Aman knelt beside Rahman's lifeless body, hands trembling slightly not from fear, but from the exhaustion of everything.
He searched the man's pockets.
A cigarette box. A matchbox. A set of keys likely for his car. The same one Aman had seen once, shining like it belonged to someone important.
And the pistol… Rahman's pistol. Aman stared at it for a long moment.
Then, slowly, mechanically, he loaded every remaining bullet into Rahman's already dead face. The shots echoed down the empty street. The last one shattered what was left of his features.
The pistol clattered on the ground. Aman didn't bother picking it up.
He stood and walked.
Alone.
And the questions came uninvited, cruel, endless.
What had he become?
What was all this for?
His thoughts spiraled backward like they were trying to strangle him.
...
His siblings.
Nini. Nana.
He had sent them to Singapore. For safety, he told himself. But deep down, he always knew that was just another way of saying I abandoned them to a different kind of danger.
"I'm sorry, Nini... Nana..." he whispered under his breath, the guilt like a knot in his chest.
They were his reason. The only reason he'd gone south in the first place.
But everything else… it all felt like decay.
His village burned, trampled under the boots of the Japanese.
His mother violated, butchered.
He was there. Captured.
But somehow, he escaped.
And he remembered
That Japanese officer. Cold eyes, but strangely… he didn't order anyone to chase Aman. He just watched.
Why?
Why let him go?
"Mom... that time… I just ran and ran and never looked back..."
He remembered the fields blackened by fire.
The British had done it themselves. Scorched earth. They didn't care if local get hurt people was suffered... They just don't want anything fall to Japanese hand they that petty.
And there was Henry.
A British officer. Distant. Cold. But he saved Aman. Got him to Jitra.
"Henry… that bastard…" Aman muttered.
...
Then came Jitra.
The battle.
The chaos.
He was wounded. Bled into the mud and stone. And that's when he met her
A nurse.
Mei Lian's mother.
Kind. Steady.
Desperate.
She wanted to evacuate, but not without her daughter.
Aman offered to help find her.
And he did.
He found Mei Lian hiding behind a cabinet. They joked. Laughed despite the horror outside. Something rare sparked between them, something fragile but real.
He brought her back to her mother.
But it was too late.
A Japanese blade had already answered their prayers with steel.
And Henry came back. One last time. Shielded them. Died for them.
He gave Aman a bag. Inside, a snub-nosed revolver. It was his final gesture.
After that… it was just Aman and Mei Lian.
Not partners. Not lovers. Just two people bound together by tragedy and aimlessness.
Their goal? Get to Singapore. Maybe it was safer. Maybe not. Who cared?
They kept moving. Avoiding the Japanese, slipping through the wreckage of a collapsing world.
Then, Carter.
He was different from Henry warmer, even charming. Claimed to be Henry's friend.
And for a while, Aman believed him.
Until Kampar.
That was when Carter snapped.
Looking for someone to blame.
And Aman was there.
The torture. The beatings.
The knife.
Carter scooped out Aman's eye like it was nothing.
Aman touched the empty socket now, almost forgetting what it used to feel like to have both eyes.
"Ahh… I was an idiot back then."
But Mei Lian saved him. Carried him through the pain. She nursed him back to health quiet, gentle hands. He hated the tenderness. It tasted bitter. Like weakness.
And then Carter returned.
She shot him.
Right through the neck.
But he came back.
Like a fucking ghost.
Aman clung to her after that. The same girl he had promised her mother to protect. The only thing left he hadn't failed.
Then Slim River.
They didn't want to get involved.
But fate had other plans. Again.
They got dragged into the battle anyway. Out of curiosity or they just turn sick being attracted by violence.
And after that?
The Japanese officer. The Major.
He kept them around. Said he had a reason.
Aman never knew what it was.
There was that captain. The Kodoha and those soldiers weren't normal. They were criminals. Killers pulled from prison and leashed to a lunatic. A penal battalion under the Major's command.
Then Carter again. Trying to kill the Major.
Of course he failed.
But he lived.
Somehow. For some reason.
No one understood how or why.
Aman stopped questioning it. There was no point.
Eventually, the Major sent Aman to Kuala Lumpur to play spy.
That led to this. To now. To blood on the street and nothing left to believe in.
...
And there was Latif.
The sweetest soul in all this.
Aman left him. Early in the morning. Didn't even say goodbye properly.
Then Rahman hit him from behind. Took him. Turned him into Carter's pet.
Then that hellish prison. The basement.
He escaped with Melati, the girl he found locked inside.
Now they were reunited.
But what for?
Everything felt pointless. Circular. A wheel turning without a rider.
...
Aman stopped walking.
The memories kept pouring.
They felt like ghosts clawing at him from the inside.
Too much.
Too fast.
Too senseless.
He couldn't even remember everything anymore.
Some things are missing, he thought.
His father.
Where was he?
They had been separated early. His father was a nurse. Said he'd help the wounded.
But after that?
Nothing.
Gone.
"I don't know anymore," Aman whispered.
He lay down in the middle of the road.
The sky above was gray.
The Japanese were near now. Tanks. Marching boots. Machine guns.
But the city was already hollow. The British had bombed it themselves. And now it would fall without a fight.
Aman whispered, voice breaking:
"Nini… Nana… I'm sorry… I'm really sorry…"
Tears welled up.
He wiped them away.
No time for weakness.
He looked around. Civilians had already begun to flee.
The city was dying.
Aman lit a cigarette with a shaky hand.
He took a drag and immediately grimaced.
"This tastes like shit… why do I even do this?"
His mind drifted again. More questions.
Too many questions.
What was the point of any of this?
Why did he keep going?
What was left for him?
Would Nini and Nana even recognize him anymore?
What if they were dead?
What if he went mad before he found them?
What if they hated him?
"Maybe I'll go crazy before I ever get to them," he muttered, chuckling without humor. "If they're even there…"
He stood.
Dragging his feet.
One more breath.
Trying to believe in the idea of something better.
Then he froze.
A gun pointed at his chest.
Then.
Gunshot.