The room smelled like dust and boiled starch.
Nayira paused just inside the doorway, fingers curled around the strap of her small bag. "Good evening aunty," she said, offering a small, respectful bow. The aunt remained seated at the table, not bothering to look up.
"You can put that there," the woman said, nodding toward a narrow cot wedged beside a cupboard.
Nayira hesitated. "Is this… temporary?"
A chair scraped. Another voice cut in from the corner. "Everything is temporary."
Dinner plates were passed without reaching her. When she stepped forward, conversation thinned, then stopped.
She sat anyway.
After a long silence, Nayira asked softly, "My brother… his things, where did they go?"
The aunt lifted a spoon, eyes still fixed on her bowl. "The dead own nothing."
The words landed clean. Practiced.
Nayira swallowed. "I just thought… "
She received a piercing stare from across the table.
Her breath hitched.
The cold tension stretched taut.
Someone laughed, quick and uncomfortable.
Later, as the lamps dimmed, Nayira watched coats being folded, rooms being counted. She heard whispers she wasn't meant to hear.
"She won't be here long."
"She asks too much."
The cot creaked when she sat.
No one said goodnight.
Nayira lay back, staring at a ceiling that didn't belong to her, and understood something cold and sharp.
This room wasn't hers.
Neither was tomorrow.
______________________________
Nayira stood shoulder to shoulder with her aunt at the wash basin, two bowls resting in the shallow trough. Her aunt's hands moved fast and hard, splashing water as she scrubbed, while Nayira worked more quietly beside her, rinsing in steady motions. For a brief moment, Nayira slowed, eyes fixed on the ripples spreading across the water, drawing in courage the way one braces before cold water touches the skin.
"Aunty," she said quietly, "I keep thinking about Mehrak. The fact that… my mother and brother are gone."
Tears welling her eyes.
The hands stopped.
Slowly, the woman turned. Her face held no confusion, only readiness.
"Curiosity is how families lose sons," she said, clean and proud, as if reciting scripture.
The words struck harder than shouting.
Nayira opened her mouth, then closed it.
Around them, other children pretended not to listen. One girl lowered her eyes immediately. A boy stiffened, then bent back to his work. No one asked what curiosity meant. No one asked why sons were the price.
The rule settled into the room without needing explanation.
Nayira nodded once, too quickly. "I understand," she lied.
The woman turned back to the basin, satisfied.
Nayira stepped away, heart tight, ears ringing, not with grief, but with clarity.
Questions weren't mistakes here.
They were invitations.
And invitations were dangerous.
_____________________________
Nayira lay rigid on the narrow cot, blanket pulled to her chin, eyes fixed on the ceiling's faint cracks. Sleep would not come. Every sound felt sharpened in the dark.
Voices drifted from the next room, low and unhurried.
"…Mehrak," someone said.
Her breath stalled.
"He was… difficult," another voice said evenly. "That's why he died."
A pause. Then a chair creaked.
"He thought he was better than us," someone sighed, almost bored.
"He kept pushing… acting like the rules didn't apply to him," a second voice agreed.
Nayira's fingers curled into the thin fabric beneath her. Her chest burned, air coming too fast, too loud. She pressed her hand over her mouth, biting down on her palm as a sob tried to break free.
The voices moved on, already finished with him.
Tears slid silently into her hair as the truth settled, heavy and irreversible.
Mehrak hadn't been lost.
He had been fixed.