The Black Tear

The courtyard of the Faculty of Nursing at Cairo University always carried a strange kind of warmth this time of day. The late afternoon sun stretched long with golden light. The air was thick with the scent of dust, and grilled corn from the street vendor beyond the gates.

Mazen Abdou sat on the low steps leading up to the central lecture hall, an untouched pharmacology book resting on his lap. Its pages fluttered in the lazy breeze, but he made no move to hold them down.

His gaze wasn't on the text.

Across the courtyard, near the fountain where students gathered between lectures, Shina Hossam stood with another student — a guy Mazen didn't even know by name. The boy said something, grinning, and Shina burst into laughter, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

Mazen's stomach tightened. He told himself, It's nothing. It's the fourth time, that's all. Doesn't mean anything.

But it did mean something.

It meant a lot of things.

The breeze rustled the pages again. Mazen sighed and shut the book.

A familiar voice cut through his thoughts.

"Ya Mazen, you alright, man?"

Nour El-Deen dropped down onto the step beside him, shoving a half-eaten sandwich into a paper bag. The wiry, bespectacled student adjusted his glasses and peered at him.

"You look like you've just lost your final exam papers in a storm."

Mazen managed a weak smile.

"Nothing. Just… long day."

Nour followed his gaze and caught sight of Shina laughing again. His brow quirked.

"Ah. I see."

"It's not what you think," Mazen mumbled, his voice low, eyes flicking down to the cracked concrete at his feet.

"Yeah?" Nour stretched out his legs. "'Cause it kinda looks exactly like what I think. And also what half the faculty already knows, habibi."

Mazen clenched his jaw.

"I don't care."

"Of course you don't." Nour stood, brushing breadcrumbs off his jeans. "Just don't start walking into traffic without looking, yeah? You're not as subtle as you think."

He left Mazen sitting there with the sound of the fountain's soft spray and Shina's bright, carefree laugh.

Mazen stayed a while longer, watching as the sky began to take on the bruised violet of approaching dusk.

And the knot in his chest twisted tighter.

________________________________________

He told himself it didn't mean anything.

A laugh was a laugh.

A smile was just a smile.

But memory had its own way of unspooling itself when you least wanted it.

A month ago, they'd been strangers — two nursing students with a couple of shared lectures and nothing to say to each other. Until the day Professor Hany made a snide, uncalled-for joke about

Mazen's absentee father while taking attendance.

He'd stood there, feeling heat rise in his face, unsure whether to laugh it off or let it slide.

Then Shina had spoken.

"Sir," she'd said, clear as glass, "if we're shaming students over personal lives now, I have a few things I could mention about you too."

The lecture hall had gone still.

A beat.

Then a ripple of stifled laughter.

The professor had blushed, muttered something, and moved on.

After class, Mazen had caught up to her in the hallway.

"You didn't have to do that."

She'd shrugged. "Didn't like his tone. Plus, I'm petty. No one makes fun of quiet boys on my watch."

And she'd grinned — that easy, crooked grin that hit harder than any well-crafted insult.

Since then, there'd been other moments.

The time they'd both grabbed the same pen from a classroom desk, her fingers brushing his, and she'd laughed at the way he chewed the cap, making him self-consciously hide it.

Or the afternoon at the courtyard fountain when he'd told her an awkward joke about how ancient Egyptians believed onions warded off evil spirits, and she'd countered with, "Yeah? I bet that's why my grandma forces me to eat them raw before exams. Guess you're safe around me now."

And the time she'd impulsively grabbed his wrist and dragged him halfway down a street to buy roasted peanuts from a vendor she swore made them better than anyone in Cairo.

Little things.

Nothing dramatic.

But every one of them carved a space for her inside him.

He hadn't even realized it at first. Love didn't announce itself. It crept in quiet, through the cracks, until one day you caught yourself watching someone laugh, and it hurt.

That was today.

And yesterday.

And the day before.

The same boy.

The same easy way she laughed with him.

And now the memories felt like rusted blades turning in his chest.

He pushed the pharmacology book aside and stood.

Enough.

________________________________________

Mazen left campus just as the call to Maghrib prayer drifted over the rooftops. The streets glowed with sunset, headlights flickering on, Cairo's familiar hum rising to meet the night.

He cut through side streets until the city's noise faded behind him.

The amusement park lay on the outskirts of the old industrial district — forgotten, fenced-off, and rusted to its bones. The sign above the gate still read "DreamLand Gardens" in faded, curling paint.

It wasn't locked. It never was. No one bothered anymore.

He used to come here when he was a kid, hand in hand with his father. Back when the world felt wider. Safer.

Mazen crossed to the Ferris wheel — the tallest thing for miles.

From here, Cairo stretched out in a hazy blur, a thousand flickering lights against the darkening sky.

Usually, it calmed him.

But not tonight.

The ache behind his ribs wouldn't ease.

He leaned back, closing his eyes, remembering how his father used to grip the bar beside him, pointing out the city skyline and making up stories about the people in the streets below.

He smiled bitterly at the memory.

Then opened his eyes again, and the ache was still there.

It doesn't work anymore.

A chill slid down his spine. He hated the thought but couldn't deny it.

The place that used to heal him didn't have the strength for it tonight.

And deep down, Mazen knew why.

________________________________________

Shina wasn't the type to chase after people. She wasn't the type to worry too much about quiet boys with sharp eyes and sad smiles.

Or so she'd told herself.

But there was something about the way Mazen had been walking these past days — shoulders hunched, eyes distant, like he was carrying a weight no one else could see. And for reasons she hadn't fully unpacked, she'd noticed.

More than she meant to.

She told herself it was nothing.

But something tugged at her. So she followed.

He moved quickly, cutting through the old streets like someone who'd done it a hundred times.

Shina trailed at a distance, keeping to the shadows, ducking behind a parked van when he glanced back once.

Where is he going?

When he passed into the old industrial quarter.

When he reached the crumbling gates of the abandoned amusement park, Shina's stomach tightened.

Seriously, Mazen? This place?

The park had been a popular haunt before she was born.

She hesitated outside the rusted gate.

But her feet moved anyway.

Through the broken gate.

Past the weather-worn carousel.

Following the faint, rhythmic groan of the Ferris wheel in the breeze.

And then — she heard his voice. Far off, ragged and broken.

"I love her! And I don't know what to do anymore!"

The words hit like a stone to the chest.

For a moment, the world narrowed to the sound of the creaking wheel and the echo of those words.

Shina's heart twisted, and she stepped closer, breath caught tight in her throat.

He was talking about… me?

________________________________________

Mazen gripped the rusted railing of the Ferris wheel car.

His throat ached from holding in words for too long.

The park around him hung silent.

He let out a harsh breath. It clouded in the cooling air.

It doesn't matter. She wouldn't care anyway.

But it did.

And maybe it always had.

Mazen threw back his head, his voice tearing loose before he could stop it.

"I love her!"

It echoed against the dead metal and empty booths.

His voice cracked. He didn't care.

"I love her, and I don't know what to do anymore!"

It left him breathless. Staring up at the indifferent sky.

A voice answered — soft, fragile, like a thread ready to snap.

"…Mazen?"

His heart stuttered.

He spun.

And there she was.

Shina. Standing at the base of the Ferris wheel, wide amber eyes shining in the dark.

He felt everything in him freeze.

She'd heard.

All of it.

For a second, the world held its breath.

Mazen opened his mouth, searching for words, for some way to pull the air back into his lungs.

Nothing came.

His throat worked, and the shame surged up too fast to stop.

He looked away, blinking hard. But the burn behind his eyes refused to leave.

And then — a single tear slid down his cheek.

But it wasn't clear.

It was black.

Midnight-dark, shimmering like oil in the dim light.

He didn't even notice.

Not until it fell.

And hit the cracked concrete with a sound too sharp for something so small.

A sound that didn't belong in this world.

________________________________________

The tear struck the ground with a sound like glass cracking beneath water.

Mazen barely registered it.

His pulse pounded in his ears.

And then — the air changed.

The wind stilled.

Shina felt it too.

A prickle danced across her skin, raising goosebumps along her arms. A sick, pulsing hum radiated from the spot where the tear had fallen — a tiny, dark stain against the broken concrete.

It spread.

Hairline cracks spiderwebbed outward, glowing faintly violet against the gray.

A low, unnatural hum filled the air, vibrating in their bones.

"Mazen," Shina whispered, her voice barely carrying.

He looked down, following her wide-eyed gaze.

A faint ripple — like heat rising off stone — shimmered above the cracked earth.

Then a single point of violet light burst through.

The ground shuddered.

Mazen stumbled back, eyes wide.

It wasn't like fire. Not like any flame, or smoke, or mist.

It was… a tear in the world itself.

A swirling, formless Vortex of violet and midnight black, the edges crackling like a storm.

Something ancient.

Something alive.

Mazen's instincts screamed at him to run.

But all he could do was stare.

________________________________________

The vortex exploded outward with a roar of displaced air.

The Vortex started to pull every thing near it suddenly.

Mazen's hair whipped around his face, his jacket billowing behind him. The pulling force was impossible — like gravity itself had twisted sideways, yanking toward that impossible tear in the earth.

"Shina!" he shouted, voice raw.

She was closer to the edge than he was, too shocked to move.

Without thinking, Mazen lunged toward her, grabbed her arm with both hands, and hurled her away from the widening rift.

"Get back!"

His strength surprised even him — adrenaline making him reckless. She hit the ground a few meters away, rolling, scrambling for footing.

But the pull was too strong.

The air screamed.

The crack in the world stretched wider, violet and black lightning crackling along its rim. The force dragged at Mazen's limbs, pushed him toward the rippling maw.

He reached out, grabbing at a broken metal railing.

His hand slipped.

"Mazen!" Shina's voice — raw, desperate.

He caught her gaze in that instant — the terror in her amber eyes, her lips parted to say something he'd never hear.

Then the darkness took him.

For a heartbeat, Shina clung to a splintered wooden beam.

But the storm around the portal surged again.

Her fingers slipped.

And she, too, was pulled into the violent, spiraling unknown.

The tear in the earth hissed, crackled, then snapped shut like a wound.

The park fell silent.

Only the dying wind stirred the leaves.

And Cairo's night stretched on as if nothing had happened.

To be continued…