Lost and Found

Chapter 16

It was past midnight and he was standing on a deserted street, the street lights were illuminating the surrounding and he could listen to a bunch of boys and a helpless cry, they all were standing in a far corner of that street, he was trying to figure out what was going on but at the distance he was standing he was unable to, but then something caught his eye; a boy who must be a teenager bent down but what made him frown was that he was dressed in a blue polo T-shirt over white pants and those branded sneakers he bought just before coming to Pakistan with his parents that year. Same clothes he was wearing that horrible night. Taking few step forwards suddenly he found himself standing in middle of the chaos, how did he get here so quickly? Just few seconds before he was standing so far away! He turned to look at the crowd around him and his frown got deepen when he saw a teenage Rayian smirking and looking at someone lying on the ground and that's when he heard a painful groan and his cousin, Murtaza's voice;

"Wali stop! you'll kill him!" was the word he said and shiver ran down his body.

He moved from behind of the young boy who was bending in front of him but with his back at him and went to stand to the opposite side he was previously standing, he abruptly stopped as he saw a boy much younger, lying down on the road, his lips busted open, a good amount of blood coming out of his mouth and his face bruised, Wali ran forward to cover the helpless child from the ruthless behavior of the another when a fist came and met his jaw and his own but much younger voice rang in his ears, "He fucking deserved it! I'll kill this waste of space! How the hell he broke the mirror of my car! Yay ghareeb ki aulad!"

Gasping for air I woke up yet again to another nightmare, my body was covered in sweat and my surrounding was still dark and the only light which was coming was from the sides of the curtains which were preventing the afternoon sunlight from filling up the room. It was past two in the afternoon and it had been just four hours that I went to bed, after Talha left with Ramzan and his family I came back to the guest house and indulge myself in different chores from confirming the hospital arrangements to calling Col. Naeem, who was Talha and Irtiza's uncle and was ready to handle Chaudhary and his pets, according to him this landlord has links to quite higher personalities and is directly in link with couple of MPAs, his own brother-in-law is an MNA so it's better that Naeem uncle, if needed to come in front, would be presenting himself as a normal civilian but if he would try to create a chaos and problem then he might involve his rank, right now we just need some evidence against him though what happened to Ramzan can be taken into measures but as Chaudhary himself wasn't in town last night we cannot prove anything but today as I had planned with Naeem uncle I'll be going to meet him myself.

I was still on the prayer mat thinking about past couple of days, last night, nightmare, a helpless child and myself when sudden banging of the main gate got me on my feet.

What in the name of God...

"Coming!" I yelled twice while rushing outside, I have done fasting without sehri a lot of time but today the heat and my headache were just acting like cherry on the top of ice-cream, bad example! Shaking my head on my shameful sense of giving examples I opened the gate only to find a lot of villagers gathered in front of my place but then a woman lunge forward grabbing my shirt into her fist she was sobbing pretty badly while speaking in her local language, I was unable to understand what was going on, where a part of me was completely terrified the other part of me was calm as if expecting something worst to happen. I was continuously trying to calm the woman while looking at the crowd for help when one of the caretakers I knew came and freed me from her grasp and explain me the whole ordeal. Chaudhary had played one of his dirty games, he proved my fear right and he was attacking the honor and dignity of his own home.

Taking the suffering mother of a thirteen year old missing girl along with the caretaker and the girl's father inside the house I somehow managed to send the rest of the people back to their places, "Behain, paraishan mut ho. Main apki beti ko lanay ka wada kerta hun." (Sister, don't worry. I promise you I'll bring your daughter back.) I said for the fiftieth time but I know for a mother whose child is missing my words are meaningless. "Bhai aap inko ghur laiker jain main abhi Chaudhary kai pass hi jaraha tha!-