The shop breathed with quiet industry.
Arisha sat near the window, fabric stretched across her knees, needle flashing in small, practiced arcs. Sunlight spilled over bolts of cloth stacked along the walls, catching dust in slow, drifting spirals.
"So the border should be doubled here," the customer said, tapping the air above the fabric. Her voice was calm, confident, the tone of someone used to being listened to. "If not, it frays within a year."
Arisha nodded. "I've seen that happen. Once is enough." She smiled faintly, fingers never slowing. "You have a good eye."
The woman's smile lingered, then faltered. Her eyes drifted past Arisha, settling on the doorway with a quiet, sudden focus, as if she'd caught the edge of a thought she hadn't meant to notice.
Nothing else changed.
The street outside murmured. Footsteps passed. A cart rattled by.
Then Navir stepped in through the front of the shop, quiet as a held breath. He lingered near the doorway instead of crossing the room, shoulders angled forward, gaze unfocused. His fingers flexed once at his side, a small, unconscious motion, as if trying to shake off an ache that hadn't fully released him yet.
The woman stiffened.
Her pupils narrowed, focus sharpening with unsettling precision. She did not stare openly, but her attention clung to him, measuring, weighing.
Arisha noticed the shift. "Is something wrong with the stitching?"
The woman did not answer right away. When she spoke, her voice dropped, careful and low. "Your son, he doesn't look okay." she said.
Arisha's eyes narrowed, a faint edge cutting into her gaze. "What do you mean?"
The woman hesitated, then answered quietly, her tone measured. "He's carrying something heavy."
Arisha's hands slowed. "Heavy?"
"Not in the body." The woman's eyes followed Navir as he reached for a folded cloth. "His mind is under severe strain. Like a cord pulled too tight."
Navir paused, frowning faintly, then continued, unaware.
Arisha swallowed. "He has been through a lot."
"So has half this city," the woman replied softly. "Yet few feel like this."
Arisha's fingers faltered.
The needle slipped.
Thread skidded across the fabric as a sharp sting bit her skin, a single red dot blooming against the pale cloth.
Navir slipped back onto the street, saying nothing. The bell above the door rang once, thin and brittle, then fell silent. His footsteps carried him away, swallowed by the steady sounds of the street as the door eased shut behind him.
The woman shifted closer to Arisha, lowering her voice, not in secrecy, but in precision. "I've seen this before," she said. "Enough times to know it doesn't end well."
Arisha's needle hovered, trembling between her fingers. Eyes wide with shock, strained but sharp, as if forcing herself to focus through a rising panic.
"What did you see?" she asked, the question tight, urgent, barely held together.
"A mind under watch." The words landed flat, stripped of drama. "Someone has noticed him. Not today, not just here. A mind like his draws eyes. Dangerous ones."
Arisha's hand stilled.
"He's been marked out," the woman continued. "He needs you Arisha, now more than ever."
Navir walked down the street under mounting stress, his thoughts tightening as a familiar heaviness settles over him. The weight grows unbearable, dulling sound and sensation, until reality slips away without warning.
In an instant, he is no longer on the street but standing once more in the barren wasteland beneath the crushing gray sky, fully aware and trapped again.
The wasteland had returned.
No fade. No fall.
Navir stood rooted where cracked earth split beneath his boots, the gray sky pressing low enough to bruise the air. This time, the silence didn't numb him. It sharpened him. Every breath scraped his lungs. Every thought cut clean.
The figures were already moving.
They crossed the dead ground in long, tireless strides, bent backs, thin limbs, faces hollowed by hunger and forgetting. Not monsters. Not shades. People.
They seemed familiar.
Recognition came in slow, merciless waves.
The boy under the bridge, fingers tracing shapes in the dirt.
The short, heavy man who lingered under the streetlight long after dusk.
The ragged girl who sat by the gutter.
They were not strangers.
They had simply been forgotten.
Those who were mentally and psychologically oppressed by society.
The wasteland stretched endlessly because the neglect had no edge.
Cold understanding slid down Navir's spine.
This place wasn't a dream.
It was a mirror.
The figures passed him, never meeting his gaze, as if he were already part of the ruin. His chest tightened. He turned slowly, dread coiling tight enough to steal his breath.
One silhouette paused, distinct from the rest, its posture straighter, its frame carrying a faint resilience, like a rookie unbroken by years of neglect. Its head lifted slowly.
"Navir," it murmured, the voice slicing through the heavy silence.
Navir froze,
blood roaring in his ears. He knew that voice, the careless lilt, the familiar cadence.
"Ardavan…?"