Read the Author's note on the ending.
kithaab_lover9 tala-al-badru the earning Spirit brace your hearts.

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem.

Also an aesthetic on Samra:

Life is unpredictable.

Sometimes, it represents the four seasons. The road of our journey is filled with the warmth of the bright sun, letting the orange ball of fire to illuminate our way. The flowers bloomed during the earlier spring spread their aura of beautiful scents, their beauty was specially kept for the wayfarer to marvel and when everything seems pleasant, eventually, life throws us a twist, and when we react to turn around, the huge trees that lined our way start to shed their leaves. We stand on the autumn of our fall. The road becomes bumpy and unbreathable. When we break, crumble, and collapse to the ground unable to even stand-the sky whirls gloomy and grey, the winter rains commence drenching us wet. The salty tears mingle with the heavenly rivers of the raindrops. The moment before the last of our hopes diminish is the exact moment of the marking of our test-if we hold our trance even for a second longer with the ending spark of our quickly diminishing patience, the sky would clear out, the water would be soaked, the sun that once shined in the ceiling of our atmosphere would be brought back to life. Everything that went wrong would become right. Every prayer we uttered with our shattered self would become reality. Finally, every trial we underwent would turn out to be a blessing on it's own.

Samra's was no different. She drew a puff of air inside her nostrils to breathe out it the next second and she repeated the same process again and again but her chaotic breathing didn't waver. Her veil suffocated her. Her trembling fingers flew to the back of her head to remove the knot that secured her niqab in place. She pulled the knot to loosen it and to remove the covering that covered her face whenever she went out.

Samra stared at the washroom mirror which showed her the reflection of her face which was always radiant but at that moment it looked otherwise, it looked miserable. She loosened her hijab to allow the air to touch all of her skin. Baby hair lined her forehead, her auburn hair was matted in place due to the constant pressure of the hijab that binded them. Her thick eyebrows were dotted with light beads of sweat. Her gaze flickered to her midnight black pupils, their view resembled to be that of a well. Dark and hollow, ready to pull out water. White crescent dots of the light reflected the moon in the water. Her snub nose looked almost pointy and her full lips were quivering, her teeth biting her lower lip controlling the sobs that erupted from deep within her chest.

Her olive skin radiated warmth and pain at the same time.

He never saw this face.

He never got to see this face.

Her fragile fingers reached her dimpled chin, her eyes pooled and glistened, like a river-ready to break out any moment. Her heart-shaped face shimmered with his memories.

After her rejection of his proposal, he had left the job and the hospital along with any contact with her until today. The flashes of flashbacks before his proposal-during the time of their University, they were grouped up together, they did everything related to studies with each other's support and presence.

Being a victim of harassment, to be with him was the hardest thing for Samra. A single glance of his at her way would cause her goosebumps and an insurmountable fear to grip her body but eventually, his jovial personality got into her skin, if she trusted one man on this earth, it was him.

He was close to her more than he was to Jesima and Rafa. They shared so many precious moments that were forever etched in her memories until the day he broke up to her that he had feelings for her. That caused a rift of unwanted awkwardness in the air around them then.

She still remembered that day vividly, it was the time they were first given a case of surgery to do on their own. Everything was going perfect and they withdrew a crying boy baby out of his ten month long hibernating place called his mother's womb. Ahmed held the boy in his gloved hands while Samra clamped and cut the umbilical cord. The moment almost seemed MAGICAL.

Their happiness were short-lived because, at the next juncture, the staff nurse who stood opposite to them gasped aloud. Samra quickly gave the newborn to another one of the staff who stood beside her to clean and weigh him. Her vision procured the view of crimson fluid gushing out and wetting the patient's disposable operating gown.

"Ahmed, it's a premature separation of the placenta", she pointed out.

The placenta should be delivered after 5-10 minutes after the incision but in case of premature separation, there will be more bleeding from the uterine site where the placenta was attached.

The patient's pulse rate raised and she started to become breathless, at the same time her face paled and her blood pressure started to fall at a high speed.

The atmosphere turned tensed.

" Bring us the balloon catheter", Ahmed ordered in a hurry. The only way to stop the excessive bleeding is to give uterine compression by packing the uterus with a sterile balloon catheter.

The staff nurses dispersed to do the task that were given to them, leaving the couple with the patient. Though his face was covered with a surgical mask, his head covered with a surgical cap, clear crease lines showed from the slight gap between the mask and the cap. He seemed to be more tauten more than her. "Sam", he called her nickname the one which he only the one who uses, making her hands still from doing the task at her hand. When she looked up to meet his gaze with scrunched eyebrows where we're banded with confusion, he confessed, " I love you".

Time didn't lapse like in the movies. Nothing froze to eternity. Samra just furrowed her eyebrows more, giving him an incredulous look which yelled are-you-kidding-me?

Before he could reply, the nurse brought the catheter they asked for, and Ahmed turned to give the patient his total attention. Samra was also so much engrossed in treating the patient that soon enough his confession dripped out of her mind. It was later when they were in the attached washroom to the operation theatre that she addressed the subject. "Phew! Alhamdulilah. That was something".

" I know right? For a moment, I thought we are going to lose the mother", Ahmed chuckled removing his scrubs and patting a bottle of hand wash to pour in his palm.

"Yes, the fear was all over your face", Samra gratefully took the bottle which he passed, and pushed the knob inside to make the soupy liquid come out. " Seriously? Your pranks can't get any more severe. You confessed like you were going to die", she giggled jabbing the bottle playfully in his arm.

Ahmed frowned and turned the faucet off to look at her eyes. "Sam, it was not a prank".

" What?", she blabbered, suddenly confused.

"I was not kidding. I was serious about what I confessed".

Samra's breathing hitched and she broke the eye contact. Awkwardness surrounded them and the air turned soggy. That time, she didn't know why he confessed his feelings in an operation theatre in front of an almost dying patient but later when he told their friends that his mother died delivering him, she connected the dots, everything made sense. After that incident, their friendship wasn't like before, Samra didn't find words in her dictionary to talk to him.

If Allah had asked her to choose one person with who she wanted to live her life, in the blink of an eye, she would choose Ahmed's company. Ahmed was such a nice acquaintance to be with but Marriage was out of her league, it not only involved emotional investment, but it also involved physical bonding. She lacked it in herself to produce the courage to give her to him. It was the hardest possible thing someone could ask from her.

Tears poured through her thick eyelashes and fell over her cheek.

Thereupon resigning the job, Ahmed never contacted her or disturbed her. She would cry herself to sleep thinking about him and the impossible future he adhered to. Her heart would break into shards and when Rafa broke the information that he was leaving for Palestine, she couldn't will herself to look into her face in the mirror. She was the reason, she was the one who pushed him to leave his secure shore and to plunge inside the deep dangerous ocean.

She shook her head vehemently, scolding herself for standing idle and wasting the time. He needed help and this time, she is going to provide him her support.

She is not going to deprive him like she always did.

...

Samra crossed the sea of people that pooled the corridor with a determination set in her mind. She knew who to ask the help for but she didn't have in her heart to disturb Jesima and to add another pile of problems to her plate. Nevertheless, she didn't have any other choice but to inform them what has occurred.

Each passing day, Aashiq's illness ate him a bit more and more, so and so that he was subsequently admitted to the hospital to at least provide him the essentials.

Jesima was going through a phase, Samra feared to even stand for a second. It was so hard. No words could weigh down the immense tribulation her life threw her way. She was strangled in the water to grasp for thin air to survive.

Samra's tapping foot came to an abrupt stop near the window her friend's husband was admitted into. She saw Jesima holding his hand and speaking with him and when their eyes landed on the one standing near the window, Jesima got up from her seat and rushed outside.

" Samra?".

Samra was a mess of jumbled nerves, her footing deceived her, her basement of hope shuddered with each click in the clock. "Jesima, I am so sorry--", Samra stepped forward to clutch Jesima's diminutive fingers in her hand.

" What are you sorry for?", Jesima asked, confused at the worn-out expression of her friend.

"Jess, Bhai is calling you", Anjum interrupted the two and Jesima held Samra's hand in hers and guided her inside the room which was filled with all sorts of life supporting systems.

" What happened, Samra?", Aashiq asked worriedly.

Saltwater welled up in her eye sockets and she closed her eyelids to let them out. "It's Ahmed", she barely whispered his name.

" What happened to Ahmed?", Jesima turned Samra to face her. A slight panic found it's way in her words.

Samra's veil stuck to her face due to the wetness of tears and she felt too tired to clean the tangle. "He called me, Jesima. We were talking on the phone and suddenly there were huge noises", she stammered. " The sound was almost blinding and the phone call got cut

"I-I think there were a-air st--strikes".

Jesima blinked at Samra's words, the information was too hard to take in. She then started to shake her head vigorously, "Nothing-nothing would have happened to him", she took a few steps back and searched the room, her mobile phone lay on the table adjacent to Aashiq's bed. " I will go check on him", she strolled out.

Samra put a hand on her veiled face in defeat. The time went lethally slow. The ticking of the clock was like a knife's stab until Aashiq broke the silence,"You love him, don't you?". Aashiq's question muzzled her, she didn't have in herself the strength to fight this battle of self-defense against Ahmed. Not anymore. Not when he is no more. It was plain to fight a battle when she knew from the start that she would lose. It would become an understatement if she shakes her head and says
I-am-not-in-love-with-Amy-no-not-at-all.

Not after his last call.

Begrudgingly another teardrop leaked out of her eyelashes and rolled beneath her niqab.

The time reached almost to the end of her duty. Her heart like always was missing her companion-who helped her with everything and nothing when she started to wrap her things up. She was in the middle of sorting her handbag to get ready to leave the premises of the hospital when her phone started vibrating from where it laid across her table beside her nameplate.

She perked up her eyebrows to grab the phone and when her eyes landed on the green fonts of the name of the person she was literally thinking a second before caused her fingers to freeze holding the phone. For a second, she forgot to breathe.

After the awkward meeting outside the hospital where they parted their ways, there was no contact from him. It wouldn't have been a problem if she didn't care but the problem in her situation was she cared. She cared about him. She wanted his well being. She wanted to see him happy. She wanted to see him settle down all the affairs in his life that bothered him. She wanted to see him daily as a friend if not more. She wanted to hear his snickers. She wanted to laugh at his pranks. Drool over his charms.

When he didn't approach her, a part of her already dead heart, died. A part that craved for him to be around her. One segment of her treacherous beating organ in her chest missed the view of the ocean tides of his blue orbs which glittered with the mirth of the depths of the love they contained inside.

Seeing him call her after so long made her pause her brain from jolting into a round of rapid-fire questions - whose answers she didn't perceive. Not yet.

Before the call got cut, she slashed the screen to the right and attended it. She pulled the phone near her left ear. " Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, Sam", she wouldn't disagree if the voice didn't soothe the state of storm she was undergoing.

"Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, Am--Ahmed", she bit her bottom lip for slipping the nickname she was so used to calling him, the same name which he despised.

She heard a snicker from his side which made her heart skip yet another beat. " You know, I won't mind if you stick with calling me that name".

"It's okay. I don't want your special allocations. Might be because you secretly want me to send you more of my Mom's Sandesh mishti", it was a traditional Bengali dessert that her Mom had sent him when he left for Palestine.

" You shouldn't always find out my underlying secret temptations" if her heart skipped a beat with a snicker before, it skipped several beats when she earned a hearty laugh. A small smile grazed through her lips. Thank Allah! He was on the phone call not in person. "But, on serious notes, Your mom deserves the Master chef award. I cannot come to think of how you cook when your mom is so gifted. Learn from her Sam, learn from her".

" Why?", she blurted out.

"It will be useful in our future".

Samra fell dumb, silence fell through the line making Ahmed grimace for bringing this topic at the start of their conversation. His silence caused an even more rift to appear on the draft of her soul. She cringed at her own self.

" Sam?", his voice was raspy.

"Yes?".

He breathed a sigh of relief. " Sam, I know from the start that something bothers you. It stops you from permitting people to know you. To talk with you and to mingle with you. I know, I never can break the high barriers which you have built around yourself but I would always will myself to climb no matter how high and slippery they are--But--

"I would climb them only when you let me to. Only when you are ready. Sam, until I came here, I thought that the problems in my life were the hugest but when I came here, saw the state of the land, faces of the weak people, my whole beliefs shattered. After seeing them, I can bet you a fortune that no one else's problems, are as mightier as them.

"Children are made orphans, girls are raped starting from a very young age, houses are bombed in the middle of the night, airstrikes are poured like fireworks, loads of families have been buried into nemesis under this soil, organs have been trafficked and literally, no one is there for them except Allah.

"Sam, stepping foot in this place is like stepping on a fragment of Jannah. Except it's all dust and ashes in the place of greeneries ad rivers. I am amazed at the amounts of faith they still have in their hearts, the courage in their eyes, the strength in their every step. Even, I don't own that much Iman in myself as much as them. Subhanallah! For me, this place is the real 'Wonder of this world'.",

He talked an hour about the people, their sufferings, about their smile and how contagious it is, about their tears, and how heartbreaking they are. By the time, he halted his trudging the rocks and took a seat, Samra was in a crying predicament. Each free and easy breath she took, she felt grateful for Allah. His voice sounded magical. She melted like an iceberg with each of his spells. " Sam, do you know who I found today?".

"Who?", she choked.

She heard shuffling on his side like he was going inside somewhere, she heard a few voices before Ahmed reached back. Heavenly cries of a baby filled the line. " Sam, this boy is so damn cute. Me and Husna were the ones who operated his mother. Unfortunately, she died giving birth to him". At once, Samra stiffened, this was the weakest weakness of Ahmed. She was stunned by the fact that he chose her over all her friends to share this piece of his heart. Yes, she agrees to the fact that he sees her as special, golden to be precise.

"All my life, I craved the warmth of my mother's arms, I have missed her taking care of me in each step I took as I grew, it always throttles me that I missed the care of the abundant love a mother sheds on her children but looking at him now--", his voice broke with a crooked smile etching his lips, " Sam, I feel grateful. I feel blessed that I at least was born within the outskirts of my Father's silhouette, fresh air to breathe, good food to eat, appropriate materials to cloth myself, a secure shelter to sleep. Alhamdulilah, I was blessed in many twisted ways that I lacked the vision to perceive.

"I will WhatsApp a selfie with him, this boy is so cute, Masha Allah, so cuddle friendly", he choked a laugh, " I am taking care of him for now, Sam. He is so sweet and he has the same blue eyes like mine. Do you know what name I named him?-----", heavy sounds filled in and the phone beeped to oblivion.

Samra almost screamed his name, she repeated it several times to hear his voice to calm her thundering heart. "Ahmed, Oh! Ahmed", she wailed to the phone but his reply never came. She was a crying mess in the empty room. She couldn't breathe without the air pricking into her lungs to bleed. Her heart couldn't pulp without feeling the scarcity of its blood. Chaos blanketed her and she let them take her, she wished at that moment amidst her horrific nightmares was to reach out- to him.

Anjum sat Samra on one of the many chairs that lined to the left of Aashiq and she hopelessly obeyed not knowing what more to say. Each second that lapsed for Jesima to return was like eating soiled grains.

Finally, Jesima entered the room, a hand on her forehead, a distant look on her face, and with a devastated face. " I couldn't reach anyone's phones".

A strangled sigh escaped Samra's throat and she parched her dry lips together. "Jesima, calm down. I am sure nothing would have happened to them. Samra, did Ahmed tell you where he was? Did he mention he was in the medical camp?".

" He said he was touring around to let everybody known that there is a free medical camp where they could take treatment".

That words cut their tongues to utter words of testimony that nothing happened to their loved one. They didn't know what to feel because the tension was immense to handle. "Aashiq, did you check with your side of people?".

Aashiq dialled a few numbers but the final response was a dead end. " I will send someone to go check on them, then because we can't sit here idle to wait for to reach us back", Aashiq finally said with defeat lacing his words, worry in his creased forehead, dreadful pain running through his veins along with the iv.

"I will go", Samra announced with confirmed plight, " Let me go", she pleaded at last meeting Aashiq's gaze and she dared to not look away

"You must be joking, Samra. Already we don't know what happened to Ahmed and now we would never send you to that dangerous place". Jesima at once dismissed.

" Please?", Samra's words were braided with so much intensity that it left the couple to gape at each other.

"Let her, Jesima", Aashiq worded out after a few minutes of deadly stillness.

***

Assalamu alaikum.

You, people, are love. The love and support you people have showered on me are so immense that it melts my heart to be grateful to Allah for blessing me with you guys.

I have been MIA for so long now, not even trying to reply to your texts and MB's. I read them, it surely has acted as a balm to my pain I assure you.

I didn't prod over our power couple on this chapter because MY MOTHER IS ALSO BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER.

We have operated the site and would start chemotherapy in the following weeks. I don't know what more to say and I hope you people would understand what I am going through.

I didn't write about Aashiq because it was very much harder for me now but I promise you, nothing would change in the sequence of this story and I would write as I planned earlier in the following days.

Also, I am dedicating this book to my MOM and planning to wrap this story as soon as possible and try to publish this book before her eyes.

Please do dua for me like always, stay with me. In shaa Allah, when things get better I would be more active here. Until then, I would try to write as much as I can.