That night in Farhan's house felt different.
Too quiet.
Too still.
No one spoke properly. No one laughed. Even the walls felt like they were listening, holding their breath, waiting for something terrible to be said out loud. Farhan didn't eat much. Amna barely touched her food. The twins sensed it too—they sat closer than usual, whispering to each other, eyes darting toward their parents' faces like frightened animals.
Farhan finally broke the silence.
His voice was low, heavy, carrying a weight that had been buried for years. He said Zayan didn't pick up the calls. Not once. Not even after dozens of attempts. No replies. No missed-call excuses. Nothing.
Amna's hands started trembling.
She asked where Lia was. Why Lia hadn't come over. Why she hadn't called. Farhan hesitated before answering, and that hesitation alone made Amna's chest tighten with fear. He said Lia hadn't replied either. Not properly. Just silence.
And silence, in that house, had always meant loss.
Farhan rubbed his face and whispered something that sounded like a confession more than an apology. He said, "It's our fault. We lost our child."
The words hung in the air, sharp and irreversible.
He said they had to correct this. Had to find Zayan before it was too late. Before the world swallowed him the way it had swallowed so many broken boys before him. But even as he said it, there was fear in his eyes—the fear of a man who already knows he's late.
What they didn't know…
What they couldn't know…
Was that Zayan was already far away from the boy they remembered.
Already drifting beyond the edges of the life they had tried—too carefully, too clumsily—to give him.
At that very moment, miles away, Zayan existed in a quieter, more dangerous in-between. Not lost in the way Farhan feared, not broken in the way Amna's shaking hands imagined—but altered. Shifted. The kind of change that doesn't announce itself with chaos, but with calm so deep it feels unreal.
He had crossed a line without realizing there was a name for it.
The boy who used to flinch at raised voices, who counted exits and memorized faces, who slept with one ear open—he was receding. Not gone. Just… stepping back. Making room for something harder to reach. Something that no longer waited to be found.
Back in Farhan's house, the twins pressed closer together as Amna finally broke. She didn't cry loudly. She folded inward, hands gripping her dupatta as if it could hold her together, as if pulling tight enough might rewind time to a day when silence hadn't been a threat.
Farhan stood up abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. The sound was too loud in the stillness. He grabbed his phone again, dialing, redialing, willing the screen to light up with a name that refused to appear.
"Please," he whispered—not into the phone, but into the air. Into the past. Into every version of himself that should have listened sooner.
But the night didn't answer.
And somewhere beyond their reach, beyond their voices, beyond even their regret, Zayan kept moving forward—carrying a peace they would not recognize, toward a future they could no longer protect him from.
They were searching for a boy.
They didn't yet understand
that the boy was already gone.