Chapter 232

Moosa was lost in the whirlwind of his thoughts, trapped in the middle of comprehension, trying to grasp the horror of what was about to unfold, what was about to happen before his eyes. Comprehension, in that moment, was not a luxury he could afford; it was a wound he could not stop picking at. The silence was suffocating, the tension stretching endlessly, until it was broken by the sharp, violent sound of gunfire. Not just one gunshot, but multiple shots ringing out in rapid succession, tearing through the air with merciless precision.

And then it happened. His father’s body fell to the ground, lifeless and still. The fall was not dramatic; it was ordinary, a collapse that mocked the enormity of what had been taken. The bright blood marking the white tiles, a hole in his forehead, deep punctures in his chest and neck. The sound of the bullets and the thud of his body hitting the ground reverberated in Moosa’s ears, a final, brutal punctuation to a life that had been his anch