Title: The Roar in the Silence
1. The Bond That Shaped a World
From the moment Amaan took his first breath, he was never alone. His mother, Aleena, had cradled him with such warmth that even the coldest nights in their crumbling Lahore home felt like summer. They had very little—no father, no family—but what they did have was sacred: each other.
She called him her “little lion,” and whenever she did, Amaan felt invincible. She stitched buttons into his torn school shirt, kissed away his nightmares, and whispered stories of stars and heroes as they lay beneath their rusted ceiling fan.
To Amaan, the world wasn’t made of countries or cities. It was made of her laugh, her smell, her soft fingers.
And then, one day, that world vanished.
2. The Day the Earth Turned Cold
It was a Wednesday, and Amaan still remembered the scent of lentils and rice drifting from their tiny kitchen. He had just come home from school, dragging his half-broken bag behind him.
“Ammi?” he called.
Silence.
The living room was undisturbed. Her shawl was on the hook, her slippers beside the rug. But she wasn’t there.
Hours passed. Neighbors peeked in. Rumors started. Someone mentioned a black van parked near the alley earlier that day. Another said they heard shouting.
The police arrived. They scribbled a report and left, their eyes tired, indifferent.
Amaan sat on the floor that night, holding her old scarf, refusing to sleep. She had promised never to leave him.
And she had never broken a promise.
3. The First Step into the Unknown
He refused to believe she was gone forever.
A week after her disappearance, Amaan found a small journal hidden beneath her mattress. The pages were filled with notes, sketches, and names he didn’t recognize. But one entry stood out, written in her hurried hand:
“If anything happens to me, remember this: I’ve been followed. Since your father disappeared. They’re looking for something—something called AL-888. I don’t understand it completely. But I fear it's the reason people vanish.”
AL-888. It sounded like a code. Or a secret.
Amaan didn’t know what it meant—but he knew where to start. He began asking questions.
4. Whispers in the City
Lahore’s heart was loud and messy, but in its corners were men who saw too much and spoke too little. Amaan roamed its streets, showing people his mother’s picture.
Some ignored him. Some shook their heads.
But one man, a chai seller near the railway station, leaned forward and whispered, “I saw her. She was talking to a foreigner. White coat. Looked like a scientist.”
Amaan’s heart raced.
The clue led him to an old physics professor, Mr. Shamsher, who once taught at the university where Aleena briefly worked as a data assistant. When shown the journal, Mr. Shamsher turned pale.
“AL-888 was a classified memory project. It was about extracting and replicating human memories. Your father once worked on it. We thought the program was shut down… but maybe it wasn’t.”
Amaan’s eyes widened. “Do you know where it was based?”
Shamsher nodded slowly. “In a forgotten village. Near the northern border. A place erased from most maps—Darwaza.”
5. The Long Road North
With only a photograph, some money from Shamsher, and a compass his mother once gave him, Amaan boarded a northbound train. He was only twelve, but determination aged him far beyond his years.
Through thunderous rain and dusty plains, he reached Darwaza—a quiet, weather-beaten village where strangers were watched like hawks.
He showed villagers his mother’s picture. Most turned away. One elderly woman took his hand and whispered, “They took her to the mountain.”
“What mountain?”
She pointed toward the horizon.
“Where the birds don’t fly.”
6. The Mountain of Secrets
Amaan trekked for hours, guided by the old woman’s words and a stormy sky. Near sunset, he stumbled upon an iron gate hidden by brambles. Beyond it lay a crumbling research facility.
He slipped through a hole in the fence and entered.
Inside were machines that hummed faintly, broken wires dangling like vines. Dust danced in the air, and the walls whispered stories of experiments long forgotten.
In a locked chamber, Amaan found a projector still operational. He pressed a button.
A recording played.
It was her.
“I am Aleena Khan. If my son ever finds this… know that I never stopped loving you. They are using my memories to extract patterns. They believe my husband—your father—hid a sequence in my mind. Something to do with AL-888. I don’t know if I’ll make it out.”
Tears blurred Amaan’s eyes. She had been alive. She had fought.
He wasn’t too late.
7. The Final Trail
Among old files and discarded hard drives, Amaan discovered a USB drive labeled AL888_EXP-FINAL. On it was a GPS coordinate, buried in layers of code. Mr. Shamsher, whom Amaan contacted again, decrypted it for him.
It pointed to a heavily guarded underground facility near the Khyber Pass.
“I can’t help you get inside,” Shamsher warned. “But I can give you a contact. A friend in the army who owes me a favor.”
The next morning, Amaan met Captain Usman, a stern-faced man who didn’t ask questions. He arranged a covert entry into the compound.
“We only get one shot,” he told Amaan. “If she's there, we take her. If not, we vanish.”
Amaan nodded. His heart beat louder than drums.
8. The Rescue
At midnight, with stars cloaked in clouds, they slipped through the fences.
Inside, the facility was silent but pulsing with life—lights flickering, guards patrolling.
They moved quickly, avoiding cameras, until they reached a door labeled AL-888 Subjects – Level 2.
Inside, a row of rooms with glass walls. Amaan rushed past them, scanning faces.
Then he stopped.
Room 7.
There she was.
Older. Thinner. But her eyes—those warm, endless eyes—were still the same.
“Ammi…” he breathed.
She turned. For a moment, she didn’t move.
Then her face crumbled.
“Amaan?”
They broke the lock. Alarms began to wail. But Amaan didn’t care. He held her hand tightly as they ran.
And for the first time in a year, the world felt whole again.
9. Rebuilding the Light
They escaped just in time.
The facility was soon “relocated” by the authorities, and every trace of AL-888 was sealed. Captain Usman ensured they were given new identities and moved to a quiet coastal town far from the shadows of the past.
There, in a small white cottage surrounded by sunflowers, Amaan and Aleena began again.
She would wake him every morning with the same words: “Good morning, my little lion.”
He would smile, hug her tightly, and reply, “I roared until I found you.”
And when the nights turned quiet, they would sit under the stars—just like old times.
Except now, their silence was not filled with fear.
But with peace.
Post a Comment