange sadness.
Before Ibrahim could speak again…
A voice shouted from above:
"Malek! Where are you?! Come up! Don't talk to strangers!"
Ibrahim's blood froze.
Malek stepped back slowly.
"You… you're the stranger she meant," he said quietly.
The words hit Ibrahim harder than prison ever did.
He reached out, desperate.
"Malek—"
But the boy stepped away.
"I… I don't know you," Malek whispered.
Then he turned toward the stairs and began climbing.
Leaving Ibrahim standing alone in the half-light of the stairwell…
with his son's touch still burning on his cheek.