The Sun also Shines In Pakistan.

Chapter 4, part 1: Dying light

"Happy 2 billion years Nadiaaaaaaaaaaa", Salim and Umeed screamed in the middle of the road just to embarrass her and of course she was. She hid her head in her hands and laughed.

It hadn't just been 2 billion years since Nadia's birth but also 2 billion years since their friendship. They had stuck together all their childhood and all of high school. Tomorrow, they would graduate and the anticipation was crawling on everyone's nerves.

"Let's go to the pond today, I'll buy some crumbs.", Nadia spoke jumping up and down.

Both Salim and Umeed groaned, "Nadia, why can't we just go to the market, get some coffee and do things that normal teenagers would do instead of feeding some fish.", Umeed spoke as Salim nodded vigorously.

"You're both pathetic, think about those fish who live in that pond with hardly any food. You really think we should just let them starve to death while we slurp on overpriced coffees that we don't even need?

You really think we should just let them wonder, as they swim in that pond, if there's any hope of surviving, while they wonder if there are any good humans left?

You really think we should let them drown in that water that has no food left to give them and lead them to turning on each other while they rip each other's skin out just because two greedy teenage boys wanted to drink some coffee?",

Nadia dramatically replied to her friends while raising her tone after each sentence and then ending her monologue with looking at the other two with a hand on her hip.

Salim banged his head on his hand, "Nadia, why must you be so dramatic, oh god! fine we'll go feed some really important fish some bread, happy?", he rolled his eyes and spoke.

"Can we get some coffee after that? Just so that we can also feed some underemployed workers so that they can celebrate your birthday well too!", Umeed suggested and Nadia laughed so loud that everyone in the street started to glare at her.

"Let's go to that pond and feed some goldfish before someone kicks up out of here.", Nadia whispered and dragged them both while smiling to everyone who was staring at her.

"Why are they called goldfish? I mean there are so many fish which look silver too but no one calls them silverfish.", Salim said teasing Nadia while walking back in a daze.

"Hey, maybe it's because they excrete gold or that their skin is made up of real gold.

That would explain why Nadia wants to feed them so much so that she can be rich one day.", Umeed said now bursting into laughter.

"Ooh, Nadia you turned out to be quite evil.", Salim said elbowing her.

"That's literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard and I don't know why you both are my friends.", she replied and walk ahead while suppressing her smile.

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Nadia now sat in her room after reaching her house to find herself in the middle of a mountain of presents. She was fiddling with her thumb impatiently and bit her lip as her cake arrived. She was nervous for tomorrow and today seemed much less important than would occur the next day. As the day passed she finally sat down with some tea to calm herself down.

It wasn't just the graduation that was causing her to be so tense but also her health. She hadn't been sleeping well at all and had gotten seriously sick during the past million years.

Her head started to ache in the middle of lunch and ached till dinner the other day. She had vomited after eating her favorite meals, skipped out on parties which were her forte. She had always been the girl to look at in every party of the school and now was nowhere to be seen.