Fatiba Darvish emerged from the bathroom, soft slipper-socks rustling against the cold porcelain floor with a gentle hiss. She was wearing a plain navy cotton nightgown, loose and demure, but somehow already creased and relaxed by nightly habits of coziness: the kind that hugged you like a second skin after years of service. She moved with the quiet dignity of one accustomed to quiet—a quiet that attended her, as the quiet of a library or an instant before a prayer.
She closed the door softly behind her.
This was her place.
Unlike the rest of the house, architecturally designed in a clean, modern aesthetic her parents preferred—glass, chrome, soft whites—Fatiba's room was stepping into another world altogether. The sort of world only someone very precise, very devoted, and a little lonely might have dreamed up.
The walls were orangey dusky, the color of sun-cooked clay in a Persian twilight. The color changed with the light, warming into gold when the bedside lamp was lit, cooling to rust when the night filled the windows. Each wall was a montage of shelves, posters, and personal trimmings stacked together not randomly but purposefully—chaotic clutter.
Along one wall ran a tall bookshelf, the top row of which was stocked with lovingly painted Warhammer 40k miniatures—Primarchs, daemon princes, and horrors in power armor frozen mid-charge. Each had a little placard in Fatiba's script, detailing stats and background. They were arranged like saints over her altar of worship. Lower shelves held stacks of Dungeons & Dragons modules—some classic, some esoteric, many imported. Folded alongside were maps drawn out on parchment-colored paper, tea-aged and smoked at the edges just so. A side shelf that was completely devoted to World of Darkness was covered in yellowed sticky notes still stored within, labeled in bloodstained letters with queries on morality, hunger, and being human.
Her workspace was a shrine of both madness and holiness. An ultra-wide curved monitor filled the room with a chilly blue light. On the screen was an open browser tab showing a Chinese cultivation novel she was reading—its theme was dark-colored, the characters crisp, and the scrollbar nestled near the middle of Chapter 312: "Immortal Ascension Through a Tearful Blade." At the feet of the monitor rested a mechanical keyboard with worn-out keycaps—an unmistakable veteran of forum wars and thousand-word treatises on power-scaling. Her mousepad was sewn with a stained-glass portrait of Lilith from Diablo; the red and black colors had worn away after years of usage.
The floor was white porcelain tile, clean and a bit too chilly in winter but liked by her. She claimed it was like a "mental clarity field," as if it was better to think when barefoot on it. Above it, there was a thick red-and-gold Persian rug, aged and frayed on the edges but rich with tales. Her grandfather used to pray on it in Shiraz. Now, it held the position of her computer chair and had some muted coffee spots.
The ceiling, too, was porcelain and reflected light in odd ways. In the evening, the ceiling light—a crescent moon shape—cast golden halos over it, making her feel as if she was resting under a silent dreamspace, hovering above this world but not yet in the next.
Next to her bed, a second shelf, this one full of fantasy books. Mistborn, Cradle, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Kingkiller Chronicles, and a few indie series, some self-published. Creased, bookmarked with tissue, receipts, and bookmarks from indie bookstores in Damascus, Tehran, and Tokyo. A small framed photo lay next to them: her uncle cradling her when she was five, at a tabletop convention in New York, before everything changed.
Her bed itself was low, futon-style, with charcoal sheets and a revolving cast of pillows: one in the shape of a d20 die, one in the shape of a Totoro. Over her headboard was a corkboard full of pinned-up notes—quotes she admired and questions such as "What if humans weren't alone?" and "Would God roll for initiative?" Next to it were character sheets—Fatiba had dozens. They were mostly female paladins, tragic warlocks, and monks who had renounced violence. There was one, oddly enough, simply labeled "Me" in pencil and only partially filled out.
Near the windowsill, tiny potted succulents sat in silence and observed the world. One was named Garruk, the Cactus Planeswalker. She would speak to him at times.
All in her room—each artifact, shelf, or stain—speaks of a story not of fantasy escape but of one who had made fiction survival. This was not a fantasy tomb but an arsenal. Her walls were not just decorations—they were battlegrounds, temples, and memories.
This room witnessed Fatiba Darvish's presence.
No.
She lived here.
In this situation, she also defended herself against pressure. "'. This wasn't a retreat. It was a fortress. A battlefield and a prayer rug combined. No other classroom or hospital had ever witnessed as many people as the four orange walls. Her childhood. Her silence. Her fury. She's rebuilding. The world was not a barrier to her from the room. She was able to sharpen her edges by placing them against it.
Her cocoa mug's chin rested on the rim of her chair, with her knees planted deep, and it remained concealed. It was ritual.
The soft, familiar ghostlight was cast onto her skin by the monitor's glow, and her almond eyes did not reflect herself but rather the story she was about to uncover in the mirror. After selecting Next Chapter, the screen swung up like a curtain from the naughty playper she had grown to know.
Another war. Someone else's scars. Someone else's grief.
They allowed her to track her own path.
She may have been drawn to literature due to the fact that real life was not a simple act of suffering. It was absurd. Ridiculous. Inhumane in a rational manner. '... At least fiction had patterns. Meaning. Endings.
She held onto a cup of cocoa and closed her eyes, then let the silence subside. She exhaled briefly before removing the mug, returning to her chair, and standing up. The room sighed with her. Her feet were gently resting on the edge of her bed.... She knelt. She whispered. The old words flowed out of her mouth in winter like a breeze. She asked for nothing extravagant. Only rest. Maybe forgiveness.
Afterwards, she reclined, holding onto the covers and listening to her favorite song from the overhead fan. It was quite pleasant. Her breath slowed.
And then—.
She dreamed.
Fatiba Darvish didn't hide in this room.
No.
She lived here.
And when she had to, she defended herself here too. This wasn't a retreat. It was a fortress. A prayer rug and a battlefield, all in one. The four orange walls had witnessed more than any classroom or hospital ever had. Her childhood. Her silence. Her fury. She's rebuilding. The room didn't protect her from the world. It gave her a place to sharpen her edges against it.
So when she curled into her chair, knees tucked beneath her and chin resting lightly on the rim of her cocoa mug, it wasn't escape. It was ritual.
The glow of the monitor painted her skin with that soft, familiar ghostlight, and in the mirror-sheen of the screen, her almond eyes reflected not herself—but the story she was about to enter. She clicked Next Chapter, and the screen scrolled up like a curtain on a play she already knew too well.
Another war. Someone else's scars. Someone else's grief.
But through them, she could trace her own.
Perhaps that's why she loved literature so deeply—because real life wasn't just painful. It was absurd. Ridiculous. Cruel in ways that defied reason. At least fiction had patterns. Meaning. Endings.
She closed her eyes for a moment, cocoa cooling in her hand, and let the silence hold her. Then, with a small exhale, she set the mug down, turned in her chair, and stood. The room sighed with her. Her bare feet padded softly to the edge of her bed. She knelt. She whispered. The old words came naturally, curling from her tongue like breath in winter. She asked for nothing extravagant. Only rest. Maybe forgiveness.
Then she laid down, pulling the covers up to her chin, the fan humming above her like a gentle lullaby. Her breath slowed.
And then she dreamed.
....
She woke up in a white void & saw something she saw getting ashed ages ago.
"Uncle Ahmed!!" She cried out, her voice cracking like sunlight through clouds.
The man standing before her turned, blinking slowly, then grinned like a sunbeam cracked into a face. His beard was slightly scruffier than she remembered, and his shirt was too loose, but it was him. Undeniably, unmistakably him.
"Yo," he said, waving with a casual flick of the wrist, as if no time had passed at all. "Been a while, Fatiba?"
She ran into him like a missile, arms flinging around his waist with the desperation of all the years she'd buried this moment in her ribs. Her voice choked with disbelief. "You… you died years ago… Uncle… what… I missed you… Father missed you. Grandfather missed you. Even Mother missed you."
"Dear God…" he muttered, voice warm and low, touched with awe. "You've gotten so much bigger… and fa—"
WHUMP.
Her foot met his stomach like a judgment handed down by heaven.
"Imbecile," she muttered as he hit the floor, groaning, clutching his side.
She dusted her palms together with exaggerated dignity, her expression flat as a judge's gavel.
"My stomach!" he wheezed, rolling dramatically on the dream-grass. "My beautiful little appendix! What did it ever do to you?!"
She crossed her arms, head tilted in that perfect deadpan way that only a girl who had seen too much too early could master.
"You shouldn't have called me fat," she said.
The word hung there like a dropped match—harmless, but glowing with threat.
Ahmed groaned, curling slightly, both from the phantom pain and a half-laugh that rose out of his chest like an old memory. His eyes scrunched tight, then cracked open—one at first, then the other.
"God," he whispered, smirking through it, "I missed you."
Her mouth twitched. A flicker. Not quite a smile. But not not a smile. Like her body was trying to remember how to do it. Trying to trust it.
She looked up, her arms slowly relaxing at her sides. The sky in this dream wasn't just a ceiling of stars—it was alive. Swirling constellations moved like ink in water, elegant and ancient. The stars didn't shine—they wrote. They formed drifting Arabic calligraphy, glowing letters that shimmered and bent with emotion. One of them pulsed gently, almost shyly. Her name.
And in that quiet, she felt something in her chest stretch. Not break. Not open. Just… stretch. Like scar tissue learning to breathe again.
He had been her uncle, yes. But in practice—he was something different. Something closer.
Her parents had always been away, buried under boardrooms and flight schedules, trapped in a loop of high expectations and old guilt. The Darvish family legacy was one of diamond veins and market shares, but Ahmed had wanted none of it. He was born with music in his lungs and stubbornness in his feet.
He used to say he had no use for blood money when he could breathe art.
So he played the harmonium—of all things. Not even a cool instrument. Not a guitar or keyboard or synth. A harmonium, like some wandering poet from the 1800s. He'd set it up anywhere he could: cramped cafés, underground stations, mall food courts, even right outside hospitals—playing Sufi tunes, film classics, old revolutionary anthems. He didn't want applause. He just wanted to see people pause. Maybe smile. Maybe stay one second longer in this world.
That mattered.
After all, Japan had the highest suicide rate in the developed world for a reason.
And sometimes, all a person needed was a note held long enough to remind them they were still here. That someone was still playing.
Fatiba would sit beside him on Saturdays, back when she was nine, legs dangling off a milk crate, humming along while pretending not to watch people cry quietly into their sleeves.
He told her music wasn't for making people happy—it was for making them feel. Even if it hurt. Especially when it hurt.
"You remember that song I used to play?" he said now, from the grass, still smiling. "The one with no words?"
Fatiba didn't answer. Her gaze stayed on the sky. But her lips, slowly, wordlessly, began to hum it.
Soft. Like breath through cracked porcelain.
And for once, in this impossible dream, Ahmed didn't speak again. He just listened. Letting her take the melody back.
The stars above them pulsed like a slow heartbeat—golden strokes of ink shifting across a velvety black sky, moving in the rhythm of breath and memory. It was quiet here. Not the kind of silence that felt empty, but the kind that felt earned, like the hush in a prayer room after everyone has left.
Fatiba sat on the grass, arms around her knees, harmonium notes still lingering in the air, even though neither of them played. Her voice was calm when it came, but with a thin edge underneath—like porcelain warmed by tea but cracked underneath.
"So what?" she asked. "Am I dead?"
Ahmed didn't answer. Didn't need to. The air didn't shift. The sky didn't blink. The dream didn't twitch into some heavenly announcement. It just… stayed.
She looked around, then back down at her hands. They looked exactly like they did before—slender fingers, short nails, the faint crescent scar still on her right wrist. Still her.
"Can I get an idea if this is the afterlife?" she asked, voice a little more tired now. "Or is this just my brain dying and dressing it up in metaphors?"
Still nothing. No cosmic voice. No pearly gates. Not even a chalkboard that said "Welcome, recently deceased."
But her heart felt… quiet. That was what stood out the most.
She felt peace—not joy, not relief, just peace. A hush that filled the cracks in her soul with something warm. Not noise. Not fire. Just the warmth of something not-hurting.
And that, in itself, told her more than any god's voice could have.
She have nothing to do with that hate filled world of flesh anymore.
Her death, if this was death, hadn't come in a scream. Not in a bombing or a dark alley or a slowly draining IV in a cold hospital bed.
It had come in her room. Pajamas on. Cocoa half-drunk. Face still holding the trace of a frown at a cliffhanger chapter. She probably sighed before sleep. Maybe even dreamed of something better.
And honestly… that wasn't a bad way to go.
It wasn't war. It wasn't fear.
She laid her chin on her knees, staring into the horizonless void of this quiet dreamscape.
"I didn't really have a plan," she said. "No big ambitions. No noble path. I was just going to inherit the company because that's what filthy rich nepo babies like me do. You know? Put on the black suit, nod at the boardroom, smile at the shareholders."
She laughed dryly. "Make blood sparkle. Like diamonds."
Ahmed still didn't speak, but she could see his shape leaning back on his elbows now, looking at her sideways with that grin of his. Not mocking. Just there. Just with her.
She closed her eyes for a long second.
"All that money... can rot in those filthy banks," she whispered. "Let the vultures eat it. It doesn't buy warmth."
But then came the tug. Subtle at first. Like the feeling of a phone vibrating in another room. Like a whisper she couldn't quite hear.
It pulled from her chest—not violently, not insistently. But deeply.
She thought of her parents. Stoic. Exhausted. Always half-dressed for a meeting even at home. Would they cry? Or would they hold it in until the PR team helped them draft a statement?
She thought of Grandfather.
Old, tired, kind-eyed Grandfather Abbas. The only one who spoke to her like she had a soul and not just a destiny.
He would sit on the porch with his prayer beads, whispering old Persian poems to the wind. He'd told her, once, that she was like "the scent of saffron in a world addicted to ash."
And now...
Now he'd sit on that porch with one less soul to bless.
Tears welled slowly in her eyes, slow and reluctant—like her tear ducts had forgotten how to work, rusted shut from too many nights of holding it all in. Her breath came out in a stutter, like it hit a bump on the way out of her chest.
"I didn't mean to leave like this," she whispered, voice barely holding together. "I didn't want to make them hurt."
Ahmed finally stirred. The quiet patience of his listening gave way to motion—he shifted, groaning a little as he sat up, pulling one leg up and resting an elbow on his knee like he always used to when talking seriously about something not serious at all.
"You're not dead," he declared bluntly, cutting through the softness like someone popping a bubble with a fork.
Fatiba blinked. "What?"
"Calm down," he added, waving his hand like he was dismissing a minor inconvenience. "You're alive. Currently snoring on your bed like a drunk racoo—"
She moved fast—an instinct, not a decision. Her heel connected squarely with his midsection before he could finish the racial slur. His eyes widened, air leaving his lungs in a comical wheeze as he flopped onto his back, groaning.
"Ouch—my cute little pancreas, NO—!"
She stood over him, arms crossed, chin raised. Her ponytail bounced slightly with the motion. "Don't make me do that," she said, with the practiced dryness of a girl who'd learned her own sharp edges from years of being underestimated.
Then, delicately, she dusted off her hands like she'd just taken out the trash.
Ahmed writhed for a moment longer, clutching his stomach, face contorted in mock agony. "That wasn't necessary," he whined through clenched teeth.
"You were about to say something offensive."
"I was not—"
"You were."
He groaned louder, one hand flopping dramatically over his forehead like he was in a tragic opera. "You've gotten stronger. Since when are your feet made of iron?"
"Since I had to start walking alone," she said under her breath, not meaning for him to hear.
But he did.
And for a beat, the comedy drained. He looked up at her from where he lay, his smirk gone, replaced by something softer, something older. He exhaled slowly, hand dropping to the grass, palm open.
The silence returned—less like a void, more like a warm, weighted blanket pulled over tired shoulders.
The white dreamscape around them pulsed gently with light, like it was breathing. The color of fog at dawn, or the inside of a pearl. It wasn't a void so much as an unfinished canvas.
"So… this is the afterlife," she murmured.
"Yes," he replied, finally managing to sit up again, wincing. "But you're not dead."
"But that makes no sense—" she threw up her hands.
Ahmed shrugged, rubbing his ribs. "Dreams don't need to make sense. Neither does grief. Or love. Or whatever this place is."
Fatiba looked down at her hands again—still so detailed. Still so her. She could even feel the cold ring of her cocoa mug's handle, like a phantom.
"And I'm… snoring?" she asked, voice soft and incredulous.
Ahmed chuckled, a low, warm sound. "Like a little baby tiger with allergies," he muttered, teasing but fond.
She shot him a look sharp enough to cut glass. "One more stupid comment and I'll upgrade to a roundhouse."
His hands went up in surrender, eyes twinkling. "Understood, dear niece."
For a long moment, they just sat. Wrapped in the whiteness around them—like a breath held between two heartbeats. The space between worlds, where memory and dreams tangled quietly, weaving fragile threads of life.
Alive. Somehow, against every expectation. Alive.
She broke the silence, voice trembling like a leaf in a soft wind. "Why am I here then?"
Ahmed's gaze darkened with urgency. "Because it's about damn time. And speaking of time… we don't have much."
Her breath caught. "Wait—what? What the fuck do you mean? What time? What lack of it?" Panic began to thread through her voice.
He looked at her steadily. "That boy."
"What boy?"
"THAT boy."
"W—Sh—"
[Shotaro: Journey of a Hero That Kept Moving Forward]
Mugyiwara?" she whispered, disbelief mingling with curiosity.
"That boy… he is the key to everything."
Before she could respond, the dreamscape shifted violently. The white space became a vortex, pulling her downward through swirling galaxies and endless stars—countless infinite versions of herself falling like shooting stars across the cosmos.
Despite the enormity of it all, she felt minuscule, the tiniest mote in a universe of possibilities.
And then, with a jarring gasp, she was awake.
"AAAHAHHHAHAHAHA!!!" she cried, heart pounding as sweat clung to her skin, the crescent scar on her forehead itching sharply from the dampness.
Her room was shrouded in darkness, save for the soft, steady blue glow of the computer screen that cast gentle shadows across her face. The faint, sweet scent of cocoa lingered in the air like a ghost of comfort. She raised a trembling hand, fingertips brushing over the crescent scar on her forehead—a quiet anchor to the world she sometimes wished she could slip away from.
The line between dream and waking blurred like ink in water, but one undeniable truth throbbed in her chest: something was coming. Something tangled with that boy—Shotaro Mugyiwara—and a fate that had begun to pull her inescapably close.
A soft knock interrupted the silence.
"Hey, Fatiba, you alright?" Her grandfather's voice was calm, steady, respectful—a familiar presence at the threshold of her room.
"Y-yeah—yea!" she called out, voice a little shaky as she dragged herself from the tangled sheets, crawling toward the bottle of water by her bed. She tipped it over her head, the cool liquid soaking her flaxen hair, damp strands clinging to her skin.
"Woah!" She blinked at her reflection in the mirror—wet hair framing her wide almond eyes, still heavy with shock, still searching for something beyond the glass.
She straightened, resolve settling deep in her bones. "I need to find Mugyiwara," she said aloud, a strange determination threading through her voice.
Her grandfather cleared his throat from the doorway, the edge of curiosity creeping in. "Umm… excuse me, who the fuck is Mugyiwara?"
She froze, then glanced back at him with a tired smirk. "I didn't know you were still standing there."
The quiet between them was thick with unspoken things, and outside her window, the city slept unaware.