Captain Khalid Rahmani, one of R&AW's finest, is dead to the world. Another soldier who sacrificed himself for his people. Little did they know that nothing is how it appears to be.
He's still alive, albeit with an alternative name and a new persona...
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{𝑴𝒚 𝑺𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒚 𝒑𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕} ~
The golden rays of sunshine cast rainbow colors over the window glass of the small shops that lined up on both sides of the narrow road as Nafeesa walked with her usual, slow steps. It was weekend, so it would be usually quiet in the morning, most of the stores were closed except for some grocery shops by the end of the street. She nodded with a small smile as one of the shop owners greeted her.
Adjusting the flowers she was holding in her hand, she continued to walk down the long road. They were freshly cut from her garden.
"I'm sure he'll like them," she spoke to herself, hurrying a bit as if she didn't want to be late, it was her weekly date with him, and she didn't want to make him wait.
The view around her changed from the small, colorful buildings into a wide, almost unoccupied road, only the chirping of birds and the hum of the trees were the only audible sounds as the light wind played with their thin branches. Pulling her scarf closer to her neck, the butterflies in her stomach pushed her to speed up her pace, she wasn't so far.
Nafeesa had memorized that road by heart, every turn and sign, every tree and pebble, it was the path that would take her to see her love. Oh, how she missed him.
Reaching her destination, her heart fluttered as if she was meeting him for the first time, yet, she was never able to stop that apprehensive feeling from creeping up her chest.
Time seemed to stop as she set a foot inside the place, all the nature sounds were replaced by a sudden, deafening silence as she walked with heavy feet toward where was waiting for her.
"My love," she greeted as she kneeled beside him, not bothering that her skirt would get smeared with dust, she would take care of that later, at that moment seeing him was more exigent than anything.
"Look what I've brought to you," she said rather loudly without giving much attention to the other people around her, scattered here and there as they came to see their loved ones as well.
"Do you like them? I grew them for you," she cooed, placing the flowers next to his head as a warm smile brightened her features and deepened the wrinkles around her eyes.
"I missed you, my boy," Nafeesa whispered, blinking back a tear as she ran her palm over the dark, rectangular stone that stood tall before her, tracing the embossed letters on it with the tips of her fingers.
CPT. Khalid Rahmani
2nd. March 1990
23rd. June 2019
Sitting on her heels, Nafeesa went about telling the grave of her son about her day, talking about how she paid extra care to the flowers, and how she was planning a baby shower for the neighbor's daughter, Henna, as she was about to give birth to a baby boy while brushing the dust off the tombstone and trying to pluck as many tweaks and grass as possible, they made the surrounding looks unclean.
It was another Friday in her life after Khalid's death, another day without him beside her, another day without hearing his voice and seeing his laughter, another lonely day.
That day, however, was different. Nafeesa got accustomed to that bizarre sensation she would have whenever she approached her son's grave, that scarily comforting feeling of him being with her, but that time her instincts that kept nagging at her, telling her that something was off, and she learned to follow them.
She was certainly being watched.
She could feel eyes on her, could sense a presence around her, it was strong and eerie and rather calming. She hadn't had that feeling before, even though she believed that he, in a sense, had never left her. Looking around her, her eyes lingered on the metal fence behind a line of trees that stood as a barrier against the opposite road.
"I'm losing my mind," she said to herself before shaking her head and turning back to face the darkened tombstone.
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It became a habit for Khalid to watch his mother, every week, same day, same time. She would come to the graveyard, sit beside his grave, arrange flowers over it, clean it, and then start talking to it, smiling every now and then while wiping a tear off her cheek, then finishing her visit with a kiss over his name.
It had been three years since he started following her, and by that time he realized that she had never missed a Friday, it was a ritual for her, and so it became for him. He knew the time she would arrive, so he made sure to wait for her behind the only hiding spot he could find, a metal fence behind a line of trees at the far end of the graveyard.
His chest heaved, he hated seeing her living her daily life in grief, hated seeing her once bright eyes dull with sadness, hated leaving her to confront life alone, finding her relief in talking to a pile of soil with his name on it.
That day he felt that, for the first time, she had sensed his presence. Noticing her looking around as if she was searching for something, he managed to hide behind the shades of the large tree trunks so she wouldn't be able to see him. Being a wife and a mother of intelligence agents, she definitely knew how to follow her instincts, he bitterly smiled at that.
But at that moment, his heart contracted with yearning, he wanted to run to her, hold her in his arms and letting her know that he was still alive, but he couldn't do any of that, not only because it would turn her life upside down after she could, somehow, managed to balance it again after his 'martyrdom,' but also because doing that would put her life in great jeopardy. He would never do that to her.
Above all that, he didn't want her to lose that look of pride her eyes carried every time someone would mention his name in front of her after so many years of disappointment. For the world, he was a hero who gave his life away for his country, he achieved that for her so she could finally hold her head high among people without being called out because of his father's treason. He didn't want to take that from her.
After all, he didn't exist any longer. He was just a name, a picture on a wall, and a memory in the hearts of his loved ones.
He wasn't Khalid Rahmani anymore.
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[A/N] The First chapter is finally here! I'm so excited and so anxious to know your opinion.
Don't forget to vote and comment, let me know what you think.
