BREATHE ✓ ⇢ [EDITING]

Him

Hans Haider was finally back on track with his life.

He had no particular reason to live, no career, and absolutely no passion for anything. His father beamed in approval as he beat up two men that had conspired against Nicah Haider. Hans had only done it to release the built up frustration in his heart that he pretended didn't exist.

Hans spent his days not caring about much of anything, barely eating and forgetting time. Nothing encompassed his heart anymore.

Hans was content with himself for the first time in two decades.

He hadn't heard from the Hayek family and couldn't care less. He had been told by his father that the family had moved to Ankara and that the second eldest had gotten married over the winter solstice, but had no reason to know this. The fire was gone from his heart, and he had no further reason to think about the past.

He had barely gone to his old hideouts, instead visiting the darkest of alleys to spend his time at night, spending his days sleeping. His clothes were always rumpled and creased, for he no longer cared for a thing in the world. He had no reason to live, and he was fine with that.

But one day, Hans heard a scream from below the floorboards of the main first floor. He paused for only a second before he continued to walk out the door and onto the street where he had broken his arm, gotten his heart crushed, and watched his mother take her last breaths.

Hans couldn't care less, after all.

As he entered the house again, he heard the scream once again. His older brother shrugged as he tended to his son, and Hans paused before descending the stairs to the rooms that had bolted metal doors. Hans had unsuccessfully attempted to open those doors, but to no use; they were forbidden after all.

He heard the scream again, and it replayed in his mind several times before he pressed his ear against the smooth and cold metal. He could hear the attempts of a woman to escape her trap.

Hans shrugged it off as a woman his father may have brought for the first time. But why would she be screaming?

Hans climbed up the stairs to his bedroom, closing the door as he fell onto his bed.

Only this time, he wasn't sure that he wanted to wake up.

~

Hans felt the sensation of cold hands shaking him awake in his dreams. They were soft but smooth and cold, similar to a metal object. He reluctantly opened his eyes and only saw darkness, a faint wisp fading before him.

"Becca?" He whispered, and he could feel his heart rapidly beating as his hand reached for the wisp. Hans could feel his hand nearing the wisp until it disappeared and returned just a few inches short of the door.

Hans stood up and followed the wisp until he collided against the door and the wisp was gone from his sight.

His body was enchanted by it, following its every move until he was descending the stairs to the forbidden room. Hans could feel his breathing getting heavier as he leaned against the wall. The entire house was silent, and only his father's booming snores was heard from the second floor.

Hans leaned his head against the thick metal wall, and as he listened, his beating heart was the only measure of his time.

Then, Hans heard it. The sound of a woman struggling to breathe, as if she was continuously being choked. Hans wondered what a woman was doing in the forbidden room, and then he spotted the lock of the metal wall. Only his father had the keys to the entire house, and there was only place where he kept all of his belongings: the safe under his bed.

Hans ran up to Nicah Haider's bedroom and gently pushed open the door. He hadn't had this much curiosity since he was a child, and each time he had experimented with the forbidden room, his father had publicly reprimanded him in the street in front of the Haider Mansion.

Hans saw his father's sleeping form, his chest slowly rising and falling beneath the light blanket that wrapped around his body. Hans tiptoed to the safe until he heard a creak from behind him.

Hans quickly spun around until he came face to face with his nephew, who stood clutching his mother's locket to his chest. "Are you stealing, Uncle?" The little boy asked, his voice not above a whisper.

Hans lifted a finger to his lips and shook his head as he waited for his nephew to go back to his room, but his nephew remained there until Hans had slid onto the ground and had pressed the on- button for the safe. The safe prompted Hans for the password, and Hans realized that his father could never remember numbers, he only remembered words.

And so, Hans tried all of the common words he had heard his father speak since Hans' birth twenty-one years ago, only to let his heart sink with each try. The safe's small screen stated that it would go in lockdown mode in thirty seconds, and that he only had one try before it exploded.

Praying to whatever God he thought was out there, Hans closed his eyes and typed in his mother's name: Zainab. The safe opened to reveal the keys to the entire house and Hans grabbed them before quickly closing the safe. He heard his father stir, and Hans softly ran out of the room, shutting the door gently behind himself.

Hans dashed to the forbidden room, stopping before the wall to glance at the keys, and he only found one without the Haider initials. Instead, it was an ornately shaped skeleton key with the name "Hayek" drawn in Arabic calligraphy.

Hans' eyes squinted at the keys as he read it again under the light of his phone. The name "Hayek" blared out at him once again, and Hans felt his blood boiling in disbelief as he stared back at the key as if willing it to change the Hayek calligraphy into the Haider name, but it didn't.

Hans' hands shook as he turned the key into the lock, his eyes blurry as he watched his hands lead to uncovering the mystery that had led his heart this far into the night without a need to smoke.

Just as Hans pushed against the wall, he wished that he hadn't turned the lock. He wished that he wasn't so damn curious.

For the woman who hung before him was a woman he hadn't seen in a long time, and his heart had forever burned to see her once again.

It was the woman he had lost.