𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐦 & 𝐇𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐦

Chapter 15 [Part I]

Four boys surrounded him in the alley bright due to evening sun, their faces twisted with cruel amusement. They kicked their feet into his stomach, one after another, as he curled into himself, desperately shielding his head with trembling arms.

“We told you to hand over the money,” one of them snarled, punctuating his words with a vicious kick to the side of his head. “But you didn’t — now, taste your punishment.”

His body ached, but he clung to consciousness, refusing to cry out. Another boy wrenched his arm behind his back, pinning him down as a heavy kick smashed into his face. A sharp burst of pain followed, warm blood spilling from his mouth as he coughed and spat onto the dirt-streaked ground.

One of them crouched, rifling through the torn pocket of his ragged shorts, pulling out a handful of crumpled notes.

“We got what we came for,” the boy scoffed. “Let’s leave this trash here.”

They laughed as they walked away, their footsteps fading, leaving him bloodied and broken in the dirt — but even then, his thoughts weren’t on the pain. They were on his sister, waiting for him.

He didn’t cry out. He didn’t beg.
The sharp sting of knuckles against his ribs, the burst of warmth when blood dripped from his split lip — none of it mattered.

All he could see in his mind was the image of his little sister sitting on a cardboard, waiting for him with empty stomach and hopeful eyes.
She must be waiting.
She must be so hungry.

The minor money he’d gathered after an entire day of running errands, cleaning tables, and carrying crates.
Gone.

He lay there a moment, the dirt sticking to the blood on his face, his body aching. But it was distant — like a story being told in another room.

"I have to go."

With a groan, he forced his arm under him, pushing himself up on trembling legs. His head spun, vision doubling for a second, but he clenched his teeth and staggered forward. His bare feet slapped against the cracked pavement, leaving smudges of blood as he half-ran, half-limped through the narrow alleyways.

The world around him was a blur of dusk shadows and flickering streetlights. The pain screamed in his limbs, but his heart drowned it out with a single, desperate thought:

"I need to reach them. I need to reach my sister."

And so he kept going.

————

Waleed’s gaze grew sombre as he told her that he knew where Khandan-e-Hitam actually is.

“I can tell you where the last attack is going to happen,” he said at last, his voice low and steady.

Erum glanced at him sharply. “Where?”

He exhaled, a bitter edge threading through his tone. “After they were declared Hilekar… traitors to the Family Hierarchy… MDA stripped them of their status. Banished them beyond the boundary of the Family Hierarchy's territory. They no longer belong to the Family Hierarchy, Erum. They exist outside it now — exiles in a lawless region where no bloodline claims power. What we call is 'The Normal World'.”

Silence.

Erum wanted to fresh her mind

“I want to visit the school,” Erum said suddenly, her voice steady.

Waleed looked up at her, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, then gave a small nod. “It’s close from here,” he said. “Come. I’ll take you.”

The old paths between his house and the Academy hadn’t changed. As they walked, Erum felt a strange knot tightening in her chest — a pull she hadn’t felt in years, something deeper than nostalgia. Something like a calling.