In the narrow attic of her old home in Johar Town, dust clung to every surface like memory refusing to let go. The room hadn’t changed since the day Daniyal vanished — stacks of forgotten books, a rusted camera tripod, a chessboard with a game mid-play.
Alishba hadn’t been here in years.
Now she stood at the doorway, unable to step inside.
The air smelled like childhood and betrayal.
Outside, the sun had just begun to set, drenching the room in warm orange — the same light Daniyal used to say was "perfect for portraits with secrets."
She finally stepped forward.
The floorboards creaked under her weight, like they too were unsure of her.
She opened his desk drawers, rummaged through old notebooks, CD cases, and receipts. Nothing.
Then she saw it — a book out of place.
Qudrat Ullah Shahab’s Shahabnama — Daniyal's favorite. Except this copy had no dust. No cobwebs. No sign of time.
She pulled it out, flipped through its pages, and stopped at the middle.
Something was pressed between the paper — an envelope.
The edges were brittle, the writing smudged. But her name was still there.
"Alishba — if you ever learn the truth, read this."
Inside was a single folded sheet of paper, stained in one corner. Faded.
But it wasn’t written in ink.
It was written in blood.
She unfolded it slowly.
Daniyal’s handwriting.
But not in words.
In code.
Each line a sequence of letters and numbers.
Something only someone who knew him could read.
She scanned the lines, heart thudding.
Suddenly, she saw it.
A pattern.
The key was the chessboard.
She ran to it — still set up mid-game.
Daniyal’s side had moved only the white knight.
She remembered.
He always started with that.
And he used it as a cipher.
Each move corresponded to a letter. She mapped it.
F–E–A–R
T–H–E
W–O–L–F
Then the last line:
TRUST NOBODY — NOT EVEN THE PILOT
Alishba dropped the letter.
The attic spun around her.
She rushed out into the dying light of evening, wind cutting across her face as she ran through the streets of Johar Town toward Reyan’s safehouse.
She didn’t knock.
Just barged in.
Reyan was cleaning a rifle.
He stood the second he saw her face.
“What happened?”
She threw the bloodstained letter on the table.
He read it slowly.
Expression never changing — except his eyes. They darkened.
“You still hiding something from me?” she demanded.
“No.”
“Then what does this mean?”
He met her gaze, quiet. “It means your brother didn’t trust anyone by the end.”
“Not even you.”
Reyan didn’t answer.
She stepped closer. “Tell me what else you’re not saying.”
He looked away. “He wasn’t the same man when I saw him last. They’d done something to him. Broke him. Then built him into something else.”
“Built him into what?”
Reyan’s voice dropped. “A ghost. Someone who couldn’t afford loyalty anymore.”
Alishba sat down, breathing hard.
“Then why would he leave this for me?”
Reyan stared at the blood on the page.
“Because maybe… some part of him still wanted to be found.”
That night, Alishba stayed silent.
She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t accuse.
But she didn’t sleep either.
She lay curled on the old charpai, one hand around her camera, the other gripping Daniyal’s letter like it might disappear.
Reyan sat on the balcony, cigarette between his fingers, watching the street.
And in the distance, two black SUVs waited quietly at the corner.
The Black Birds had arrived.
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