Chapter 208
"And may, by the permission of Allah, our five companions return to us."
That final sentence, a sentence containing neither threat nor warning nor suspicion, a sentence filled only with such sincere hope that it felt like the waters of Zamzam, never diminishing despite the passing of thousands of years, a sentence spoken by someone who knew that Nirma did not belong to this era yet still chose to pray for her, lingered within Nirma's heart like a mist unwilling to disappear even as the sun began to rise over the eastern horizon.
And Nirma, who had been trying not to cry because tears were considered a sign of weakness in the temporal agents' handbook she had memorized by heart, felt something warm gathering in the corner of her only left eye.
It was not a tear, because temporal agents did not cry, but something strikingly similar to one, something that could only be described as the body's response to the reality that someone had just prayed for her, someone who did not know her, did not know her name, did not know the past filled with decisions she could never be proud of, yet still chose to pray for her as though she were an honored guest rather than an intruder who deserved to be driven away.
Within Nirma's heart, in the very same place where those words of yellow light still echoed like ripples upon water that never truly faded even after the stone that created them had long since sunk to the bottom, a question slowly began to take shape, not through words but through feeling, not through logic but through intuition, not through sound but through a silence that suddenly felt heavier than usual.
"Is this a karamah? Is this a blessing granted to me, to an intruder who has never prayed, never fasted, never recited a single verse from the Scripture believed in by the people of this century, in order to guide me toward discovering where the Great Abnormal has hidden those five companions?"
The question had no answer, at least not one she could uncover through data, algorithms, or probability, because karamah, as she had once read in one of the Temporal Cross-Police's archived files concerning religious phenomena across countless timelines, could never be measured by any instrument, never predicted by any formula, never replicated by any technology, for it was something bestowed by that which could never be comprehended by something far too occupied with understanding everything.
And before Nirma could sink even deeper into that ocean of questions without a bottom, the very same ocean that had perhaps already drowned thousands before she was ever born, people who questioned too much and believed too little, Arya shattered her train of thought.
Not with a loud voice, because Arya was never loud unless danger stood directly before him, but with a voice that suddenly emerged beside her left ear, a voice rising from behind the veil of obscurity that was gradually thinning as dawn drew nearer, a voice that said,
"Nirma. Hey. You're still here, aren't you? Not somewhere else beyond my reach?"
Nirma shook her head, one short, firm motion, like someone who had just realized she was not alone within her overcrowded mind, that someone else was walking beside her with blood still pooling between his fingers, waiting for orders, waiting for instructions, waiting for his captain to return from a journey she had never spoken about to anyone.
"What is it, Arya?" she asked, her voice emerging steadier than she had expected, steadier than she truly felt, calm like the surface of a lake concealing currents beneath it powerful enough to drown anyone unable to swim.
"Is there something you wanted to discuss? Or are you simply making sure I'm not hallucinating again?"
Arya smiled, a smile she could not see through the lingering haze, yet Nirma sensed it from the way his shoulders relaxed by half an inch, from the way his breathing suddenly became longer than before, from the subtle change in the vibration of his voice as it shifted from anxiety into something calmer, more like someone who had finally found solid ground amid earth that refused to stop moving.
"I've prepared something, Nirma," Arya said, his voice quiet yet unmistakably clear, clear like water flowing over stones polished smooth by thousands of years, clear like Sinta's name being written again upon a wooden board, only this time with different ink.
"A surveillance eye. A device that allows us to observe the team formed by the Messenger of Allah, their every movement, their conversations, everything they see and hear inside Anas's house. And more importantly, it can be deactivated at any time we choose, leaving behind no trace that anyone could track, neither the Companions of this century nor the Temporal Cross-Police of the future."
He paused for a moment, swallowing as his throat suddenly felt dry, and when he continued, his voice grew softer, almost a whisper, like someone who realized he was asking for something he perhaps had no right to ask.
"But I need your permission first, Nirma. Because you're the captain. And the captain, as you yourself taught me when we first met in that corridor of time that was on the verge of collapsing, is the one who must make the final decision, not because they know the most, but because they are the one most prepared to bear the consequences of every decision made under their command."
Nirma heard those words, and within her chest, in the same place that had only moments ago been filled with the sentences of yellow light, something stirred, not emotion, not thought, not intuition, but something older than all of them, something that might be called trust, or perhaps surrender, or perhaps nothing at all, because it required no name in order to exist.
"Do it," Nirma said, her voice carrying a certainty that left no room for second thoughts, a tone like a blade that knew precisely where it should strike, a certainty born from the conviction that there was no choice except to move forward, because retreat would mean admitting that everything they had done that night, every piece of data they had stolen, every coordinate they had traced, every wound they had suffered, was nothing more than dust destined to be scattered by the wind once dawn had passed.
"Activate the device, Arya. And let us witness what we were never meant to see."
And within a fraction of a second, faster than the blink of an eye, faster than the pounding heartbeat driven by fear too stubborn to be acknowledged, faster than a prayer left unspoken because the tongue was too occupied biting the lip to restrain the unrestrainable, five thin holographic screens illuminated the air before them, glowing with a pale blue light visible only to Nirma's left eye and Arya's dark brown eyes, shining like five windows opening into the same room from five different angles.
Those five windows revealed everything unfolding inside the house of Anas ibn an-Nadhr at the very same moment Nirma and Arya stood not far beyond its courtyard, with blood still pooled between Arya's fingers and the suffocating atmosphere around them refusing to fade.
Meanwhile, the question continued to linger within Nirma's heart, whether karamah was truly real or merely a mirage created by her exhausted mind after hours without sleep.
To be continued…