Four hours of weaving through streets littered with fallen balconies, crushed satellite dishes, and cars melted into warped, blackened skeletons. Four hours of sidestepping smouldering debris while the distant hum of aircraft vibrated the air like a warning neither of them wanted to interpret.
Their backpacks hung from their shoulders like sacks of stones, tugging them downward with each step.
By the time they reached the shelter of a half-broken concrete pillar — the leftover stump of what once held up a shop sign — both collapsed at its base.
Sweat clung to their skin. Their legs trembled. They looked, in all honesty, like two dehydrated potatoes abandoned by life.
Habeel kicked a small rock away with dramatic flair, then whispered loudly:
"Open the treasures!"
Ababeel shot him a glare sharp enough to slice metal.
He pressed on, wiggling his eyebrows like a hungry cartoon villain:
"C'monnn. Bring out the manual."
She unzipped the backpack with the slowest, most unimpressed expression in the history of unimpressed expressions.
"You're the only human who can joke while the world is literally exploding," she muttered.
Habeel shrugged, ridiculously casual.
"Comedy is how I cope. You want me to start crying instead? Because I can. Very convincingly."
He dramatically wiped imaginary tears from his cheeks.
She rolled her eyes but handed him a food bar. They ate quickly — not for taste, just for fuel.
"Don't finish everything," she warned."We might not find food later."
"I'd rather die full than die hungry," he replied, mouth still chewing.
"We're NOT dying."
"Then let me eat."
He reached for a third bar. She slapped his hand so fast the air snapped.
"OW! Violent dwarf!"
"Greedy giant."
We rested for barely five minutes.
Even the silence felt exhausted.
The sinking sun stretched long, trembling shadows across the broken road as they walked.
Then—
Habeel slowed.
Stopped.
His breath caught so sharply that Ababeel felt it in her own bones.
Ahead of them, where houses once stood — where his childhood existed —There was no neighbourhood at all.
Just dust.Swept-flat foundations. Blackened metal ribs of collapsed roofs. An entire block was erased as someone wiped it clean with the back of a cruel hand.
Habeel whispered, barely a sound:
"…No… no, no—this wasn't—this wasn't supposed to…"
Then he ran.
He launched himself into the ruins, stumbling over cement chunks, scraping his knees, slipping on ash — but rising every time, driven by a frantic, breaking rhythm.
Ababeel sprinted after him.
"Habeel! Stop—careful!"
But he wasn't listening.
He collapsed to his knees and began clawing through rubble, tearing chunks of stone away with his bare hands. His palms ripped open, skin peeling, but he didn't seem to feel the pain.
He was searching. For anything.
A photo.A piece of cloth.A bracelet.A memory.A proof.A goodbye.
His tears fell silently, vanishing into dust as though even the earth refused to acknowledge his grief.
The only sound in the world was stone being shoved aside by desperate fingers.
Ababeel moved toward him to help — to do something — but something in the rubble caught her eye.
A hand.
A small, delicate hand sticking out from beneath a slab of concrete.
Dusty.Soft.Still.
And on its finger — a beautiful ring, faintly shining beneath the dirt.
Her breath turned to ice.
Her sister's ring.Her sister's hand.Her sister's laugh. Her sister's everything.
Her Mirror-Touch Synesthesia slammed into her like a tidal wave.
Her own hand felt cold. Her fingers tingled. Her stomach twisted violently as if it were folding into itself.
She staggered backwards.
Air refused to enter her lungs.
Then she turned —and ran.
She barely made it a few meters before she bent forward and vomited across the cracked pavement, her entire body shaking.
She wiped her mouth with trembling fingers and moved farther from the mess, collapsing against a large chunk of broken wall.
Her breathing came in shaky, ragged gasps.
Her palms were freezing.
Her thoughts spun in jagged fragments:
She's dead. Someone's sister is dead . She looks like mine… she seems like mine…
She curled her knees to her chest, trying to keep herself from unravelling.
Through her blurry vision, she glanced at Habeel — still digging, still crying, still breaking himself apart in the ashes of what once was his home.
She wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand.
Two broken kids, in a broken street, hoping the world wouldn't break them next.