his---
Khaled surfaced from darkness in fragments.
At first, there was only weight.
A thick, unnatural heaviness pressing through his limbs, his eyelids, even his thoughts. His mouth was dry. His head felt packed with cotton and static. Somewhere nearby, a machine beeped with patient indifference while the sharp scent of antiseptic clung to the air.
Then memory struck.
The operating table.
The restraints.
The doctor.
The old man.
The threat.
Khaled's eyes snapped open.
For one horrifying second, he did not dare move his lower body.
He looked up—
And found the old man standing over him.
Naturally.
Of course, he was there.
Of course, the first thing Khaled saw upon waking was that elderly tyrant looming above him like the final boss of a deranged family nightmare.
In the old man's hand was a black plastic bag.
Something intolky sat inside it.
Khaled's blood turned to ice.
His eyes locked onto the bag.
Then lifted to the old man.
Then dropped back into the bag again.
The old man's expression was grim. Measured. Almost ceremonial.
And in a cold, merciless voice, he said:
"These are your reproductive organs."
The world stopped.
Khaled stared at him.
For a moment, he did not understand the words.
Then horror ripped straight through the fog of sedation.
"No."
His voice came out weak at first.
Then louder.
"No—no, no, no—"
He jerked upward as far as his drug-heavy body would allow, eyes wide and wild, face draining of color. His hands flew down instantly in blind panic, fumbling, frantic, desperate to confirm what he could not endure confirming.
The black bag remained in the old man's hand.
Khaled looked at it again and made a sound, too, half-crying, which was called a proper shout.
"You cut it off?!"
The next second, all dignity left him.
"You insane old man!" he screamed, half-crying already. "You actually did it?!" His voice cracked violently. "My life is over! My life is over!"
He looked one heartbeat away from passing out again purely from emotional collapse.
The old man watched him for exactly long enough to savor it.
Then he hit him sharply on the shoulder with his cane.
Not enough to injure.
More than enough to shock.
"Shut up!" the old man barked.
Khaled froze mid-breakdown.
Then the old man's face split into monstrous amusement.
"Did you really believe me?"
And then he laughed.
Laughed with his whole chest.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! I was joking, you fool!"
Khaled stared at him with the expression of a man who had just died, entered hell, and discovered the devil had a sense of humor.
For several long seconds, he could not even form words.
His breathing stayed fast and uneven. His eyes were still suspiciously bright. One hand remained clenched protectively over his lower abdomen as if trust itself had been permanently damaged.
The old man wiped one eye, clearly pleased with himself. "You should have seen your face."
Khaled finally found his voice.
It came out hoarse and full of concentrated hatred.
"I hate you."
The old man looked delighted.
Once the last edge of panic loosened its grip on his chest, Khaled became aware of something else.
His head hurt.
Not the sharp pain of fresh injury, but the dull, lingering ache of being sedated and handled by people who treated medical intervention like performance art.
He frowned. "What did you actually do to me?"
That seemed to sober the old man just enough to be useful.
He tapped the cane once against the floor. "I brought you the best doctor in the world."
Khaled blinked.
The old man continued with full confidence, as if global medicine itself would agree. "To treat your memory loss."
For a moment, Khaled only looked at him.
Then disbelief overtook irritation. "You did surgery on me?"
The old man waved a hand dismissively. "A procedure."
"What procedure?"
The old man leaned closer, lowering his voice with grand importance.
"Do you know what we put inside your brain after the operation?"
A very bad feeling passed through Khaled.
At this point, he was no longer sure any answer from this man could be survived intact.
The old man's eyes gleamed.
"We put Maryam's picture in it."
Silence.
Khaled stared.
The old man nodded solemnly. "So you would always remember her."
Khaled did not move.
Did not blink.
Somewhere in the room, a monitor continued its calm beeping, entirely indifferent to the complete nonsense that had just been spoken.
"What?"
The old man signaled to one of the men standing nearby. A folded image was handed to him. He unfolded it with theatrical satisfaction and held it up.
An X-ray.
Or rather, something pretending to be one.
The outline of a skull was visible, and inside the space where medical shadows and brain structures should have been, there was instead the unmistakable image of Maryam's face.
Perfectly inserted.
As if his skull had become a shrine.
Khaled looked at the fake scan.
Then at the old man.
Then back at the scan.
His soul left his body a second time.
The old man exploded into laughter all over again.
Khaled remained frozen, too stunned even for It 'sger.
The old man shook the image at him. "What's wrong? Why are you so quiet?"
More laughter.
Then, with open mockery: "Ahhh… It's a joke, man. Where is your old smile?"
Khaled's jaw tightened so hard it hurt.
At this point, he was beginning to suspect the true medical emergency in the room was not his amnesia but the old man's complete lack of emotional boundaries.
Still, beneath the absurdity, something else had entered the moment.
Intent.
Because no matter how outrageous the jokes were, one fact remained: they had truly brought in a specialist. They had really done something. Maybe not a miracle. Maybe not whatever insane fantasy the old man imagined counted as brain treatment. But enough that Khaled could no longer dismiss this as pure intimidation.
This family was not playing with him.
Not really.
At length, the old man let the laughter die and straightened, his amusement easing into something closer to seriousness. Not complete seriousness—he seemed too entertained by life for that—but enough for the atmosphere in the room to shift.
"You will return to work tomorrow," he said.
Khaled frowned immediately. "I resigned."
"You will go back."
"I said I resigned."
"And I said," the old man replied coolly, "you will go back."
The tone left no room for misunderstanding.
Khaled pushed himself up slightly on the bed, slower now, still weak from sedation, but alert enough to resist. "Why?"
The old man looked at him for one beat too long.
Then he said, "Because you have no other option."
Khaled's expression hardened. "What does that mean?"
Instead of answering directly, the old man tapped his cane against the floor once more. "Your life is being targeted."
People are looking at the room.
Khaled went still.
"What?"
The old man spoke as if discussing an irritating change in weather. "People are looking for you. Dangerous people. Staying under the company's protection is safer for now."
A cold memory flashed through Khaled's mind.
Black cars.
Running footsteps.
Gunshots are cracking through the air.
His chest tightened. "Who?"
No answer.
"Who is after me?" he demanded. "Who were those men?"
The old man's expression became unreadable. "A matter that does not concern you right now."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you are getting."
Khaled stared at him, anger rising again beneath the fading terror. "You tell me I'm being hunted, drag me into surgery, threaten to mutilate me, kidnap me in broad daylight, and then tell me it does not concern me?"
The old man looked almost bored by the outrage. "If you don't remember, then good."
Khaled's brow tightened. "Good?"
"Yes." The old man's voice lowered slightly. "Better for you to live an ordinary life than remember the part that would destroy it."
The room cooled around those words.
Khaled held his gaze.
For the first time, the old man's refusal did not feel dramatic. It felt deliberate. Guarded. As though there truly was something in the missing years dangerous enough that ignorance had become a form of mercy.
That was worse than the jokes.
Khaled looked away first.
He hated that.
A few hours later, after food he barely tasted and instructions he had no power to refuse, he was escorted out and driven home.
This time there was no blindfold.
No RPG.
No threats to his manhood.
Only suffocating silence and the growing conviction that his life had somehow become even less comprehensible than before.
By the time he reached the house, evening had settled.
He stepped through the front door still expecting emptiness.
Instead, he stopped dead.
Maryam and Sarah were sitting together in the living room.
Playing chess.
For one long second, Khaled genuinely wondered whether he was still under anesthesia.
The board sat between them on the low table. Black and white pieces arranged in cold strategic precision. Lamplight spilled softly across the room, touching the edge of Maryam's profile, the line of Sarah's hand near a knight, the polished surface of the table, the stillness that held everything in place.
Neither woman looked relaxed.
Neither looked friendly.
This was not companionship.
This was war with manners.
The silence in the room was so sharp it could have cut glass.
Maryam sat upright, composed in the frightening way only deeply wounded women could manage. Her face was calm, but her eyes—when they lifted briefly to him—held enough restrained pain and steel to make him hesitate.
Sarah sat opposite her, equally poised, equally controlled. One hand rested near the chessboard as though even her fingers were participating in combat. Her expression was elegant and unreadable, but her gaze toward Maryam held an icy challenge that required no explanation.
No one spoke.
Not at first.
The two women only looked at each other with those cool, lethal stares—the kind that contained pages of history, sharpened pride, and no trace of forgiveness.
And there, in the middle of them, stood Khaled.
Still recovering from sedation.
Still traumatized by fake surgical mutilation.
Still unsure whether enemies, family, or fate itself wanted him dead.
He looked from Maryam to Sarah.
Then to the board.
Then back to both of them again.
No one explained anything.
No one welcomed him.
No one even moved.
For a man who had outrun bullets that week, this somehow felt more dangerous.
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