An Exploding Ally XLV

.....

It all started with a text message.

You're still fuming over last week, then? Laughing out loud, I see. Seriously, I'm not that politically adept to start with. Why don't we join forces and be friends????

Fatiba stared at the phone screen, her thumb hovering in the air, ready to strike. She waited for a minute before she answered—not because she didn't know how to answer—but because she was extremely sure about what she was trying to say.

And then, with a full and rich inhalation:

[fine. But I'm not mic-ing unless you promise no dumb takes.

Just a few seconds after that moment, an overwhelming barrage of emojis appeared on the screen.

[Deal.]

They were in the Call of Duty lobby at 9PM that evening, their avatars shoulder to shoulder, with guns and pixels. The game was loading—a desert Middle Eastern map. Ironic.

With a profound, defeated sigh, Fatiba finally turned on her microphone.

"Alright, I've arrived at this destination," she said.

Natalie's cheerful and bubbly tone rang through on the phone, being much too cheerful for a war- or conflict-related situation. "Oh my gosh, hello! Dude, it's great; you sound older now. It sounds like your voice has deepened or something like that."

"I'm sporting my death stare," Fatiba joked. "Don't push me."

Natalie smiled. "Knew you missed me."

The first wave hit. They didn't talk. All comms: Behind you, grenade, top-left window. And it was easy, strangely easy, as though nothing was broken.

At some point between rounds, they picked up where they had left off.

Like real talking.

About class. About coffee. About strange professors and that one guy who sat in the back of the library smelling like glue.

Natalie discussed her dog. Fatiba shared the experience of when she'd attempted making daal and triggered the alarm at her apartment building.

They were already joking by the third match.

Natalie remembered with a smile, "Do you remember those times when we referred to ourselves as the 'Diaspora Death Squad'?"

Cringe, Fatiba groused.

"I still have that sticker on Discord that I just adore, though," Natalie smiled broadly as she spoke the words. "It's the one where the hijabi is riding on the back of a tank."

I ought to sue," retorted Fatiba, smiling despite herself.

And then—

Silence.

The length of one heartbeat.

And then Natalie's voice, softer now. "I'm sorry."

Fatiba hesitated. "For what?

"The march. The things I said. I don't know. I didn't get it. And then I did. Or. I'm trying."

Silence once more.

Fatiba blinked away the sudden welling in her eyes.

"I am fully aware of that," she replied.

And another beat.

Would you care to spend a little time together this Sunday?" Natalie asked.

And Fatiba, despite all of the warning alarms loudly ringing within her ribcage, replied, "Yeah. I'd like that."

—

Sunday was soft. Blue skies. Crisp air. One of those rare days in London where even the pigeons looked content.

They agreed that they would all be at some point near Victoria Park, a region that had already become all too familiar to them. Natalie had her favorite bubble tea with her, and she was wearing that same large denim jacket that she had sported in all her selfies throughout the years.

They stayed there for a while by the canal, dangling their feet.

Discussed everything except for that.

And at last, Natalie bumped her shoulder.

"Your own little secret, hidden place that you keep to yourself, don't you?"

Fatiba paused. "Perhaps."

"I knew it!" Natalie smiled. "Come on. Show me."

Perhaps it was the particular manner in which the sunlight fell gently on Natalie's face, casting a radiance of welcome and warmth that seemed to bring out her features to perfection. Or perhaps it was that small but potent human intuition that urges us to hold on to hope and feel the possibility of second chances coming our way.

But she led her.

Under the old railway bridge—across the graffiti-covered slope—past the rusty fence with the twisted bars.

There was a steel hatch concealed beneath vines and river moss. Almost invisible.

Natalie raised an eyebrow. "You're kidding, right?"

Fatiba tugged on the latch. It creaked open.

Inside: stairs. Cold. Narrow. And then—

A chamber.

Not huge. But private. Old tile. Rusted metal. Blankets folded in the corner. A dusty lamp. Scented candles long since burnt out.

Her place.

"I would walk to this very spot after my classes were over," she said. "It was on those days when I couldn't breathe. It was when the city's smothering sensation pushed me out, like it wanted me to be gone."

Natalie moved stealthily, her steps quiet and almost inaudible. "This is…"

"Avoid using 'magical,'" Fatiba cautioned.

"Was going to say 'kinda serial killer,'" Natalie replied, smiling.

Fatiba giggled.

They sat.

For a brief moment, it actually seemed like this moment could be a cherished memory that she could hold onto. It seemed like this particular day would be one that she could tuck away in her pocket to access whenever life became too much and too wild once more.

And then Natalie stood.

Hey, can I take a quick pic? For the Discord?

Fatiba concurred. "Yeah, okay."

Natalie pulled out her phone. Snapped a photo. Snapped another.

Before she could turn back and share it, Fatiba accidentally caught a fleeting but telling glance at her screen.

It was a server name she did not recall or recognize in any fashion.

The icon was…

Red.

White.

A royal lion's head with an ornamental crown.

Natalie's face caught her attention. "Oh. It's nothing. Just a meme group. My brother added me."

But Fatiba's stomach sank.

She leaned out. Grabbed the phone.

Natalie flinched. "Hey—

But Fatiba had already completed the act of tapping.

Scrolling.

Read.

Threads.

Names.

Hashtags.

Dog whistles.

Screenshots of brown children. In them are hijab-wearing girls.

Laughing responses. Rough cuts. One of the threads is entitled "The Parasites Among Us."

And in the middle—

The photograph.

Their photo.

From just a minute ago.

Captioned:

Look how easily they trust you.

Natalie stood still.

Fatiba stepped back, keeping her phone in hand.

"Natalie," she softly whispered, her breathy voice almost inaudible. "What is this?

Natalie appeared to be stuck. "It's not what it looks like."

And then explain to me what it is.

Stop.

"I just had to know what actually happened," Natalie said. "I had to know if it was really true that all of you just had hate for us. If your presence here was actually supposed to—"

"To what, then?! Do you mean we are here to steal your jobs? Or blow up your buildings?!"

"I truly did not mean to—

"However, you did in fact."

Fatiba's voice broke, but hers did not.

"I invited you into my house, the sole refuge I had where I could actually breathe and get some peace and quiet. And then you… you let them in with you and ruined that peace and quiet."

Natalie gazed at the floor. "I wanted to believe that we were different. I hoped you would make me feel like you belong here."

Fatiba glared.

That was indeed the truth.

Not the hate. Not the violence. Just the reason.

The unspoken why.

That long-held, ancient, and long-buried belief that she was somehow in need of justification for even existing.

Fatiba let the phone fall. The screen cracked on the ground.

She turned around. Went up the stairs. And did not look back.

Natalie never once called her by name.

Not at any point when the silence became overwhelmingly loud and deafening.

Not even when the wind began to blow again. Cold and cutting and biting.

.....

The hall swallowed her in silence. Stone wall that had not breathed for centuries. Lost ceiling in darkness. The second door crashed shut behind her with the weight of a metal-tempered verdict.

The light of the projector trembled and went out. Gone.

She was alone now.

Fatiba stood stock-still, chest rising and falling with every labored breath. Her hijab, once loose and disheveled, now lay pressed against her head, modestly falling into place as if grief had smoothed it into position. Her curled hands, once tightly clenched, now hung at her sides—unclenched. Her fingers fluttered once before they relaxed too, as if even they'd grown weary of holding onto anything but the truth.

"She never hated me," she breathed to the silence.

Her voice didn't echo. It just existed. Lurked. Comfortable and warm in space that wasn't. Didn't know either.

"She just never treated me as an equal," she continued, her throat tight. "Not really. Not at all. I was her friend, but to her, I was only the exception. The test. The token." Her jaw tightened. "A reminder of her patience."

Before her, the third door pulsed. Dark originally. Then lightening—gentle gold glinting behind complicated patterns, glass curled into spirals like suspended breath on the verge of a whisper. It wasn't anticipating. It was offering.

She stepped toward it, her footsteps deliberate. Solid. No stutter anymore. No quiver.

Then—

A burst of red illuminated the air.

The dragonfly.

Red wings, gold veins, a light from its body like it had devoured a comet and survived. Floating above her chest, weightless but heavy with gravity. Not humming. Not fluttering. Being.

"You sound hateful," it said.

The voice wasn't a voice. A shudder in her bones. A hiccup against her heart.

She stopped. Breathe. Her shoulders fell—not with weakness, relief. Someone had finally spoken.

"Yes," she said.

The confession didn't shake the walls. It didn't summon monsters or judgment or fire. It just was.

"I despise what they made me feel," she said, her eyes steady, voice as low as a steel blade cutting across the gravel. "I despise how readily they spoke of me while I wasn't in the room. As if I were merely. background chatter. I despise how hard it is for me to stop wanting to trust them, even when I'm smarter than that. I despise how long I've been sorry for being alive."

The dragonfly circled in heavy air, its pale ahlthing—radiant, almost sacred. Its wings hit softly, casting golden shadows on her cheeks.

She didn't slow.

"I hate myself for trusting them."

Her voice cracked.

"I. HATE. THEM."

She spat it as a curse. As a confession. As a scream that no mosque would ever ring out and no therapist would ever write on paper.

Her throat tightened. The words clogged. Her eyes ached—but no tears fell. That was the worst of it. Even grief had grown still in her.

"And I hate that I can't stop."

She looked at her palms—spread them, looking at them. As if she were grasping ashes. As if maybe she could discover the piece of herself that had not been taught to grasp hate and breathe at the same time.

"I did not wish to feel so," she breathed. "But it resides within me now. Like a ghost I did not welcome. A parasite that feeds upon my sleeps."

The dragonfly orbited once, drifting in slow orbits around a moribund world. Then landed softly on her shoulder. No burden. But it seared like the truth.

She closed her eyes.

And for once, did not struggle against it.

Let it wash in. Let it blister and simmer.

The betrayal. The fire.

The way Natalie's eyes had shrunk with pity.

The way the world only seemed to accept her if she smiled enough.

The silence. The humiliation. The loneliness.

And worse—

The understanding.

Because she knew if she had been born with a different skin, she would have done the same to someone else.

Her fists unclenched.

She opened her eyes.

One step forward.

Two.

Then—

The dragonfly spoke again.

A flicker of voice. But this time, its tone changed.

"Maybe you aren't as different from them," it sneered.

She remained frozen.

"What?"

Its light turned cold.

"Behold you," it hissed. "Burning. Flaring. Likely to cause harm simply to feel power. You say you are not like them? But hatred resides within you now, girl. You are halfway there."

Fatiba's energy heaved.

"You believe being a victim of racism makes you sacred?"

Her breathing grew harsh. Her shoulders tightened.

"And sadness makes you righteous? Rage makes you just?"

Its wings undulated more rapidly than ever before. Sneering. Burning red like stained glass in a church so ancient that it couldn't pardon.

"Perhaps you're merely another human being attempting to feel larger than her suffering."

She imploded.

"SHUT UP!" she screamed, the words shattering her throat, raw and torn from the space where silence had resided too long. "SHUT THE HELL UP!"

Then she ran.

Not like a person attempting to escape.

Like a person intent on killing.

She attacked the dragonfly—at the glinting red spire of holiness draped with mockery like a cloak. She didn't know what it was any longer. She didn't even know if it was metaphor, memory, god, ghost, Shotaro, sin, Jesus, whatever.

It had smiled.

And that was enough.

Her body sprang like a weapon—shoulders charging, fists clenched tight, feet pounding the ground like war drums. Every muscle in her body ignited, rage wrapping up her spine like a second nervous system. Her scream wasn't a sound—it was centuries.

The dragonfly hung there. Unmoving. Still.

Then it darted.

Not quickly. Not fiercely. Just enough. A flutter to the side. Her swing missed by centimeters.

She stumbled, snarled, whirled again. Swung wide.

It fell left.

And laughed.

A clean, cruel, human laugh—filtered through static.

Then it spoke.

"Go back home," it whispered sweetly.

Her jaw clenched. She swung again.

"Fucking terrorist."

She screamed louder. Missed. Again.

"Lady Boom Boom."

She stopped.

Because that one hurt more.

Her scarf fluttered as she ran again, blind with rage. The dragonfly flew around her, lazily looping around her head as if it was tired of her now.

"You're exactly what they fear," it said. "Rage wrapped in cloth One push from martyrdom."

She threw another punch.

It dodged again. Effortless.

"Bang." it said, smug. "Just a twitch away from proving them right."

"I AM NOT THEM!" she screamed, throat tearing.

"Aren't you?" it replied.

She missed again.

Her hand scraped against the wall. Blood bloomed across her knuckles. Her breath hitched. Her legs began to shake—not from fear.

From truth.

The dragonfly hovered close, right at eye level. She could see her reflection in its glassy body—distorted, animal, burning.

And it whispered, soft like a preacher:

"You're just their mirror now, aren't you?"

She stopped moving.

And the air stopped with her.