The scalding water seeped through his perfectly shaped and jagged body. The scars embedded deeply in his tanned skin were not stark anymore. They were fading. But was the imprint they left in his soul, too?

Even though he was saved when it had been too late, he was still in gratitude for the Almighty.

But the damage had already been done and the childhood had been shattered. The childhood that was supposed to be spent like any other child's was lived in the shackles of hell. A living hell. Ripping his innocence apart with each torture inflicted upon him.

Even though Ayyan's situation was entirely different from his, it still brought his past in front of him like a knell to doom. He was drawn towards destruction like a moth is drawn towards flames.

He wanted to incinerate his past. To singe it and have it forgotten once and for all. But the pain. Oh, the pain never stopped. Even after years.

They say wounds heal with time. NO! They don't. Those passing seconds, minutes, hours, only put a veneer on the charred places but never heal them. It only takes one moment to pull the veneer and have the salt rubbed over, giving faded stagnant memories of repugnant past a heavy blow.

He wanted his heart to rupture so that it could stop hurting because his suicide attempts had never come to his aid.

"God doesn't call people like you so early." He'd say, not sure if it's directed more towards him or her.

The three times he had attempted suicides, he had failed. He had been saved. Why? Because God didn't want a person like him? A person so torn and sinful!

The physical scars only pierced through his skin but the emotional ones scarred his soul. So deeply and brutally. They were far more agonizing than the physical ones.

Azlan means lion, brave, but he was nowhere to be brave... he thought. He couldn't even get past the trauma that destroyed his life and mutilated his fragile heart.

Slipping in his PJs, he came out in to his room. Grabbing the zippo, he pulled out the last cigarette from the pack and lit it up as he stood by the window of his master bedroom. The night was moonless just like his life. Black and dark.

This was his fifth cigarette of the day. A poison that kept him going. It sedated him. Calmed his nerves down but it had loads of bitter and staunch memories attached to him which he wanted to forget.

It was weird, how the nicotine would both tear him apart and hold him together. His sedative and destruction!

******

The first cup of coffee alone wasn't enough to calm her nerves down and five had lucidly gotten way too much, giving her the shakes. It was her sedative. It helped her stay awake at nights because sleep only brought nightmares. Nightmares she'd been trying to run away from.

She was fierce. Feisty like a lioness because she had nothing to lose. Everyone she had loved deeply had died, be it in real or in her eyes; they were dead. But these children were the center of her life now and imagining losing them was enough to kill her.

She could not afford to lose Ayyan. It was as if a serrated knife was jagging her heart with every wild and prudent thought.

Her eyes were sore from holding the tears back. She didn't cry. Not anymore! She had gotten her fair share of breakdown on that rainy night and a part of her was thankful to Azlan. She needed to let all that out; all that trauma she'd been stuffing inside herself for way too long.

"She would if she were alive."

Their mother was dead. Oh, the dread! She could imagine. She knew the anguish. She was very well acquainted with it. How could she not? None of what had happened to her would have happened hadn't she been left at the mercy of her father.

All her life, she had cursed her step-mother for what she did to her but hadn't it been for her father, she'd never have been able to do what she did to her. If he were so nice, she wouldn't have dared to ruin his daughter's life.

She breathed heavily as the past squished back and sang deadly in her scarlet ears.

She covered her ears with her quavering hands as she muffled her loud cries. She had let go of everything the day she escaped that hell but it wasn't letting her go.

With heavy steps, she trudged into the bathroom and stripping her clothes off, stood below the shower in the deadly shroud of that horrific night as the cold water calmed her down.

She scrubbed herself raw to the point where her scars started bleeding but she didn't care. The pain was nothing in front of the storm raging up inside her. It was placating. It was soothing her. She needed the blood to flow. To whoosh all the agony away with it but who was she kidding? The agony was her fate and thorns her life.

******

Forgot to add this absolutely enthralling cover/character aesthetics by . Thank you so much, love. I'm in awe!❤