F o r t y  T w o
This one is for YouAintInvited
:)

If Allah wants to do good to somebody,
He afflicts him with trials.

-Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم

☆

5 years ago
Damascus, Syria

Narrator

It was a beautiful day.

The translucent clouds covering the golden sun in the blue spring sky. Warmth and white sunshine engulfed the pedestrians, the birds coming in flocks from colder climates to settle in Syria for the warmth it offered.
The yellowish white jasmine flowers in full bloom, spreading an air of intense fragrance.

Mohammaed Zeyara Suleiman stood on the pavement, grinning. His windswept dark hair seemed blonde in the yellow sunshine and brown eyes, which seemed to be hazel. His gaze fixed on the green traffic light which allowed the cars to use the road.

All the sixteen year old boy wanted at that time was the green to turn red, the traffic to stop and make way for him to cross the road to reach the Al Salam hospital in front of him.
The straps of his heavy school bag dug mercilessly into his shoulder blades but he didn't seem to care.

He was going to see his mother, a nurse in the hospital. This was always the best part of his day. After finishing school he would go straight to his mother's hospital instead of going home. His mother, Naila, a tall Egyptian lady with thin lips and the brightest of smiles, was the one from whom Zeyara had inherited his curls. She would always rebuke him for coming through such busy roads but then being a mother and knowing that Zeyara would never go home without her, she would sigh in defeat and give him her iPhone to play Temple Run while she packed her stuff to go back home.

Then they would go home together, hand in hand, where the two year old Marwa would be waiting with her grandmother and sick father who could do nothing but stay in bed.
His heart could be operated but it required money.
Something they were short on.

Naila had doubts though, about whether her son came for her or for the years old iPhone, the only smartphone at their home.

Zeyara frowned, today the traffic light seemed to be stuck on green. He used to cross the road even when the light was green but Naila had seen him do it a day before and had warned him not to do it again.
"Don't ever cross the road when the cars are moving." She had said. "I can't lose my only son."

The traffic light finally turned green, bringing the grin back on Zeyara's face.
He was happy.
His mother was just a few metres away. Soon he would hug her and pretend to play Temple Run on her phone when actually he would be using the free hospital wi fi to hunt for jobs, careers which offered the most money and ways to save a heart patient without operation.

And then it happened; the incident that was going to shape the rest of his life, haunt his days and turn every dream into a nightmare.

How he wished he had not seen it, but he had. He had been a sixteen year old witness to the ISIS air strike on the Al Salam hospital.

His heart ramming in his chest, the ambulance sirens ringing in his ears, the rising smoke, the shattered glass shreds flowing in the air. One even struck his face under the eye, his beautiful face because of which the neighbours used to say to Naila. "You should've named him Yusuf."
A tiny stream of blood followed, as if it was a stream of his tears, red tears.

He didn't shake yet, nor did he cry.

He just stood there, watching the building and his mother turning to a wreck. The firefighters trying to finish the aftermath and the peramedics running in and coming back with lifeless bodies under white sheets on a stretcher.

The next he knew, he was running past the road towards the burning building. Men pulled on him, trying to stop him from going inside as it was still dangerous, there was still fire, but he broke free.
People tried chasing him but when they saw him running into the fire, they stopped. They couldn't risk their own lives.

Zeyara ran crazy in the vast smoking ruins. Black dust fumes hovered in the air, invading his lungs, making him cough. The fallen walls were charred and blackened, glass shreds littered on the uneven floor, burnt dead bodies crumbled under his feet as he went from one corner to the other, screaming. "Ummi! Ummi!"

The stairs that led to the second floor, where he mostly found Naila were blackened, orange flames danced under the wooden staircase. One wrong step and he would fall into the fire, turning him into nothing but ashes or maybe if he was lucky, a crumpled black skeleton.

His eyes had started watering now, his mother was not replying back. Emotions blurred his senses and he found himself running up those ruined stairs.

His fate was already written by the Most Merciful, nothing could prevent that. Or maybe his fate had been worse, and his mother's dua had made it easier for him. It might have been written for him to die in the fire, but instead when his feet faltered and he fell into the fire, he didn't die.

He did burn his face though, and his left foot as well.

It struck Zeyara's mind when they were taking him to a hospital that maybe his mother had known. Maybe she had known when she had said, "Don't ever cross the road when the cars are moving. I don't want to lose my only son."

She couldn't have known though but unknowingly she had saved him from being in the hospital when the air strike hit.

♡

"80% of your face has been burnt. A plastic surgery of such level would require millions."
The doctor said grimly, pushing back his half moon glasses on his nose.
Through his almost closed eyes, Zeyara could see, the doctor, Saeed Hamid, had black hair neatly settled on his head and brown eyes, the same colour as Zeyara.

Zeyara didn't reply. He had no answer for that. He didn't have millions and by some luck if he ever got that amount, he would prefer to use it for his father who was on the edge of life and death.

Hamid heaved a deep remorseful sigh. "Tell me boy, why did you run into the burnt building?"

"Ummi." Zeyara whispered, barely audible. Speaking pained him, his burnt facial muscles didn't allow it.

The doctor shifted in his chair and kept on staring at the burnt, faceless boy. The boy's grandmother had come along with his little sister to visit the boy, but when the little sister saw the horrid face, she had started crying. The grandmother couldn't even look at him and so they went home saying that she had to look after Suleiman, Zeyara's father.
Hamid had observed it all with his own eyes.

"You know, my son has the same first name as you, Zeyara bin Hamid."

Zeyara wasn't sure if he was listening to what the doctor was saying. All he could see in front of his eyes was the look of disgust on his grandmother's face when she had seen him and the crying face of Marwa who had screamed hysterically when she saw him, the same Marwa who couldn't sleep at night without using Zeyara as a teddy bear.

"I can offer you something because you're brave and we need such people. That air strike was an act of hate by terrorists who don't understand KalamAllah. Quran. I sense that you have what it takes to be a part of Alnihayya, you know Alnihayya right? Naeem Ansar?"

Zeyara had simply nodded, not knowing where this conversation was headed. He knew Alnihayya very well, everyone in Syria knew Alnihayya.

"I'll do your surgery for free. I'll give you Zeyara bin Hamid's face. He is our best and youngest, not younger than you though. Giving you his face will make it easy for him to do his missions, especially when you both have the same name, almost the same height and the same eye colour. Everyone will think you are him while he will be on his mission. You need money for your father's bypass? You'll get plenty. Just join Alnihayya."

Zeyara had not replied to him. He had thrown his heavy head back on the pillow and pretended not to hear any of it.
Getting someone else's face was something he could never imagine. What would happen to his face. His beautiful face that his mother had seen and loved? He would never do that for all the wealth in the world.

He had remained in the hospital for three days without saying anything to anyone. On the fourth day, news came for him that his grandmother had passed away.

"She had a good long life without any sickness." The neighbour had told him on the phone, the same neighbour who had once told Zeyara's mother to name him Yusuf. "It was her time now son, she had a peaceful death. You should be happy. Marwa is with me and your father, well he cried a lot. You know it's bad for him but he won't listen."

Zeyara thought his father was lucky that he could cry, because Zeyara couldn't even do that. The fire had burnt his tear glands. He couldn't smile, he couldn't frown, he had no face, no expressions.

That day when Hamid came for Zeyara's regular inspection, Zeyara agreed before confirming that the surgery could be undone later on, if he wanted.

It went smoothly from then onwards, Suleiman's operation was a success, Zeyara had to convince him that he got the money for the operation from his mother's life insurance. Which in reality, she never had. Little Marwa soon forgot the old face of his brother and accepted the new one.

Suleiman would often ask that Zeyara used to be different and the answer Zeyara would give was, "You spent two years on bed Abbi. A lot changes in two years."

"I know, I know I'm getting old but how can you change so much?"

"I got some burns that day at the hospital." Zeyara would say, "They had to do a bit of plastic surgery to fill the gaps."

That would remind Suleiman of his wife's death and he would grow silent, forgetting about everything else. He would use this sentence quite frequently. "See, that's qadr. I was on the bed but she was the one to die."

At Alnihayya, Zeyara was gradually increasing in ranks. MZS, he had chosen for himself. He didn't want to be called Zeyara bin Hamid. After getting his face changed, the last thing he wanted was his name to change. Zeyara bin Hamid agreed to it. They both would share the same name MZS.

For Zeyara Suleiman it meant:
M-uhammad
Z-eyara
S-uleiman

For Zeyara bin Hamid it meant:
M-e
Z-ara
S- aeed

Zara, his beloved sister and Saeed his family name.

Training revealed his true strengths. Soon Zeyara Suleiman was getting even better than Zeyara bin Hamid.
Soon Zeyara Suleiman was getting the real missions and Zeyara bin Hamid became his shadow.

☆

So there you have it!

I hate writing in third person but I had to stretch myself a bit for this. Now I don't even have to ask you about Zeyara anymore. You know almost everything about him now.

Thank you so much for reading this you all! You have no idea how much I appreciate this. 😍

Assalam o alaikum!

-Muskaan.