Chapter VI

-A Fate Foretold-

Ⓒ 2023

Leaving that flower shop, I felt anything but refreshed. My relief to this vacation was short-lived to my piling stress back in Leavenworth, I was given a confusing and horrifying reading that I would die soon, by a murderer, to be exact. Even though I did only first meet Sharifa the day before, what she said felt too detailed to be a lie. There wasn’t anything she could gain from lying to me anyway. 

Muizz Street was less crowded since the sun had begun to set and the streetlamps began to glow in the tall glass cases. If I hadn’t just been warned about a killer looking for me, I would have enjoyed the nice walk back. 

The streets were hazy, or it might have been because of my exhaustion, and the once colourful goods behind street windows were now a blur of exhausting shapes. Dolls, clocks, and many other antiques stared back at me as I walked past, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the road ahead, and how it turned and seemed to twist under my feet like it were uneven. 

My phone buzzed in my pocket, reminding me I wasn’t in a dream, and all this was real. I let it buzz in my hand for a moment, reading over the contact name ‘Martial’ a couple of times. I swiped across the screen and brought the phone to my ear, “Hello?” 

“Hey, Lennon. How have you been holding up? I know you don’t like to call, but I figured I’d check up on you. Phoebe told me you’re in Cairo after winning a ticket there,” Martial responded on the line. 

Normally I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone, but this time was different. “Hypothetically, what would you do if you were told you would die soon?” I think I’m in shock. 

His relieved voice turned to a sigh. I could only imagine what kind of face he was making now. “What kind of question is that? I haven’t talked to you in about a week and that’s the first thing I hear from you.” He stopped talking and moved the phone away from him to talk to someone. 

I checked my watch. 14:48. It was at least eight hours ahead for everyone back home, around midnight. He was working overtime, again. 

“Sorry. Had to talk to a co-worker,” he replied again. A door shut in the background as his coworker seemingly went away. “So what’s this talk about dying soon? You aren’t trying to tell me something, right, Lennon?” 

I didn’t really know if I wanted to tell him now while I had the chance to, or if it could all just be a hoax from Sharifa, but I highly doubted it. “It’s nothing. I just wanted to know what you would do.”

Martial sighed again, “Well, to answer your question then, I would make the most of it and make up for anything I still feel guilty for.” He paused again and the sound of a coffee machine drowned out the audio for a few seconds. 

I had thought he was getting serious, but here he is making coffee while I make a serious debate about how to spend the rest of my time alive. 

“But I do still need to make it up to you,” he continued. 

“What..?” 

He laughed and continued, “I still feel bad for moving away when you needed me most.” 

“Martial.” I can’t believe he’s bringing this up again after so long. “I already understand, then and now, you had to move places for a job. It’s not your fault my dad got me involved in his problems.” 

“Yeah, but it doesn’t give me an excuse to ditch my best friend.”

I kicked a stray stone from the cobblestone floor and sighed, “Stop bringing that up and I’ll forgive you.”

He only laughed again, or maybe it was the fact he was sleep-deprived with a couple of cups of coffee to top it off.

Even if our talk was somewhat light-hearted compared to last time, I could feel thorns wrap around my throat, “That’s all I needed to hear though-”

My phone almost got knocked out of my hand as I bumped into someone. I hadn’t even noticed them while I was in the moment. “Sorry,” I said as I glanced at the stranger, taller than me and with foreign attire. 

The guy only gave me the stank eye, but he smiled and walked off down the road behind me. 

“Lennon?” Martial called from my phone before I brought it back to my ear. “You still there?” he continued with worry until his voice began to fade into my consciousness.

I was too shaken up to respond. My voice was gone. That man had the same smile as in my nightmares.

-⏳-

My heart pounded in my ears as I ran as fast as I could down Muizz Street back the way I came. I only felt the wind in my face, brushing away the fatigue and sending me into anxiety. I turned corners and dodged around people until I stopped at the flower shop. 

The front door’s lock was already picked open when I swung the door open and past the vases of flowers. The colours made my stomach twist and my head throb, but I kept on. I stepped on pieces of glass and looked down, and the mandrake root from days ago lay sadly in the moistened dirt and pieces of glass. I wanted to call for Sharifa, but my voice disappeared. 

Behind the curtains leading to the back, the kitchen lights were still on, but the pots of boiling water foamed until they were oozing onto the counter and floor. I quickly turned it off and listened to the silence that fell in the house. 

I withdrew a kitchen knife from a cutting block and made my way into the living room. The teacups still lay on the floor in pieces, and the curtains were drawn closed, but no sight of Sharifa. 

Down the narrow hall to the far left were at least three rooms. There wasn’t any proof she had left, was hiding, if someone had really broken in, or if this was all a prank. I wanted to hope it was a prank, but not even Phoebe would go this far. 

My hands began to shake, but I gripped the knife until I could only feel the pressure in my palm and continued down the dark corridor until I stopped in front of a slightly ajar door. 

I could still smell the strong flowers from the front of the shop, and a faint hint of incense; it made my head numb as if it were meant to put me to sleep.

I raised my hand to the door and pushed it open slowly, waiting for something to happen until the door was completely opened. 

Inside the study and a set of spiral stairs leads up to a loft. I could feel the chilly wind flowing in from the open window up there, but I already felt a cold sweat run down my spine. There was no sight of Sharifa still. 

The world seemed to be underneath a deafening silence as I searched the room until all there was left to search for was the loft. I knew she was up there, but I couldn’t depend on my gut feeling anymore to decide whether or not she was still alive. 

At the last step up the stairs, I saw her body held together close, leaning against the wall of books. She seemed peaceful, and at rest, but when I dropped the knife, she stirred awake with immediate anxiety.

Sharifa pulled an earbud from one of her ears, her eyes red and puffy, and her voice weak and raspy, “Lennon?” 

The relief I felt overcame and I nearly fell to my knees. All I could do was sigh and shake my head. 

She crawled over from where she sat towards me and rubbed circles into my back, “I’m surprised you came back, but I’m not dead yet.”

I couldn’t understand. I was certain that man came here, and the lock was broken in. I looked at her, my chest was tight with both relief and anxiety. 

“But,” she began and drew in a breath. 

I raised my head from the floor and looked at her to continue. I already knew I looked pathetic. 

“Someone has died in my stead,” her voice lowered into a whisper and she looked away and out the window. The sun’s orange light grazed over the roofs of Cairo and the gradient sky was clear of clouds. 

For some reason, I understood this to be a fact, but I still couldn’t help but feel unnerved of her reading, and that man’s smile. It wasn’t a coincidence. “Your lock was broken in.”

Sharifa didn’t even bat an eye, as if she already knew, and sighed. “He stopped at the door of my study but left,” she said as she stood up and began to wobble down the stairs to the door. 

I followed after in silence and watched as she closed the door to show the writings and symbols she smudged onto the back of the door. They looked similar to those I saw in her books, but not something demonic. 

“I don’t think it was this that stopped him,” she smiled and swiped a hand over the drawing until all that was left on the white door’s surface was a smudge of red paint. 

She turned her now red palm over and closed her eyes, “May Amunet Samir rest in peace.” 

We both stood in silence in reverence of the deceased. Sirens in the distance echoed.