Scene 1: The Fire That Spoke Her Name
The smoke rose like mourning veils.
Charred beams collapsed one after another, groaning under the weight of their failure. The scent of rosewater incense—once sprinkled through her family home—had long been overtaken by the acidic stench of ruin.
Zafira stood alone in the center of it all, ten years old, dressed in what was left of her tunic. Ash settled in her curls. Her lips were dry, cracked from the heat.
The world was ending in silence.
She stared at the remnants of her father's study—a table shattered in half, ancient blueprints burned at the edges. Only one thing remained untouched: the pendant.
She stepped forward and picked it from the dust. A golden falcon. Its wings were etched with fine Arabic calligraphy, words her mother once whispered during prayer.
> "With wings of fire, the falcon will rise."
She could still hear her voice.
And then... it was gone.
> "Zafira!"
A shout broke the stillness.
"Zafira, please—!"
Fariq stumbled into the ruins, face streaked with tears and dust. He was shaking. His voice cracked like dry bark.
> "I thought—Ya Allah, I thought they took you too—"
> "They took everything," Zafira said, voice flat. "Not me."
He reached for her, but she stepped back.
> "We have to go," he said. "The others are hiding near the well. We can't stay—"
She turned slowly, locking eyes with him.
> "They came because we had no strength," she said. "Because we believed the world would spare us for being small."
> "Zafira, we're children."
> "Not anymore."
Fariq was speechless. The girl before him wasn't the one he'd grown up playing hide and seek with in the palm groves. She was something else now. Someone forged in silence and fire.
She walked past him, heading toward the desert without a word.
> "Where are you going?" he called.
> "Somewhere no one looks down on ashes."
---
Scene 2: Gears and Ghosts
A full year passed like sand through wind.
Zafira slept in alleys, in abandoned caravans, in the backs of shuttered stalls. She earned bread by fixing what others discarded—watches, pocket radios, toy drones. But her mind was always building something else. Something... larger.
In the backroom of a cramped tech stall outside Mecca, she worked while others haggled over spices and silk.
Wires tangled across her lap. Her hands, blackened by oil, moved in silence.
On the cracked floor lay the remains of a once-sophisticated scout drone—a marvel from the west, battered in some failed conflict. Zafira had studied it for nights. Now, with parts scavenged from broken air filters and mosque speakers, she brought it back to life.
Not just back—better.
She whispered to it like a parent soothing a child.
> "No one will see you until it's too late. You'll be our eyes in the sky."
The drone twitched, hovered, then cloaked entirely.
She smiled. Just a little.
> "What are you doing, rat?"
The dealer's voice cut through her thoughts.
> "Upgrading it," she replied.
He scoffed and waved her away.
A foreign man entered the stall—robes crisp, eyes sharp.
> "This is the girl?" he asked.
> "Yes, yes. Watch this," the dealer boomed. He tossed the drone into the air. "Go!"
It rose, shimmered, and vanished. The man gasped.
> "How—?"
> "Arabian genius," the dealer grinned. "Two hundred gold."
The deal was made.
The dealer took the pouch and threw her a single silver coin.
> "You're lucky I don't charge you for food," he muttered.
Zafira said nothing. Just pocketed the coin.
That night, she didn't eat.
She buried the silver coin deep beneath the sand—alongside a piece of parchment. Her first real sketch.
Project: Sovereign Spark
The armor looked like a forgotten god of the old world. Its lines were bold. Its joints archaic. Its shape—more knight than soldier.
Beneath the drawing, written in Arabic:
> "Those who burn us down forget—
we are made of fire."
She gazed at the stars above.
> "They think I'm nothing," she whispered.
"I will become the storm they beg for mercy."
Absolutely—let's sit with young Zafira a little longer. Let the fire simmer before the storm breaks.
---
Scene 3: The Broken Minaret
A week after the drone was sold, Zafira stopped returning to the stall.
Instead, she made camp in the abandoned ruins of a collapsed minaret at the edge of the city—some said it had fallen during an earthquake, others whispered of cursed winds. To Zafira, it was quiet. That was enough.
By day, she scavenged from landfills, junkyards, forgotten military stock. By night, she studied—blueprints stolen from repair shops, physics textbooks salvaged from burnt-out schools.
And sometimes… she heard whispers.
Not from people. Not from the wind.
From something older.
---
Scene 4: The First Flicker of Magic
It happened on a night without stars.
Zafira sat cross-legged, scribbling diagrams in the dirt. A small power core she'd rigged began pulsing faint blue in the corner. She was experimenting with resonance, trying to create a feedback loop—when the pulse suddenly changed.
The blue turned violet. Then deep crimson.
The hum deepened into something like... a voice.
> "You do not belong here," it said.
Zafira's hand froze. Her eyes locked onto the core—it wasn't built to speak. And yet…
> "But the fire inside you—"
"It remembers."
She reached out. The moment her fingers brushed the core, it shattered into dust.
Her lanterns blew out. The air grew still.
She wasn't afraid.
She just whispered:
> "Do it again."
---
Scene 5: The Eyes That Watched
Unbeknownst to Zafira, her inventions had begun drawing attention.
In a distant observatory cloaked in illusions, a figure in crimson robes peered through a sphere of glass—watching her from across time and space.
The Ancient One narrowed her eyes.
> "She is not sorcerer-born," she murmured. "Yet something moves with her."
From the shadows, another voice responded.
Gentle. Stern. Familiar.
> "I've felt it too.
The spark in her—it bends logic. Just like… me."
Dr. Serena Strange stepped forward, arms folded.
> "She doesn't even know what she's building. But I think… she's meant to break the world."
The Ancient One smiled softly.
> "Or remake it."
---
Scene 6: The Unnamed Trial
Back at the minaret, Zafira stared into the flames of her makeshift forge. She was working on her first gauntlet—a crude arm-brace embedded with small propulsion vents and a retractable blade.
As she turned a gear, the flame flared—unnaturally. Her hand slipped.
The blade nicked her wrist. Blood hit the embers.
A vision exploded in her mind.
Flashes:
— A city crumbling beneath green lightning.
— An armored mask staring into the sun.
— A crown of ash.
— A man with crimson eyes and silver temples—kneeling before her.
She gasped and stumbled back, the world spinning.
> "What… was that?"
The pendant around her neck was glowing.
She clutched it, breath ragged.
> "You want to show me something?" she whispered. "Then show me everything."
---
To be continued..