Ali and Omer called it a day much later than the regular office hours.
Even the parking area mirrored Haideron Tech’s interior in grandiosity and opulence.
Chrome columns rose sharply in neat lines.
The city noise never reached this far; everything here was calm and serene, interrupted only by the occasional vehicle pulling out .
As they walked toward their cars, Omer slowed and gently caught Ali’s arm.
“Ali… if I’d known Sajjad opening up would hit you this hard, I wouldn’t have pushed him to talk.”
Ali stopped.
The light caught his sharp, distant-looking sea-green eyes.
Omer had known him for eight years.
Ali didn’t spook easily; he trusted logic, systems, and data.
But only Ali knew Sajjad hadn’t spoken the way a storyteller speaks that day.
He spoke as if he had peered into a dark well and couldn’t shake the feeling of its darkness pulsating through him.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” Omer said, running a hand through his hair.
“I was in your office earlier today, and you didn’t even notice me.”
He hesitated, his expression softening.
“Truth be told, Sajjad has a real flair for drama. He was alone in that dark alley, and, you know, sometimes your mind can play nasty tricks.”
Ali had been silent until then.
At last, he spoke.
"He wasn't exaggerating."
Omer exhaled sharply.
Under the parking lights, the gold in his hair gleamed faintly.
“I’m trying to make this less disturbing, and you’re walking straight into it.”
Ali placed a steady hand on his shoulder.
Around them, cars quietly pulled out of their parking spaces.
“I know you’re trying to help,” Ali said.
“And yes, Sajjad loves drama."
"But not this time. What he described wasn’t imagination.”
Omer looked at him, unsettled.
“How can you be so sure?” he whispered.
“You sound like a witness. Were you there?”
Ali gave a small, humorless smile and looked past the lamps, toward the starry sky. He took a moment to frame what he was about to say.
Then he met Omer’s eyes, shaded with questions and anxiety.
“I wasn’t there,” he said.
“But the same road. The same month. The same floating head. Someone else saw it decades ago.”
He paused.
“Someone very close to me.”
“Who?”
Omer stepped closer, eyes fixed on Ali, expecting an instant reply.
Just then, a car stopped beside them.
Sajjad’s wife got out, shoulders tense, eyes darting as she searched for her husband.
“Assalam-o-alaikum, Ali. Omer. Where is Sajjad?”
Moments later, Sajjad slowly stepped out of the building.
He walked without his usual gait, eyes cast downward, avoiding the glow of the lamps, as if the light itself would hurt him—or perhaps the darkness he had faced still refused to let him adjust.
Without a word, he slid into the passenger seat.
As the car drove off, his wife raised a hand in farewell.
Sajjad didn’t.
Ali turned back to Omer.
“We’ve never seen his wife come to pick him up before.”
As if to prove Sajjad’s experience, he gave a nonchalant shrug.
“That alone says enough.”
Omer had nothing to say.
Ali checked his smartwatch.
“It’s late.”
Finally, he dismissed the topic.
“Our mothers will be worried. Let’s get going.”
“So you’re not answering my question?”
Omer pressed.
“What question?”
Ali asked, shrugging his shoulders and looking away, his eyes following another car hurtling toward the exit.
It was a trick he’d learned from their legendary boss, Mr. Haider
Drift your gaze and act as if you hadn’t heard. A simple maneuver, yet powerful. Use it when you don’t want to answer, or when speaking could unleash another round of unnecessary discussion.
Mr. Haider had mastered it; Ali had only learned to use it.
Omer knew he wasn’t going to get an answer, yet he kept his eyes on Ali.
Ali smiled, gently nudged Omer toward his car, then climbed into his Honda Civic and waved before pulling away.
Ali’s car glided along the main artery of the Port City.
At this late hour, traffic flowed smoothly.
Huge billboards passed overhead.
A few auto-rickshaws moved toward their destinations.
Ultra-luxury cars flanked the VIP artery.
Red Line buses and occasional mini buses carrying passengers drifted past Ali’s car.
The port city held everyone, from the lone Prado driver to entire families riding on motorbikes.
Five-star hotels, glowing marriage halls, and international food outlets cast a golden sheen across the road.
Ali drove, unmoved by any of it, at least today.
It wasn’t the horns, nor the sounds of the road, not even the hum of his car’s engine.
He could still hear Sajjad’s voice, repeating in his mind
“I saw a woman’s head. Ghost-white. Wrapped in black. Hollow eyes.
Whispering my name.”
As he shifted lanes, Ali’s hands clenched around the steering wheel.
Over the flyover, his thoughts snapped back to the cafeteria that morning.
As his car turned into the street leading home, he recalled Sajjad’s face, stripped of its usual pretentious smiles and fake self-importance.
Later, as Ali parked in the porch of his bungalow, the awareness followed him inside.
The floating head narrative had not just affected him.
It reverberated with another person in the house.
Years earlier, his mother had spoken of the same apparition to him and Amanah on a cold winter night, when they begged her for spooky tales.
The same floating head.
What could it be?
Now Sajjad.
Then Mama.
A coincidence?
His rational mind asked.
Or simply another port-city legend?
He went straight upstairs.
His mother, Samina Siddiqui stood by the cupboard, slotting his crisp, ironed shirts into their usual places.
“Assalam-o-alaikum, Mama. You’re still up?”
She smiled, then checked the wall clock as it slipped past midnight.
“How could I sleep when my son isn’t home?” she said gently.
Ali forced a smile.
“Let me change first.”
When he returned, she had set a tray on his bed.
“You look too tired to come downstairs,” she said. “Eat here.”
Ali stifled a yawn.
“I’m not hungry, but sleepy, Mama.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you ate at the firm.”
He smiled, teasing her.
“No harm eating there occasionally. Top chefs. Hygienic environment. To be precise—a sterile environment.”
She shook her head.
“Even if your boss cooked it himself, I wouldn’t trust it. Eat. Then sleep.”
As she turned, Ali stopped her.
“Mama, do you remember the story you told me? About the floating head near the old airport?”
She stiffened.
“Why bring that up now?”
“Watching horror films again?”
“No, Mama. Just curious.”
She smoothed his hair.
“Enough for tonight. I’m diabetic. Discipline keeps me alive. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
The conversation closed, though she hadn’t stepped out yet.
“Good thing it’s the weekend,” Ali said softly.
“We’ll have time.” She nodded, avoiding his eyes.
Ali was weary—extremely weary—but sleep did not come.
He lay awake, studying the ceiling fan.
Could anything else claim my attention now?
Why does that floating, bodiless head, with its hollow eyes, keep me awake?
I am exhausted, craving sleep, yet it stays just out of reach.
And that head… why does it feel as if it is drifting closer?
Dangerously closer.
By morning, one truth had settled deep inside him:
Some stories return for those meant to conclude them.
Perhaps this one had come back for that reason.
Your support means more than you know. Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll join me for the next chapter.
Author's Note: The story and its characters are entirely my own. AI simply assisted me during the writing process.
ns216.73.216.67da2
and then Add to home screen.