KHAARZAAR

۱: کانٹے / Thorns

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"Your father was a criminal. He was a freak who couldn't handle the pressure and resort to dirty business. Ya Allah! I've felt bad for the family members. Itne ache bhale logon ka naam mitti mae mila diya tumhare baap ne."
( Such a prestige family name and they had to be embarrassed because of your father. He ruined their reputation.)

These harsh, brutal and totally insensitive taunts and jabs had became the everyday occurrences for her. Whenever she got out, she had to face them. Either by her neighbours or by the passerbys who would recognize her and would give her stink eyes or murmur in slow and low voices.

Which were never slow and low by the way.

They would make sure to speak in such a tone that each and every brutal sentence would be imprinted in her mind and would echo in her ears in the silence. Those taunts became the everyday greeting for her. It would consume her. It would totally and recklessly broke her. Crushed her soul.

She would always wake up with a hope to deliver what's the truth. To strive in life once again. But those weird glances, those immature accusations and hard words would always dampen her mood.

So much that she would ran back to her house and locked herself in her room and cry. She cried and cried and cried. It would became too much and she doesn't know how to handle her emotions. For sure, she doesn't want anyone to know what she's dealing with. Especially her mother.

After what happened, it totally broke her mother. She was the rock that was holding them both together. She can't be weak. She can't show any sign of tiredness or sadness. She's doing it for her mother. For the greater benefit of her remaining family. She can't possibly have her mother worry for her when she's already been the muse of so much brutality and cruelty of the world.

She's the only semblance of laughter and joy in her mother's life now. She won't change it for few people who doesn't even know what's going on in their houses and kept talking about others. She's gonna be a strong and an iron lady. The same lady who doesn't care what people think or say about her father.

No matter how much it would hurt her. Because she knew the truth. And she knew what happened was wrong. And she's gonna prove it. She will definitely prove it and then her father would be free. He would came out of that forsaken prison with his head held high as always.

And then everything will be alright.

÷÷÷÷

Five years Later

A loud gasp left her lips before she woke up with a startle. Her breathing heavy and coming in short. Her hairs sticking to her face like a second skin. Her throat parched and dry like it had a personal trip to the Sahara. She was panting and trying to regulate her uneven breathing.

She finally wiped the sweat off her face and just stare into the distance. The nightmare was so real that she almost believed it to be a reality. She doesn't want to experience it again. But those damn nightmares never left her side. It's like they had became her constant companion in the dark of the night.

She finally took a long breath and drank water from the side table in her room. Her room was small. Spacious but small. It consisted of a wooden bed with a soft mattress that she's thankful for. Two side tables on either side of the bed. With her cupboard on the left side of the room and her dresser beside her, that pretty much summed up her overall room.

There was no pictures or a girly touch to her room. It felt like it belonged to an elder woman. But then again, her life wasn't normal like a normal teenage girl. She's not supposed to be fawning over the interior of her room when she had bigger problems to dealt with.