Midnight Ember - Chapter 12: The Leak

The rain in Multan came without warning.

Sheets of it crashed onto tin rooftops and crumbling balconies, washing the desert heat into steaming pavements. But inside the backroom of a tiny internet café, Alishba’s world was quiet.

Too quiet.

Her laptop glowed dimly in the darkened space, connected to a VPN routed through three continents. The USB — The Dust File — was plugged in. The folders, decrypted. The names, dates, confessions, all lined up in black and white.

It was ready.

All she had to do was click upload.

Daniyal stood behind her, arms folded, watching her screen like it might explode.

Reyan stood by the door, scanning every passing rickshaw through the rain-slicked window.

“Once this is out,” Daniyal said, “we can’t take it back.”

“I know,” Alishba replied.

“You’re putting a target on your own back.”

She gave a cold smile.

“It’s already there. I’m just making it glow.”

Reyan didn’t speak.

But he didn’t stop her either.

Because even if this ended them all — it was the only way to begin something else.

The upload bar blinked:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQIooNMjIgu
3%21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9dzGf85D7t
11%21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3F8ZU9Yg1v
29%

Time slowed.

Then —

Connection lost.

Alishba’s breath caught.

“What?”

She checked the signal.

Still active.

Reyan stepped in. “They’re jamming it.”

Daniyal grabbed the hard drive. “We need a public drop.”

Alishba nodded. “A place they can’t erase it.”

“There’s only one left,” Reyan said grimly.

They all looked at each other.

Then Daniyal said the words none of them wanted to hear:

“Lahore. Government Press Archive. They mirror national servers every six hours.”

Alishba nodded. “Let’s finish this where it started.”

They reached Lahore by nightfall.

Disguises. Rented van. No cell signals.

The city was tense — tighter checkpoints, patrolling unmarked vehicles, and the streets too clean to be real.

The Press Archive was a marble-fronted building near Shimla Pahari, half of it under construction. Guards rotated every fifteen minutes.

Reyan handled the entry — fake ID, hacked credentials.

Alishba handled the drop.

At 2:17 a.m., they slipped into the mainframe room.

It was silent.

Fluorescent lights flickered overhead.

Alishba sat at the central terminal, fingers flying across the keys.

The Dust File was loading again.

6%21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUKVUkHLz8B
24%21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9mDZrbIZj2
52%

Daniyal whispered behind her, “They’ll know within five minutes.”

“Let them.”

81%21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1M7bXQVFG0
94%

Then—

The lights went out.

Total blackout.

Emergency sirens clicked.

A gunshot cracked.

Reyan shoved Alishba to the floor as glass shattered above her head.

“They’re inside!”

Daniyal pulled his sidearm, returning fire into the darkness.

Alishba reached up, blindly pressing the final command:

UPLOAD COMPLETE

And hit Enter.

The room flooded with red alarm lights as guards burst through the main hallway.

Reyan shouted, “We move! Now!”

But Alishba didn’t rise.

Her camera was gone — shot in half.

And Daniyal… Daniyal wasn’t moving either.

She turned — found him slumped against the terminal.

Blood blooming across his chest.

“Daniyal!”

She crawled to him, held his face.

He looked at her, eyes glazed.

And smiled.

“You got the shot,” he whispered.

She shook her head.

“No. No, you don’t get to disappear again.”

But his voice was fading.

“I’m not… disappearing. I’m just… ending where I belong.”

She gripped his hand as it fell limp.

Outside, shouts echoed closer.

Reyan dragged her up.

“No time. We have to go.”

They disappeared into the Old City, blood in their footprints and fire behind them.

By morning, the Dust File was everywhere.

It was on international forums. Leaked on news outlets. Whispered in mosques. Screened on hacked LED billboards in Gulberg.

Names.

Dates.

Places.

And among them:

Director Ahmed — Reyan’s father.

By evening, officials had resigned. Systems froze. Investigations reopened.

But the cost had already been paid.

Daniyal was gone.

And Reyan… was no longer a ghost.

Three days later, Alishba stood at the Ravi River, camera in hand, staring at the water.

Reyan walked up beside her, quiet.

“He would’ve wanted to be buried where no name could touch him,” she said.

Reyan nodded.

“That’s why we scattered the ashes here.”

She turned to him.

“You think it was worth it?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Then:

“Only if you keep telling the story.”

She lifted the cracked lens to her eye.

The photo would be blurry.

Grainy.

Scarred.

But it would be real.

And that’s how Daniyal would live.

ns216.73.216.224da2

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