Get Up Again

-six-

I woke up to a gunshot. I gasped, and got up like a shot. 

Hiro was sitting up against the wall, pointed the gun at something or someone that I couldn't"t see. He looked bored and relaxed, gorgeous, which is a regular look on him. It made me wish that I was like that to. 

"Good morning Kayandi." He looked at me and gave me a tight smile. "How was it like sleeping on a cement floor?" I looked at him, confused. 

"What?" I asked, and I wasn't trying to be sarcastic when I said, "What do you mean by cement floor?"

"Look at the floor." He said. "Also, we need to move and find the room where we get a proper sleep." 

I looked at the floor I was sitting on. It was cold concert. That made me remember everything. The attack, seeing my father again, losing my mother, running away with a non-mahram barefoot. It all came to me like a wave. I thought I was going to drown. 

"Hiro?" I whispered. "Where is my walker?" 

"Behind you." I turned and saw the silver metal of my walker. It made me want to cry out of relief. I grabbed it and pulled it closer. 

There was dried blood on the wheels. Oh Allah, what happened? Why am I not crying? Why am I not screaming? Is something wrong with me? 

"Pull yourself up." I looked up at Hiro, who was standing up and pocketing his gun. "We don't have any time for lazying around. We need to move Neya." 

"Please don't tell me we have to run again." I groaned. My legs were aching. I didn't think that I would be able to bolt like I did yesterday. "I can't." 

"You don't have to." He held out a hand. I realized that I looked to see him standing above me, holding out a hand to pull me up. "We'll walk. We have two more miles until we reach the first room." 

I swatted his hand away. "Move." He rolled his eyes. I glared at him. "Move." 

"You can't get up. Stop pretending that you don't need help." My glare intensified. He smiled. "I know that in Islam, you can't touch me unless it's an emergency. Trust me, if you don't get up right now, we could get slaughter, so I'm trying to help you up so that we can go."

Fear shot through me like a arrow. "What-"

"More moving, less talking." He said. "I'm giving you five seconds to take my hand and get up before I pull you up." 

I tried to get up, but my legs felt like jelly. I kept trying though. I didn't give up. 

After I tried for the fifth time and failed, I felt two strong arms wrap around my stomach and pull me up. I gasped. "Hiro-"

"Let's go." It wasn't a request. It was an order, and I knew that if I didn't follow it, I would be mostly likely screwed. 

Ya Allah, why did he touch me? Why did you allow him to touch me??? 

I started walking. My legs weren't screaming at me in pain as I thought they would. My legs were getting stronger. But they were numb, and I couldn't feel them as I put them one after the other. 

"I'm sorry I touched you, but honestly, I don't want to get killed." He came up next to me. "And I know that you don't want to get killed either." 

"I am really running away from my father." I answered. "I don't know why else I'm running." 

"I know your father. He is my father's right hand man." He said this in a whisper. Chills run up and down my spine. "He hates your mother and your brother. But he loves you."

"What do you mean he loves me?" I asked. I couldn't look at him. Not when I was about to crack open and break. "He did this to me." I gestured at my cheek. His eyes rested on the three scars. 

"He said that you are just like him." That shook me. "He said that you are so rebellious, and that you never listened to him. You have your own ways of doing things. That even when he punched you, you never ever listened to him." He looked away from my cheek. "He said that I'm like that too." 

"Your father and my father are friends?" I asked. "How do they know each other?"

"Your father hates Islam and the idea of religion. My father's the same way." He shrugged. "My father is a Satanist. And your father, while he's not a Satanist, helps my father do whatever the hell he wants to do. He helps Dad with his arrogance and carelessness." 

"My father never liked the fact that I wanted to practice Islam. He hated the idea. He said that Allah hates us, which is why He gives us so much hardship." My heart clutched. "When in reality, Allah loves us, and when we do something wrong, He uses the hardship for us to turn back to Him. It's either a test or a punishment, but in the end, it's because Allah loves us."

"I guess I really should research Islam some more." I watched him run his hand through his hair from the corner of my eye. "I don't understand why Satanists hate it so much."

"Because Muslims love God and we don't associate any one with him, and we are always trying to stay away from things that are considered sins. And a lot of those sins are pleasurable." He looked at me, and this time, I looked back at him. "We care about the future and the present. We want a good future, so we keep our present good."

"Do you guys... sing?" Well that came out of the blue. "Or do you recite stuff?"

"We recite the Quran. And we have nasheed artists, they are like a cappella people, but their songs are about Allah and Islam." 

"That's cool." He said. He looked at the tunnel and then he smiled and waved. 

I looked and I couldn't believe my eyes. 

Taif and Laila were smiling and waving at us. Taif was wearing his favorite green leather jacket, and Laila was wearing a long dress that matched with it. They were tear stained, and there was a cut on Taif's cheek. 

But they were alive. I run up to them and hugged Taif, and I started to cry. 

"We lost Mom-"

"They took Taher." Taif whispered. I could hear the pain in his voice. 

"Allah will keep him safe, Insha Allah." I squeezed. "Allah will keep us all safe."

"Half of the school is dead." My eyes were blurry with tears. "There's so much blood." 

We couldn't say anything else. We were all crying. Everyone. We were crying because we all lost something important or someone that we cared about or both. 

When we stopped, I never felt so light-headed before.

And I hope that I never ever feel that way again.