The terrace tiles were cold against my back. I sat with my phone, scrolling through nothing, the screen's glow painting my hands in pale blue. Outside, the city was silent—the kind of silence that isn't peace, but waiting. Half a month of this. Half a month where every night felt like a year, where the darkness pressed against the windows and asked what I was going to do about it.

  I knew the answer. No one was coming. Not neighbors, not elders, not God. If something had to be done, it was me or no one. I didn't say it out loud. I didn't need to. Thinking it was enough.

  The phone vibrated. Odai.

  "Come downstairs if you want to go with us."

  I sighed, tossed the phone onto the concrete, and went down. The three of us straddled the bike—me in front, Etisham in the middle, Odai behind with his arms loose around Etisham's waist. Everyone else was asleep. The streets were empty, unnervingly so, our engine the only sound cutting through the dark.

  We stopped at a petrol pump. Odai swung his leg over, grabbed the nozzle, and grinned. "Best thing about this Dajjal-season? Petrol's free."

  Etisham laughed, low and nervous. "And nobody to stop us."

  I didn't answer. I was watching Odai's hands. They were shaking. Not much, but enough. I followed his eyes to the shop behind the pumps, and then I smelled it—fuel, sharp and chemical, mixed with something else. Something sweet and wrong.

  I walked to the counter. The attendant was there, half-covered by a tarp that had slipped. One arm out, palm up, like he was still waiting for payment. I checked his neck. Cold. Hours cold. The blood had pooled and dried in the cracks of the tile floor.

  "Zero?" Etisham's voice came from behind me, thin and stretched.

  I straightened up. "He's dead."

  Odai's grin vanished. He looked at the body, then at the petrol in his hands, then at the body again. "We should—we should do something—"

  "We're doing something." I took the nozzle from him, finished filling the tank myself. My hands didn't shake. "He's past helping. We're not."

  We rode away. The smell of petrol stayed in my nose, mixed now with the memory of that sweet rot. I catalogued it. First corpse we chose to ignore. First of how many?

  The phone rang. Aroha.

  "They're attacking the building!" Her voice was shredded, breathless. "Weapons. Shahzad uncle is trapped inside. Hurry!"

  The line went dead.

  Odai and Etisham froze. The bike idled between my legs, the engine a low growl in the empty street.

  "We have to go," Etisham said.

  I didn't hesitate. "Let's move."

  "You're insane," Odai muttered, but he was already settling in behind Etisham.

  I pulled the daggers from my waistband, felt their weight settle into my palms. Etisham reached out. "I'll take one."

  Odai shook his head, violently. "No. No blades."

  "Then grab a stick. A wiper. Anything." I handed him the tool from the bike's side compartment. "Keep your hands clean if you need to. But keep them ready."

  We cut through the shadows. I rode in front, calculating distances, timing, the geometry of streets I'd memorized without knowing I'd memorized them. Etisham's breath was hot against my neck. Odai's silence was heavy behind him.

  The building loomed. Inside, the stairwell smelled of dust and fear—the specific scent of adrenaline and old concrete. We moved up, quiet as we could.

  On the ground floor, we found her.

  She was collapsed against the wall, head lolled to one side, one arm draped across her chest. An infant lay against her, small mouth working at a breast that would never give milk again. The baby's cries were weakening, confused, hungry.

  Odai made a sound—half-gasp, half-gag—and froze. Etisham's eyes went wide, his face draining to ash.

  I knelt. Checked the woman's wrist. Nothing. Her skin was cool, waxy. The infant's hand clutched at her shirt, tiny fingers opening and closing on fabric.

  I lifted the baby. It was lighter than I expected, warm where its mother was cold. I turned and held it out to Etisham.

  "Carry." My voice didn't sound like mine. "Don't drop."

  He took it, automatic, cradling it against his chest with the hand that wasn't holding my dagger. The baby rooted against his shirt, still seeking milk that wasn't there.

  I stood. Looked at the dead woman. Chose, without choosing, who lived and who died.

  "Up," I said. "Now."

  We climbed. My mind was already elsewhere—routes, exits, numbers. The woman was gone. The baby was Etisham's weight now. I had stairs to clear.

  On the third floor landing, I found what I needed. A metal rod, rusted but solid, discarded by some worker. I stripped rope from a utility closet, tied it fast to the rod's center. Simple. Effective. Non-lethal, if I did it right.

  The first swing proved me wrong.

  I heard them coming—boots on concrete, too many, too confident. I swung the rope in an arc, the rod whistling through the air, and the rope snapped. The rod flew wild, spinning toward Odai's head.

  I moved. Caught it mid-air, the metal slamming into my palm, hot with friction. Pain flared and died. I didn't drop it.

  The dead woman's headscarf. I'd seen it—blue, stained with something dark at one corner. I retrieved it, retied the rod with fabric that smelled of dust and copper. Better grip. Blood for traction.

  A voice in my head, not my own: Resourceful. Finally.

  The attackers rounded the corner. Three of them, makeshift blades, hungry eyes. I swung again—controlled, calculated pendulum. The rod caught the first in the knee, the second in the ribs. They stumbled, surprised by range they hadn't expected.

  Etisham moved in where I opened space, the dagger flashing—not to kill, to disable. Wrists. Thighs. Places that bled and stopped working. Odai swung his wiper in wild arcs, keeping them back, buying seconds.

  I worked silently. Flat of the blade where I could, edge where I had to. A hand dropped when it wouldn't let go of its weapon. A knee buckled when it tried to stand. Everything I anticipated happened exactly as I calculated, but I was calculating faster now, the math of survival burning through my veins.

  No prayer. No hesitation. No flinch.

  No one can save them but us. No one can save me but me.

  Inside the apartment, the real looting was happening. Sacks of rice, flour, anything portable. Aroha and her family were pinned against the far wall, Shahzad uncle's arm bleeding from a shallow cut, his wife shielding the younger children with her body.

  I approached. Daggers ready, flat side toward the nearest attacker—the one with rice dust on his hands and a club raised over his head.

  One strike. Precise. The flat of my blade against his wrist, and the bones gave way with a sound like wet twigs. He screamed. The club fell. I was already moving to the next, and the next, Etisham covering my blind spots, Odai guarding the door with his wiper and wide eyes.

  When it was done—when the attackers were down, groaning, clutching broken limbs—we gathered what we had. Makeshift cables from the looted electronics. Zip ties from someone's toolkit. They knelt in their own blood and dust, begging, threatening, crying.

  I looked at them. Calculated the cost of mercy.

  I walked to the petrol can one of them had dropped. Dipped two fingers. Marked their foreheads with dark stripes, one by one, while they trembled and tried to pull away.

  "Next time," I said, "I burn."

  I held up the match I'd found in Shahzad uncle's kitchen. Lit it. Watched their eyes track the flame.

  They ran. Stumbling, bleeding, dragging each other down the stairs. One looked back at the doorway—dark eyes meeting mine, hate and fear mixed equally. I held the match until the darkness swallowed him. Until the flame burned down to my fingers and I let it die.

  Back home, the elders were waiting. They stood in the courtyard, robes pulled tight against the night chill, faces carved with worry and something else—accusation, maybe. Or awe.

  "Why risk yourselves?" Shahzad uncle's brother asked. "You could have been killed. You should have called for help."

  I shrugged. "Delay meant harm. Minimal strikes. That's all."

  "Minimal—" He sputtered. "You broke a man's wrist. You marked them like—like—"

  "Like what?" I asked. "Like men who needed to remember?"

  Odai and Etisham exchanged glances behind me. I didn't need their approval. The reasoning alone sufficed. The baby Etisham had carried was with the women now, being fed watered milk from a cup. The dead mother was still in the building, waiting for morning, for someone with time to mourn.

  Later, the cousins gathered. Aroha sat slightly apart from the others, wrapped in a shawl that wasn't hers, recounting the events in halting sentences. Hiba and Eshle asked questions—Were you scared? Did they have guns? What did it feel like?—but I stayed quiet, leaning against the wall, watching the dark city through the window.

  A faint smile touched my lips. Almost imperceptible. Not for joy. Not for relief.

  For understanding, finally, how fragile everything was. How thin the line between order and chaos. How much control depended on me alone, because no one else was calculating the angles, the costs, the necessary weights.

  Hasham muttered from the corner, "You should've let me come."

  I ignored him. I knew what fear looked like in a fight. I'd seen it in Odai's hands at the petrol pump, in Etisham's eyes at the dead woman. Hasham would have broken at the first corpse, the first cry. He would have cost seconds. Seconds meant lives.

  As the conversation drifted, as Aroha's voice grew steadier and the cousins began to speculate about tomorrow, I stayed still. Eyes narrowed toward the city outside, where the quiet wasn't peace, was never peace, only the held breath before the next collapse.

  Resources were finite. Threats were multiplying. Decisions rested on me—and me alone.

  No one would save them. No one could save me.

  I had to be the line.

  And deep down, in the place where the smile had come from, I understood: the quiet city outside was only the beginning. The match was still in my pocket. The petrol was still on my fingers. The next time, I might not wait for them to run.

  I might just light the flame.