The clock on the dashboard blinked 8:30 PM as Doc Esmir navigated his car through the thick, suffocating shroud of the night. The city streets were caught in that restless, liminal space where the day fades into exhaustion, and people rush through the dark just to escape the ordinary weight of survival.
Suddenly, his phone lit up on the passenger seat, vibrating against the leather.
CERIN (CALLING)
Esmir tapped the steering wheel controls and answered. "Doc Esmir. Go ahead."
"Doc Esmir, are you coming?" Cerin's voice crackled through the speakers, tight with anticipation.
"Yeah, I'm on my way," Esmir replied, his eyes fixed on the taillights ahead. "Though I might arrive a bit late. The traffic is merciless tonight."
"Wait a sec, Esmir, hold on-"
"Okay, Doc, I'm still here. Speak up."
"Okay..."
Before Cerin could elaborate, a sudden flash of light caught Esmir's peripheral vision. Instinct took over; he eased off the gas pedal, pulled his sedan smoothly toward the curb, and killed the engine.
Across the avenue loomed a towering commercial complex. On its massive exterior glass wall, a giant digital monitor was broadcasting the grand, exclusive ceremony for the city's urban redevelopment project, a multi-billion-peso spectacle heralded as a glorious new dawn after decades of pandemic and economic ruin.
Yet, directly in front of the electronics shop window displaying the broadcast, a man stood frozen.
His hands were clenched into tight, trembling fists, his knuckles stark white against the glare of the screens. He stared at the gleaming images of politicians cutting ribbons with a silent, murderous intensity, as if he were trying to shatter the glass and choke the prosperity right off the display.
Esmir stepped out of his car, his footsteps measured against the pavement. "Hey," he called out, his voice low and non-threatening. "Don't do this, man. You're only ruining your life."
The man whipped around. His eyes burned with a heavy, unyielding fury that defied words-a raw grief that had nowhere else to go.
"Do you hear me? You're hurting yourself," Esmir said softly, taking a cautious step closer. "I feel like you know them. You know what's behind all this. Can you speak to me?"
The man remained statue-still for a long, agonizing moment. Then, his jaw trembling, he spat out a single, devastating sentence:
"They stepped on me and my family."
Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and vanished into the shadows of the alleyway, leaving Esmir standing alone in the cold night air.
Behind him, reality rushed back with a chorus of angry car horns.
"Hey! Move the car! Don't block the driveway!"
"Right. I'm sorry," Esmir muttered to the irate motorists. He hurried back into his car, merged back into the crawl of traffic, and redialed Cerin.
"Hello, Cerin, apologies for the abrupt drop," Esmir said, gripping the wheel. "An unexpected situation came up. Are you still at the venue?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Cerin answered. "By the way, what happened?"
"Long story, Cerin. I'll tell you all about it once I get there."
"Understood. See you then, Doc."
(Call ended.)
As he drove deeper into the city's neon-lit veins, Esmir could not shake the stranger's face from his mind. The man's words echoed louder than the city's hollow promises.
They stepped on me and my family.
Weren't those words an indictment of a rotting system? A system built on thousands of buried lies, masked beneath layers of false progress, tinsel, and rust?
YOU ARE READING
156 DAY ? - HORIZON
General Fiction156 DAYS? ( Part 1 ) Have you everbeen asking a questions? Or doubt on your whole life ? PREFACE: Nez suffered on his life when his family lie to him, sometimes he tries to kill his self to end whatever he takes... nez can be better? or he still...
