Finding you

55

When the house help from who's phone I had texted Mahib said Raza bhai took her phone and texted some location to Mahib, I didn't thought anything and ran barefoot all the way to the cottage owned by my brother.

What I wasn't prepared was for the sight in front of me.

Mahib, barely conscious, his head being crushed under my brother's hand, his eyes barely open, his face marred with blood.

My whole world stopped there.

If I have to protect Mahib on the grounds of sacrificing me, then I would do it again and again.

Never show me your face again

His words rings in my ear as I watch him closing his eyes, dried blood sticking to his lashes.

My tears fall on his face in a continuous rhythm but he doesn't moves. He closed his eyes with his words, leaving me with a hole in my chest.

"I am sorry, Mahib." I whisper and cough into my palm. "I am sorry."

My coughs kept increasing and I didn't realised it isn't from crying instead it's from the wisps of smoke surrounding us.

Fire.

I look outside the window to see my brother standing outside with a satisfied smile on his face and a lighter in his hand.

My heart starts hammering in my chest as I look back at Mahib's unconscious body lying on the floor.

With an unknown determination, I run towards the kitchen back door and push it open with all my might, I grab a cloth on my way and use it cover my mouth and run back towards Mahib.

I tap his face. "Mahib, try to wake up please. Mahib!"

He is unconscious how can he wake up? I tie the cloth around his mouth and lift his head and hook my arms around him from behind and start dragging him with all my power.

I struggle to breathe as the smoke kept increasing around us and the wallpaper in the living room starts peeling down, falling on the ground.

My arms and back scream in pain as I struggle to drag Mahib's unconscious body towards the kitchen.

I gasp as the wooden ceiling starts withering down and the old rotten woods starts falling on the furniture, making the fire spread in the living room.

I quick my push and drag Mahib behind just in time for the curtains to fall down, the fire spreading down on the floor.

When I reach the kitchen, the wooden beam from the ceiling starts to fall.

Huffing a scream, I drag Mahib out of the kitchen door and drag him away from the burning house.

"You found a way, didn't you?" I hear my brother behind me.

I glare at him. "I promised you, I made him hate me and you still tried to kill him?"

"It's no better to have a girl like you at our house."

"As long as my father is alive, you can't dictate my life. I don't care about what I said back then, I will never choose you. I will always choose Mahib."

With a roar he picks up fallen block of wood and heads towards us, I throw myself as a shield on Mahib just as he presses the burned wood on our joined hands.

I scream in pain and agony as he kept pressing down the wood until I felt the skin around my hand burning away.

"Raza!" With a shove my brother is thrown away by my father and he slaps him. "How dare you kill Manar!"

My mother helps me stand up and looks worriedly at Mahib. "Is he okay?"

"I don't know." I sob. "Bhai tried to kill him, mama."

Baba grabs bhai's collar and slaps him again, "You are no one to decide my daughter's fate. As long as her parents her alive, you are no one to decide."

Mama pushes my shoulder. "Manar, go, take him to the hospital, every minute is precious. Go, my child we will handle everything."

I give her a quick hug and with the help of the driver who came along with my father, I tried to help Mahib get up.

The ambulance came along by the gate along with the firefighters and Mahib was strapped to a bed, a bunch of paramedics surrounding him.

As they lift the stretcher inside the ambulance, his hand slipped away from my hold and my heart sank painfully.

Why does it feel like a goodbye?

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A/N:-

Manar 💔

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