Chapter 1 Zainab's Last Smile
It was around eight o’clock in the evening. The city park was more crowded with people than ever, and the surroundings were filled with the sounds of laughter.
Under the glow of colorful lights, Zainab and I were walking slowly within the crowd that swayed like a current. She suddenly stopped. Looking at me with an endless love in her eyes, she smiled and held my arm tightly.
The warm touch of her fingers at that moment felt as though it burned my body to ashes. Inside me, however, a true fire of hell seemed to burn, and various thoughts were gnawing at my brain like worms.
To avoid showing the horrific thoughts scratching my soul, I forced my lips to pull aside-I tried to grin at her in a fake manner.
“Shall we eat ice cream?” she asked suddenly.
Her eyes were shining just like the stars in the sky. These eyes were beautiful enough to melt anyone who looked into them.
It was as if the feeling called lust had deliberately cast her eyes this way just to make me a captive.Unable to find the strength to speak, with something stuck in my throat, I nodded slowly.
Seeing this innocent, simple smile of hers, so distant from all the evils in the world, and seeing how incredibly happy and safe she felt, caused something inside me to snap. For some reason, an endless pity and, at the same time, terror awoke in my heart toward her.
“Poor thing... if only she knew that only a numbered days of life remain in this tiny body of hers, and that it is precisely I, the one who loves this girl, the one who just smiled at her, who will put an end to her living, what state would she fall into? Would she still look at me with such affectionate eyes then? Why did she have to set a condition for me, forcing me to make a choice? Did she ever consider that this mistake of hers would cost her dearly?“
”What are you daydreaming about?” Zainab suddenly slowed her pace and stared at me so searchingly that the blood seemed to freeze in my veins. I shuddered as if she were about to rip out the secret beneath my consciousness right now, and my heart beat with a thud as if it would pierce through my chest. “Your mind is so scattered today.“
”You stay and sit here for a moment,” I said, gathering all my willpower so that my voice would not tremble. I took her to a miserable, deserted bench at the edge of the walkway, sat her down, and took my phone out of my pocket.
“I will be right back... a very urgent matter has come up.“As I hurriedly dialed the number with trembling fingers, two voices inside me screamed, fighting each other, strangling each other’s throats: “No, I cannot do this! When so many wicked, vile, and despicable people in the world live on as if nothing happened, what is wrong if this innocent creature lives? Why must I kill her? Is her sin that she loved me madly?! Was it not my own lust that forced me to love her?!“On the phone, long, tedious ringtones, cold as the silence of a graveyard, echoed, but the person on the other side showed no intention of picking up the receiver. Each second stretched out like a century. Stealthily, as if caught in the act of a crime, I looked toward her. The poor girl... she was still licking her ice cream with childish simplicity and delight, and she involuntarily smiled with satisfaction, looking at the cheerful screams of the children riding the Ferris wheel that soared into the skies. Standing like that, at the moment when the gentle breeze was playing with her hair, she was very beautiful, very elegant.At that moment, a thought full of panic flashed in my brain: “What about me? If she remains alive, what will be my fate? If this talk reaches my family, will my career and life not come to an end?“These two different kinds of thoughts, which drove me into a real frenzy and to the brink of losing my mind, were tearing my soul into pieces: one shouted to escape this black swamp completely, while the other screamed that killing such a beautiful and innocent helpless woman in the world was the most unpardonable, most monstrous sin. Finally, the voice from the long-awaited phone was heard, and the chain of thoughts shattering my mind suddenly broke.
“Hello?“
”Hello! I want to cancel the order!” I said hurriedly.
“This is absolutely impossible,” answered the person on the other side, hard as stone, cold, and firm. “Time, people, and funds have already been staked on this job. You agreed to the contract of your own free will. That day you were kneeling and begging on our doorstep, and now do you want to mock us?“
”I will take all expenses upon myself! No matter how much you ask, I will pay it all, just stop this work!” I said, my breath catching in my throat. My heart was beating as if it would burst outside.
“Fine, right now I am calculating the account and the place to deliver the funds...“
My hands trembling, the phone fell to the ground. Hurriedly, I bent down and picked up the phone.
As I straightened my stature, my eyes fell upon Zainab sitting on the bench. She opened her eyes wide, stared at me for a moment, and collapsed to her side. She did not even manage to groan, made no sound whatsoever, and did not even know what happened.
The cheerful, colorful life around seemed to come to a sudden halt. People nearby began to run toward this direction in a panic. As for me, with my limbs frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening, I stood paralyzed in a daze. The existence around me had turned into one giant, black dream.
“Oh my God, it’s blood! Call an ambulance! Someone help!” this woman’s terrified, horrific scream brought me to my senses.
Fear flowed in my veins instead of blood. I did not know what to do. Approaching her corpse right now was equal to a death penalty for me; as a direct accomplice and the contractor of the murder, I would immediately fall into the noose.
But if I did not go... the person who was once the most beloved to me, whose love had lit up my heart, now lay in a single handful, mingled with the dirt.
In an instant, the park fell into chaos, and a mass of people gathered. The colorful lights around began to shine even brighter, as if exposing my crime to the whole world.
Forcing myself to get a grip, I dissolved into the crowd that had become witnesses to the murder and quickened my steps.
Moving further away, I was continuously cursing myself inside, damning myself like a dog: “What on earth was this anyway? I had canceled the order! After all, we had agreed to perform it when I was not here, when I was in a distant place, far from suspicion! If someone among those in the park saw her coming together with me now, it’s over, my situation is bad. No matter what it takes, I must get her phone; the messages and last calls in it will choke my throat like a noose!“
Panic and the instinct for survival prevailing, I hurriedly turned back again. Pushing my way through the people, I shouted, giving my voice a fake, panic-filled boldness:
“I am a doctor! Make way, I am a doctor!”
In fear, the people opened up a gap for me. I knelt down before her body, which was growing bloodless and pale by the minute.
I looked into her eyes... Those eyes, beautiful like those of an innocent, harmless deer, had already managed to turn into cold glass. They stared back wide with horror as if screaming at me, “Why did you do this? Why did you kill me?”
My hands trembling as if a seizure had taken hold, I slowly opened her bag, took her phone, and shoved it into my pocket. At that moment, from afar, the siren sound of an ambulance arrived, shaking the park. I threw myself back into the crowd and dissolved into the nightly darkness.
It is all over...
