Mirage! A false hope that we all drink at. An illusion that keeps us wading through the capricious waves of our unbridled lives. A fib we feed on, not knowing it's it that's feeding on us instead. Human craves for this incorrigible feeling because living a beautifully warped up lie is far better than coming face to face with the face of incinerated reality. Saddening yet comforting. Chaotically smooth. Nothing but a mirage. And in the end, it shatters into nothingness of everything. Everything horrific.

And just like that when Safa woke up from her sleep of dreaming about him playing cheerfully in the school playground, her mirage broke into nothingness of everything horrific. Him. Ayyan. The kid she had loved more than anyone.

"You alright?" Raina chirped from where she was occupied on a nearby sofa.

"What do you think?" Her voice was eerily calm. The kind of calm that ensues after the storm has eaten everything up in its wake. Raina looked at her dilapidated form laid on the hospital bed with immense pain lucid on her face.

"I'm so sorry for what happened."

Her eyes were fixated on the roof, her hands placed on her stomach. No movement. No drop of tear. Nothing whatsoever. She was dwelling in her misery and Raina didn't want her to drown in that chasm.

"You know, it's not the cancer that took him."

Still no words. Just silence. Raina inhaled a deep breath. This needed to be told. She needed to cry. Crying was important.

"It was a fall." She commenced, scrutinizing on her. "He fell while taking shower and hit his head right on the basin." She looked back at her still form with no sign of shock. "Cruel, isn't it? Death! Scares us all with one possibility to take someone away and just when we think we have defeated it, it, so cunningly, defeats us instead by snatching them away through an impossibility right from under our noses. What a sly!"

"Doesn't matter." This was the first time she spoke up ever since she had woken up.

"What do you mean?" Raina scrunched her eyes in confusion. This wasn't something she was expecting her to say. Not even in the slightest.

"What's gone is gone. There's no use crying over spill beans."

"That's harsh."

"So is life. You need to toughen up." Ripping the drip off, she hopped off the bed.

"Where are you going?" Raina asked, restlessly, as she chased her.

"To the washroom. You wanna come?" The sarcasm was so unSafaish that it terrified Raina to her very core.

"You need to mourn, Safa!" She called over her, making her halt in her track as she turned her head a bit.

"Safa Hayat never mourns. Hafsa Ameen did." Mumbling the last sentence, she stepped into the washroom.

******

Clean white sheets covered the Shehryar's living room as everyone mourned for the little soul that left them oh so soon. Even the people who had no idea about him. That's the thing about funerals. No one really cries for the deceased. Not even their loved ones. Everyone cries over their own losses, their own worries. So what if for strangers it doesn't have to do anything with the deceased while for the closed ones, the fact that they'll have to live the rest of their lives without the people they love? The grief might be different but the focal point is always same: themselves.

Amidst all this chaos no one seemed to notice the lone figure snugged up in the corner but a pair of obsidian eyes boring through the window, at her. She could feel it. The heat of his powerful gaze. With her head still resting on the wall, she trailed her eyes towards him as the glistening orbs darted right back at her smoldering ones. She glared at him with accusing look as if it was all his fault. But he didn't mind. She needed someone to blame and he was more than happy to be her object of wrath and indictment. She was mourning, he knew, in her own way.

"Don't you wanna look at him the last time?" Asmara's voice pulled her out of her stupor and she looked away.

"I have his photo."

"It's not the same."

"For me, it is." Before Asmara could say another word, she shot upon her feet and left.

******

The air of USA never felt so congested to Azlan. It was as if he couldn't breathe. And rightly so, because today he hadn't come here for some me time. Today, Azlan Shehryar had stepped foot in this land to find answers. Answers of the lies that had been thrown at him. To shed the darkness he had been kept in for years.

With calculated and determined steps, he cruised through the building and stopped in front of the door of one apartment. The door was immediately opened on his knock and the grandiose smile that had crept upon the face of the host on seeing Azlan was quickly vanquished by the hard punch that welcomed him with open arms.

******

Once back to the valley, Safa had gone straight to her room to take some rest but who was she kidding? Sleep had never really been her best friend.

"Whatever it is you are trying to pull off, please stop it, Safa. You don't always have to act strong." Asmara said as she stood right in front of her.

"I'm not trying to be strong. People die. Big deal." Pulling the duvet over herself, she replied nonchalantly.

As if she couldn't believe it, Asmara's eyes almost bogged out of her sockets as she almost shouted. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Language!"

"Not funny!"

"Not trying to be either."

"Safa, PLEASE! Cry. Just for once. I won't ask you again. Everyone did. How heartless do you have to be-" But before she could complete, Safa propped up on the bed with rage filling her from every crevice.

"Oh really? Everyone cried?" She arched up a perfect eyebrow receiving a bewildered nod from Asmara.

"Okay, so what about your boss who didn't even have the courtesy to wait just for an hour after the funeral before leaving for his vacation to another country, hun? So before you come to lecture me and play your morale police on me again, think about that heartless oaf first. You may get the eff out of my room, now. Thank you!"

"He went for something important. Not for vacations." She reasoned.

"I don't care just like I don't care about your blabbers right now. So please, LEAVE! I want to be alone for a while."

Not wanting to enrage her any further, Asmara left, shutting the door with a soft click behind.

As the room bathed in pitch darkness, each and every object in room mourned on being hit by a light whisper.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't fulfill my promise. I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you, bacha! I lost my right to shed tears for you the moment I left you alone. You signaled me not to leave but I was stupid enough to not get it, and left anyway. Oh, I should have known better! I should have stayed. I could have protected you but I didn't... And just so you know, I'll never forgive myself and I don't expect you to either. I deserve this. This pain. This lifetime of unfulfilled hunger to cry and let everything out. I deserve all of it. I deserve all the anguish I put you through."

And as the moon veiled itself behind the clouds to grant her the privacy of dwelling in her misery, the sky shed tears for her.

******

A/N

So, finally a chapter after ages and before ya'll start throwing your chappals at me, I should inform you the real culprit her is my university. I, on the other hand, had been dying to write but instead all the workload was killing me. Finally got two days off so yay! Will try to keep up with the schedule now. But, no promise, okay?

PS: I missed ya'll so freaking much!!!