Damsel In Distress (COMPLETED✓)

CHAPTER: 23 | BURNING HEARTS (PART-1)

ASSALAMUALAIKUM!!!

*UNEDITED CHAPTER*

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It was the hour of Fajr, the sky above her head gloomy, shaded with purple and blue hues. The air was heavy with fog and the weather damp and chill. The leaves were lamely hanging onto the branches of the trees and the sand beneath her felt moist.

Laiba wrapped a thick, maroon, shawl around her shoulders and hugged herself, rubbing her arms up and down for warmth as she stepped out of the Ahmed Residence. The guards at the gate nodded at her in greetings and she bowed her head in curtesy, walking past the gate and into the muddy path of the dimly lit, cemented street. She glanced at her surroundings and turned left, walking straight with her head down while her shoes made that crunchy sound with every step she took.

There was a local mosque for women, a good two kilometre walk from the Ahmed Residence where Laiba was heading to offer her Fajr-Salah that morning. It had been nearly a month since she had visited that place, not because she was busy or anything but because she didn't wanted to. There was something that had stopped her from going and even though, she knew the reason very well, she preferred not to believe it. But that day, she couldn't think of any other place that would help her cope up with and prepare her with everything that was going on in her life.

Her stepmother would always curse her, saying that she was born a jinx. That everywhere she went, bad luck followed. Endless troubles. Irresolvable issues. Sadness and dismay. She was that pack of distress that along with her own-self, also affected the people around her.

Laiba thought as she walked, maybe her stepmother was right after all.

She had nothing but distress to give.

Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't realise where she was walking until she reached the street of the mosque. She reduced her pace and glanced up, gulping hard as she neared a specific building. She halted in front of the house and stared at the name plate, zeroing her eyes on it.

'Darul-Hamadi'

She was just about to turn away when the gate rattled, the sound of someone unbolting the metal bolt rang from the other side.

Laiba quickly, with a horror-stricken gasp, turned away and speeded her walk. She didn't dare to stop until she reached the mosque. Whoever it was, she didn't wanted to face them ever in her lifetime.

She slipped her legs off of the shoes and placed them neatly at the corner before entering the mosque. Keeping her head low, she made her way towards the front row and started her salah with the few ladies who were present there at that time. After she was done with her prolonged-supplications, she rubbed her hands and grazed them over her face and as she opened her eyes, a familiar face greeted her sight.

The woman was looking at her from a long time and when their eyes met, she waved at Laiba, raising on her feet and making her way towards her.

Laiba sat there on her place awkwardly, trying to smile back at the woman but every time she tried lifting the corners of her lips, it dropped down the very next second.

"Assalamualaikum!!" Mrs.Hamadi said when she was near hearing distance, coming and sitting cross-legged beside her. "Didn't at all expect you here, Laiba." She flashed her pearly white teeth at her.