The hardest part wasn't what she saw.
It was that… a part of her already knew.
In an excruciatingly still room, time felt suspended as all air became stagnant. Warm from decoding her father's digital grave, his old laptop's touchpad rested beneath her fingertips like a withered relic. Her pulse drummed on, visceral and relentless. Each quiet breath taken still felt pent up within a cage.
She had come across his name in those files.
Azman Faris.
Her father.
The files held more sinister secrets—the offshore accounts and the blurry footage of shadowed figures uttering secrets that dripped blood. Paid in silence. Ghosts of the world's crimes, entwined in furtive whispers.
And one line—echoing louder than the rest:
"He's Azman's son."
That voice wasn't referring to her.
Betraying each notion her mind grasped for, the echo shifted from blame to shame as she spiraled deeper.
"Not a daughter. A son?"
Her chest tightened and throat sharp, head tilting back as the thought raced to a royal epiphany: Maybe there was more to everything than what her mother chose to whisper.
Someone else.
Like a toxic dagger, betrayal crept down her spine—cold, corrosive metal.
The laptop flickered like an expiring star, and she instantly got up. Weak seams brushing against her forehead did nothing to incur the migraine hellbent on surfacing due to a multitude of deceitful narratives converging. Now, the USB felt burdened with an added weight. Resent omnipresent to her USB drive felt tempered though. Almost. It had been forever since she opened the file marked "Tempest." Instinct urged her not to deal with such matters. A deeper intuition kindled by a stubborn ember her father left whispered compelling tenders to satisfy her curiosity. So she did, pressing 'start.' An additional set of documents unfurled, featuring project schematics with heavily redacted names. One photograph, however, was particularly bone-chilling. A young boy, approximately eight or nine, with disheveled black hair and dull eyes. Cuffed at the wrists to a table that resembled a lab. Layla felt as if her breath was being jolted from her, and her stomach turned as though on a rollercoaster. There was a file entitled "Subject A01 – Codename: CROW." At this point blood surged to her extremities and she felt lightheaded as her hands shook violently too. A jarring counterpoint to her racing pulse. Sure that boy is not her but something about 'broken' and 'empty' eyebrows over wide cheekbones felt terribly recognizable. Later on she heard a voice almost drawn out <"What I just recounted was during AZM Collapse, revealing plans designed with origins as far back as their predecessors…" she heard a voice like whisper. " legacy assets " buzzed in her hand so.
Wondering what this was supposed to mean now?
An asset?
A daughter?
A mistake?
Her gasp and clutching the edge of the desk indicated that the central part of her body had received a jolt while her knee hit the desk.
Three knocks. A pause. Then one more.
Marking the passage of time, these patterns were not random; laid out in a specific code.
As rhythmic as the steps of a boxer in training, this was her only way of recalling her father.
Forgive me if I go off tangent, but ZK garages are purely fictitious.
Why was he marking his presence in her mind?
They were dangerous and so was the area around them. "There you are."
Now cue the onlookers who deem it fit to smirk whenever the words fire and free fall collide.
Fast forward a few minutes. This is what you miss for sleeping through math class: 'Leap of Fate'.
Bear in mind this is not a revelation of alien spaceship activity. "Forget the US flags for now. There's an alien on the window!"
The warmth of seeing your old friend after ages overshadows its chilling undertone.
Layla was gradually succumbing to the what ifs. "Where are we going dude."
"No time." He was definitely smooth, that's for sure, instantly reeling her back in.
Silence was soothing, calming, the kind one associates with their hug after a long day or tiring flight.
Let's shift focus to Merora Zheny. "ZK, a different story for a different omelet. Hay, we toldaugh the same thing a moment age. ."
ZK seemed like a movie happiest flower on earth while calling moms everywhere, I guess we're still wondering (fulfilling intents). At least now ZK stands as a trophy of remnants.
While recalling vivid moments courtesy of value "revisiting city, birthplace of bridges' I had saudade whispers jumping up and down like sugar high kids bound in front of candy store."
As if sketched by a man on his deathbed's final devotion:
"He's still alive."
With coordinates beneath.
Her father was deceased.
Wasn't he?
Layla's hands held the paper's edges as if it would catch fire.
No responses tonight. Just additional puzzles.
But now she knew what came next.