“shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” - brenè brown
or
trinity santos is reminded of her past (as if she could forget it)
c/w: references to child abuse and s/h
The text had been innocent.
Not intended to cause harm or distress or whatever the fuck this was. It had never been that, never been written to put Trinity here, in the bathroom stall at work, unable to unlock the door.
Baran texted her frequently; dumb videos she found funny, pictures of Omid or herself, some beautiful view she’d seen on her morning run, a dog she’d stroked, fucking quotes of the day.
Never anything bad.
Never anything like this.
She wasn’t to know.
Trinity had to remember that too.
None of this was ever supposed to reach Baran in the first place.
That was a funny thing about shame, the way it could follow you around, the way it could control you just when you thought it couldn’t.
Some people wore their heart on their sleeve, their shame pinned to them like a scarlet letter. Others kept it inside, letting it sharpen and fragment until it split to the surface, ripping everything apart like shrapnel.
Trinity…
Trinity Santos had shame but it was more than that.
It was physical, a faded mark here and there, scars that littered her thighs and her back, the smell of chalk that seemed to linger in her nose and on her hands, no matter how hard she scrubbed at them. Callouses that roughened her palms and stained her skin. Tensions in her muscles that never quite went away.
Trinity controlled her shame.
Carried it where she could keep it hidden, where she could keep it close and controlled, away from prying eyes.
Where nobody could see it.
Nobody but her.
And what she had buried, she didn’t have to look at either.
The text finds her six hours into a twelve hour shift, her phone pinging as she sits down to chart.
*baran <3 sent you a link*
B: Look what Omid found on YouTube! Baby Trinity!
It’s an old home video of some old gymnasium filled with bright colours and kids doing somersaults left right and centre. The camera’s shaky, handheld and all over the place, walking around the gym and finding kids to talk to.
Most of them are concentrating hard, back springs flawlessly executed, hops up to the bar sharp and precise.
But a loud laugh catches the camera’s attention and it swings to-
Her.
Of course, it’s her, the text had said as much.
Except it’s not the her she knows, not the her she remembers.
It’s a twelve-year-old girl, grinning and waving wildly at the camera, laughing so loud that it makes the audio crackle.
“Here! Here! Watch me tumble, Mads! Watch!”
A voice replies, so old and so known to her that it cracks her wide open.
“Okay, okay, I’m watching! Go!”
A smile, so unbidden and so happy that her own face had forgotten how to wear it. A body, so tiny and unharmed that it hadn’t even realised it needed protecting.
A backwards tumble performed atrociously that Trinity falls back onto the mat in a heap of chalk and limbs. Another laugh captures the camera’s attention and it swings to-
Trinity turns it off, her phone clattering loudly onto the desk. Her eyes were blurred and stinging, her lashes sharp and dagger-like as she tries to blink the tears away. It was as thought the entire ED had gone silent around her.
Huckleberry, of course, notices almost immediately.
“Trinity?”
The sound of his voice breaks something in her and she’s up and running out of the ED before she implodes entirely, slamming through a set of doors and into a bathroom where she can lock herself in and despair in private.
It all floods through her like a horror film on a never-ending reel.
Her face.
Her smile.
Madi’s laugh.
Madi’s face.
Alive and happy.
Trinity sank to the floor.
That was the other thing about shame, the way it lingered.
Forgetfulness and time could make the fondest memories softer and warm, a blur of images lost into an orange haze of happiness. Shame knew how to twist, how to darken and wrench, making the faces scarred and grotesque until she couldn’t bear to look at them any longer.
Trinity could feel shame taking this memory away, this one she thought she’d forgotten, twisting her smiling, baby-faced features into cracked, warped, horrors.
The sound of Madi’s laugh, turning to anguished sobs, cracked and alone.
She felt it being taken from her before she could even remember she had it.
Lyari is a mysterious town in karachi pakistan, only town where it becomes pitch black at night. Not a single soul steps outside after dusk because death awaits them. It has been like this, for longer than anyone can remember. Even the oldest citizens remember snip-bits, cautions their parents have passed word to word.
A myth turned into a nightmare, that no one knows who, why or what is out there but something was out there; ancient and demonic.
Vidhi should have ran the other way, should have denied to even venture to the town for some archelogical excavation. But it was a great opportunity and how could she miss it? Who knows, if she finds ruins of indus civilisation in that chaotic town?
So she and her team decided to visit lyari. The job was done, they were leaving the town when small incident leaves her stranded at the side of road, in middle of thick forest.
Scared out of her wits, she prays for protection. That’s when a military jeep stops and a dashing major offers her help.
Would they both survive what walks at night?
AUTHOR'S TAGS .˚⊹. ࣪𓉸 ࣪⊹˚.
Yaar guys please please, read this chapter slowly, savour every line and listen to born to die while reading. I swear to god, you will not regret it. Be ready with tissues too.
Dedicated to my mom @brightchillstar , hi sissy! @viviinthewoods and my chhoti for completing her exams @shadylovedhurandhar, major sahab and mir uncle @majoriqbalahmedisi @miriqbalpaglu
"Aap accha mazak karte ho, Maulvi Sahab," Mahi jested, but seeing him dead calm and serious, the boy nervously chuckled. "M-mazak nahi hain?"
The room fell into an awkward silence.
An hour back, Vidhi had narrated the whole story in the car, from the start. The doppelganger taking her place, being stranded on the road, and nearly dying if it weren't for a military major.
Tariq, of course, narrowed his eyes, his mind racking for a major matching Vidhi's description. He had only heard of the urban legend of a major from back in the 1970s, but that was impossible. Because a major from the 1970s would look closer to death, not dashing and handsome.
Vidhi being Vidhi had left a few details in the dark. What went down in the bunker stays in the bunker. Some things were perfect being buried there for the end of times — like her dignity.
But her mouth couldn't be controlled, at least not in front of her friends, so after getting out of the jeep, she called them into a circle and spilled whatever happened between Iqbal and her while the policemen stopped for chai at the town centre.
The trio didn't believe her at first, but when a dark purple bruise peeked through her shirt, they lost their minds. Prerna grabbed her collar, staring in shock at the obvious love bite. Mahi gawked at Vidhi, dumbfounded. Danish's words got stuck in his throat.
They were crying tears of blood while she was getting banged by a hot major?! Vidhi, what is this behaviour yaar!
Now standing inside the head maulvi's office, hearing him drop a bomb bigger than Hiroshima-Nagasaki, at first they thought they had misheard Ibrahim. Iqbal — that dashing major who was painfully obviously older than Vidhi based on her description — was the creature that haunts Lyari at night?
Not a ghost. Not a poltergeist. But a demon. An entity of dark, who feeds on souls, who lives on the edges of hell.
Vidhi repeated her tale to Ibrahim, redacting a few parts but conveying all the relevant bits to him.
His expression changed as she narrated — as if all his assumptions and fears had been confirmed. His fingers froze around his prayer beads. He confirmed that it was indeed Iqbal. The man in the portrait. The creature of dark that haunts Lyari. What walks at night.
"That's… not possible. Nahi ho sakta…" Vidhi muttered, her voice hollow.
"Kyu nahi ho sakta?"
"Because he was with me. Beside me, holding me and— I saw the creature outside, calling me and threatening when I failed to answer. I know how it looks—"
He leaned forward against his desk, maintaining intense eye contact with Vidhi. "Have you seen it with your own eyes? Not as a shadow on a window, but a corporeal form of it?" He questioned.
She couldn't speak. Words died bitterly on her tongue.
"You haven't. You haven't seen it with your own eyes."
"Then what was out there?" Danish asked.
"Nothing. It was Iqbal all along. His tricks are illusions. He's a mastermind, a puppeteer, with the sharpest of tongues and the most cunning of minds — ISI back then named him the angel of death. He had tricked you from the moment you stepped foot into this town. The dagger, the delay during departure, that doppelganger in the car? It was all his play."
He sighed heavily. "He approached Vidhi, taking advantage of her weakness and vulnerability and using it to his benefit."
Vidhi hugged herself close. So it was all fake? That night — how he looked at her, how he held her and loved her. And even before they parted, he had looked heartbroken. Was that all an act? Was she that naive to believe him? She collapsed into a nearby chair, clutching her head in disbelief. "Toh woh sab jhooth tha? Does he do this to everyone—"
She refused to look at anyone, knowing all eyes were on her full of pity. Her stomach knotted into tight twists; she felt like vomiting at the mere thought of his betrayal. His warmth, the way his eyes had looked in the dim light of the bunker, all those praises and confessions — meri ruh hain tu.
"He could have killed me the same way he did with others. Why did he spare me?"
"Do what to everyone?" Ibrahim asked.
What could she say to him that would keep her dignity intact? "He and I… we became one that night. It was a mistake — a blunder of a mistake!"
He didn't look scandalised. He looked calm, almost understanding, as if he had known this would happen. It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense to Vidhi.
"I think it's time I told this story, for the first and last time ever."
He gestured for them to sit down. Vidhi and Danish took the chairs while Mahi, Prerna and Inspector Tariq settled onto a small couch on the side. The head maulvi dug into the drawers and handed them a thick leather-bound album — a vintage photo album, neatly preserved without a speck of dust.
The yellowed pages held so many photos stuck with glue: a young Ibrahim in his military uniform, a few shots of scenery. Then a photo of him and Iqbal, hugging each other like brothers.
"The story," he began grimly, "started in 1971. When Iqbal was already an established major and I was just a new joiner who had held a gun for the first time. He was a cold and calculating man, with no mercy in his bones. He had radical ideas, hated India with a passion and termed others — especially Hindus — as kafirs. I didn't share his ideals, but he showed me compassion when no one else did. He was like my big brother. He taught me how to hunt, how to fire a bullet, how to stitch wounds."
"He did say that he hated India," Vidhi commented quietly. "Speaking in past tense."
"Hmm… then something happened that changed his way of living forever. You came into his life."
"Me?"
"Hmm. Your past life. She was a doctor who was stuck in Pakistan during the season of conflict. Her name was Vidhi too. She was stationed in Lyari for some time and found him hurt one night, tending to him in her private quarters. He saw her face — adorned with a bindi, just like yours — and made a hurtful comment about Hindus."
"Then?"
"She slapped him. Hard. He had the prints till the next day for me to see." They all laughed, Ibrahim smiling with a nostalgic glint in his eyes. Even Tariq, who had stood still and dumbfounded at all the information, chuckled lightly.
"She didn't utter another word and dressed his wounds. He was left speechless. She shook the very foundations of his wrong mindset, and from then on, I saw a side of him I never knew existed. He yearned for her, doing everything to please her, to make her comfortable in his presence. She forgave him. I remember him walking behind her in her small house-turned-clinic, almost like a puppy following its master, wagging its tail, begging for her forgiveness."
She snorted, her cheeks painted with a soft red as a familiar glaze passed over her eyes. They noticed it — how she acted like she had witnessed it all herself.
"Allah! He loved her so much. She taught him everything about life and told him to look beyond the wall of hatred. He did, and found the world much more beautiful, finally seeing it through the lens khuda had intended for. She later learned that her family had unfortunately passed away, leaving her alone in Pakistan as an orphan. Iqbal assured her that he would be everything for her. Soon he married her — in both Islamic and Hindu ways. A nikkah and a shaadi, the first of its kind back then. It was a secretive marriage, but their love was legalised. He promised her that he would be her soul for all seven generations — a vow Hindu husbands give to their wives. It was a drastic change. Even I couldn't believe it. A man like him, feared across the country, turned into a loving man just because of her."
"Fir kya hua?"
He turned the page, revealing pictures of chaos. Shots of them taken while wounded on a hospital bed, in military uniform. A picture of Iqbal checking ammunition in an armoury.
"Jung. India aur Pakistan ke beech, 1971 mein jung ho gayi. We were both deployed to fight on the battlefield. But our battalion was quickly defeated — there was no chance of survival. The Indian soldiers were merciful with our bodies, but Iqbal? Iqbal didn't want death to reach him so quickly. Dead bodies were everywhere, burnt trees all around. We breathed in smoke, accidentally stepping on the bodies of our comrades and Indian soldiers alike. Only Iqbal and I were left. He used his body as a shield to protect me, taking bullets himself. But he didn't want to die — his wife was waiting for him back home. He could not break his promise. He could not turn her into an orphan and a widow."
"What did he do?"
"He sold his soul to the devil."
The room stilled, Danish gripped the armrest tightly. The inspector swore loudly while others blankly stared at Ibrahim.
"How do you know?" Danish questioned.
"I saw it with my own eyes. He held his body to the sky and asked Shaitan to grant him one boon in place of the sins he had committed — to let him return safe from the battlefield, back to his wife. Shaitan granted his wish. I remember it vividly. I was half unconscious, but amidst the burning ground and the dark red sky, it smelled like sulphur and brimstone…”
He paused, the image too sinful to even describe in his office, where sacred texts lay framed on the wall. “A dark figure stood in front of Iqbal and held his hand like a promise. I lost consciousness and woke up in his jeep. He was alive, driving with only a few wounds. We were heading back to Lyari. I said nothing of it. He was the son of a maulvi, born into an orthodox family, grown up with such ideals — and I had watched him sell his soul to the devil for an Indian Hindu girl. His wife."
"We came back to the town in shambles. Due to the war there were protests, riots. An angry mob marched through the streets against India. She went out that night to get medicines for a patient. You see, sick patients and angry mobs don't ask you questions. It was either the patient dying or her. The mob killed her — and many others. They killed my father too, who tried to protect her. Iqbal found her body against a banyan tree, bleeding to death, her stomach ripped open. His wife and the unborn child in her womb both died in a brutal and senseless way."
"Iqbal, aapne haatho se…." Ibrahim's hands trembled, eyes glistening with tears as he lifted his hands holding an imaginary bloodied corpse, crimson staining his imagination.
“Uski khoon bhari laash ko apne haatho se sheher tak lekar gaya aur poocha uss sheher ko ki kyun uski mustaqbil, uski haseen ruh, zindagi aur khuda cheen liya unhone. Vidhi ki laash ko apne baahon mein lekar, rota raha. Then he cursed the whole town for killing innocents. For killing a pregnant woman who had stepped out at night. He cursed the town that until his love for her vanished, he would haunt it and hunt each and every one who dared step outside after dusk. He took her into a secret bunker he had built — their safe house. There, with her body beside him, he stabbed himself with a dagger. The dagger his father gifted, on which he carved his and Vidhi's names, two bodies, one soul.”
He shut the photo album with a thud, taking a deep breath. It was visible, this story had taken a toll on him, burden of fifty years had been finally lifted from him.
It came crashing down like a flood. The memories like a black-and-white picture fading into colour. Her past life, all the scenes Ibrahim had described.
The small house she turned into a clinic, the kind patients, and the vegetable market of Lyari. Ibrahim’s family cooked delicious meals for iftar, the fragrance of the biryani still familiar. And… Iqbal. The man she loved, the man who worshipped the ground she walked on.
Her… iqbal.
"Par khuda mohabbat karne walon ki izzat karta hain, jannat ka rasta kholta hain. Iqbal ne gunah-e-azeem kiya — apni ruh ko Shaitan ke hawale karke. But Allah is the most merciful. He cursed Iqbal to roam as a demon, restless and forever. But He also blessed him — that he would return to himself, his body preserved, until his love, his Vidhi, was born again. And she did take birth again."
In her hands lay a photograph of them in wedding outfits. Iqbal in his sherwani. Vidhi in a saree, her hands decorated with mehendi, a mangalsutra around her neck, her parting filled with sindoor. Iqbal looked at her with utmost devotion while she smiled brightly at the camera. Even in the photograph, Vidhi could see how firmly he held her — afraid that she would fly away if he loosened his grip.
She got up from the chair, the wood creaking against the floor. With shaking steps she reached his portrait, fingers touching the silver plaque reverently, feeling the carving against her fingertips.
"Ibrahim Sahab…" Her voice came out shakily, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. "What is written here?"
"Here waits a man who loved beyond the edge of reason. God forgive him. God help whoever he loves next."
Any time one of the Beach Boys gets interviewed about the Beatles they always seem one tequila shot away from calling John and Paul the F-slur. Meanwhile everytime Paul McCartney gets asked about the Beach Boys you get the distinct impression that one time he invited Brian Wilson to jerk off with him and John Lennon, got told told "no", and never quite got over that rejection.
