***
{Inside The Projection}
Malik stood on the edge of a crumbling rooftop, arms folded, expression cold.
He was watching them carry Rehan’s coffin through the village.
The procession moved like a slow, aching wound.
Every breath was thick with something unspoken—grief, guilt, regret, maybe all three.
The air was biting, but the torches in the hands of the men at the front flickered defiantly against it, their flames casting long shadows on the dusty road.
Music followed them.
A Dhol. A Tasha. A Shenai.
Worn-out instruments, played by worn-out hands, squeezing out a song that had been played too many times that night… too many times.
It was a tune that had rung through these streets for hundreds of others.
For brothers.
For sons and fathers.
For men who had gone into the ground way before their time.
For women who cried for them, beat themselves for them… died for them.
The melody didn’t change, no matter whose name they whispered through their sobs, no matter whose body lay stiff and cold in the wooden box.
…Layla walked beside the coffin.
She was draped in black, her face hidden beneath a veil, but her grief didn’t need to be seen to be felt.
It bled into the air, pressed against the walls, the streets, the people.
And her sobs—God, her sobs—
They didn’t just cut through the silence. They shattered it.
Broken, unraveling from deep within her chest, as if each breath she took was a battle.
As if she was choking on the sheer fucking unfairness of it all.
The villagers moved with her, around her, giving her space while staying close, their heads bowed, their own eyes wet with loss. Some whispered prayers. Others stayed silent, because what the Hell could they even say?
Nothing would bring him back.
Nothing would take away the fact that their leader, Ali Baba, was gone, just another name, another body, another man swallowed by this cruel, indifferent world.
Malik sighed, his jaw tight.
He followed from a distance.
Unseen. Unheard.
A shadow moving along the edges of the mourners, slipping between walls, staying to the dark corners where the torchlight couldn’t quite reach.
He didn’t need to be close. He didn’t need to hear the whispers, the choked-back sobs, the prayers muttered through clenched teeth.
Malik already knew how this went… He already knew it very well.
So he just watched.
Watched as the procession trudged out the village. Past the flickering lights of homes that had shut their doors, because grief wasn’t meant to be disturbed.
Not unless it belonged to you.
Now they were out into the cold, open desert, where the sky stretched too wide, too empty, and the land held nothing but silence.
Yet it wasn’t just that.
It never was.
A tree.
A lone thing stood against the wasteland, its roots dug deep into cracked earth, its branches gnarled and twisted by wind and time.
The only bit of life in a place where nothing else dared to grow.
Beneath it, alongside many others, a grave had already been dug.
Waiting.
A hole in the ground.
That… that was all it took.
All a man’s life, his stories, his laughter, his rage—his everything—boiled down to this.
A pit in the sand, six feet deep, waiting to swallow him whole.
The men moved slow, careful.
After the casket was placed nearby, Rehan’s cloth-wrapped body was carried out.
They lowered him down gently, like anything more than a whisper might break something sacred.
Silence came just as their hands left him. A heavy, crushing thing. The kind that pressed into the ribs, curled around the throat, made the lungs burn with the effort of keeping quiet.
Even the wind dared not interrupt.
And then—
Thff!
The first cart of sand was dumped.
In response… Layla collapsed.
Her knees hit the ground hard, but she didn’t feel it. Didn’t care for it—for herself.
Pain was nothing.
Nothing compared to this.
“No…”
A breath. A tremble. A lie.
Her hands hit the sand, clawing, scooping, tearing.
“No, no, no, no, NO—STOP!”
She wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t breathing. Fingers sinking deep like she could just—just—take it back. They bled, nails cracked, but she kept pulling. Like if she just tried harder, she’d find him—warm and laughing and not down there, not gone.
“Get him out! GET HIM OUT! I can—I can fix this, I swear, just GET HIM OUT!”
Hands grabbed her shoulders, but she wrenched away, snarling.
“DON’T TOUCH ME! DON’T—”
She threw herself forward, arms shoving deeper into the sand, fingers shaking, slipping, failing.
“I can’t—I can’t do this! Baba, I can’t—”
Her voice cracked, but the words wouldn’t stop, a flood ripping out of her.
“I don’t know the routes! I don’t know the trade! I don’t know how to—how to be you! How am I supposed to keep them safe?! I—”
Her breath hitched. Her chest caved.
“I’m not ready! You said I had time! YOU SAID—”
A sob wrenched from her throat, something deep, something ugly, something that scraped its way up and broke her apart.
“P-please…”
Her forehead hit the sand, arms shaking, fingers curling into fists.
“Please…”
A whisper.
“Please don’t leave me, Baba…”
A whimper.
And then—
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRGGGHHHH!!!”
A scream. A raw, throat-shredding, soul-breaking scream.
A sound that wasn’t a word. Wasn’t a thought.
Just everything she’d never be able to say.
The women finally moved.
Two of them rushed forward, grabbing her arms, pulling her back, hands firm but gentle, voices low, whispering things meant to soothe.
“Layla, sweetie—”
“Come, love, please—”
But she fought them. Fought them.
Thrashed against their grip, kicking, shoving, screaming—because they didn’t understand.
Didn’t understand that this wasn’t just grief. This wasn’t just loss. This was everything.
This was her heart, her soul, her life being buried in that grave.
And she couldn’t—she couldn’t—let them take him from her.
Her body had other plans.
Those ‘plans’ couldn’t be sustained, however.
Her strength was gone. Her legs buckled beneath her, her head spun, and—
She collapsed against them, her face buried in their shoulders as the sobs overtook her.
Layla was shattered.
A woman broken in half.
‘…’
Malik ingrained that scene in his eyes. Burned it into memory.
However, unexpectedly, Layla wasn’t the main thing on his mind.
It was the way the grave swallowed Rehan… the way that it took him.
Just like that.
Just like it had swallowed so many before him.
Just like it always would.
He exhaled, slow, and dragged his gaze away, tilting his head toward the sky.
The moons stared back, cold and indifferent.
Just like the world. Just like death. Just like—
His jaw clenched.
“Yeah…”
His voice barely made a sound. More breath than words.
“I’ll at least try to do what you asked.”
It wasn’t much. Wasn’t a promise. Wasn’t a vow.
But it was something.
And for now… that had to be enough.