Serenity: A Journey Within

Chapter 7

"Mubashira—!"

Zaid jerked upright with a strangled cry, his chest heaving as though he had been dragged back from drowning. His eyes flew around the dim bedroom, desperately searching first the door, then the bed, then the empty corner near the window.

She wasn't there.

The silence pressed against his ears, thick and suffocating. Only the slow hum of the air conditioner and his own uneven breathing reminded him that he was awake.

He squeezed his eyes shut and dragged a trembling hand down his face.

It was just a nightmare, he told himself. Nothing more.

But before the relief could fully settle, a cruel, familiar voice rose inside his head, soft, poisonous, and unrelenting.

Soon, it won't be just a nightmare anymore.

His breath hitched. He clamped his hand over his ears as if he could physically shut the thought out, as if blocking sound would somehow silence guilt, fear, and truth.

"Stop..." he whispered hoarsely to the empty room.

He sat there like that for a long moment, shoulders slumped, head bowed, fingers digging into his own hair. Slowly, his breathing began to steady. His heartbeat returned to something close to normal.

Yet the fear refused to leave.

It stayed small, sharp, and lodged deep in his chest.

What if the nightmare came true?

What if Mubashira really stood infront of him one day, just like she had in his dream... distant, unapproachable, and already gone from him?

What if she asked him for a divorce?

The word itself felt like a blade twisting in his stomach.

His eyes burned as the question followed, far more brutal than the first.

Could he even stop her?

And more importantly...

Did he have any right to?

Zaid let out a broken, humorless breath and dropped his elbows onto his knees, burying his face in his hands. Ever since they had gotten married, he had done nothing but hurt her. Over and over again. With his words. With his silence. With his indifference. With the way he chose everyone and everything else over her.

He had never once fulfilled his duty as a husband.

Not even as a friend.

The realization stung even more because, before all the bitterness, before the misunderstandings, and before his own unresolved past had poisoned everything... she had still been his childhood friend. The one person who had known him before he learned how to hide behind anger and pride.

And yet, he had been the one to shatter her.

Slowly, Zaid lifted his head, staring blankly at the wall in front of him.

"If you leave..." he murmured, his voice barely audible, fragile in a way he would never allow anyone to hear, "...I'll have no one to blame but myself."

The room remained silent.

But the fear stayed.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆:*.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Mubashira woke up feeling lighter than she had in days. There was a quiet calm inside her chest, fragile but real. The past few days had slowly begun to heal something within her, not only in her mind but in her heart as well. It wasn't just the medicines that were helping her anymore. It was the small, stubborn hope she had started to hold onto the hope of becoming a better, stronger version of herself. Her moods still shifted, sometimes rising suddenly and sometimes falling without warning, but this time they no longer scared her. For the first time in a long while, she felt capable of handling them.