The night was quiet and tense.
Malik stayed silent as he listened to the old crone tell him all about how she one day walked in on her husband kissing her sister, on their shared bed, only seen because she had forgotten something at home, on her way to work and had heard the noises of their amorous passions in their affair.
He tried to clench his eyes shut against the images of how, that very night, she had decided to take her sister out on a drive, slowly trundling along the road alongside the river, deciding to take her to visit their parent's graves, in the cemetery nearby.
He covered his ears as the woman screeched about how they had both knelt down, into the soil just before the graves, the graveyard being completely unkempt and the only indicator of the bodies being the wonky and weathered grave stones, bearing simple names and dates, no descriptions.
The woman crowed on about how the two of them had prayed together, asking their parents whether they were happy in the afterlife, whether father had taken any fulfillment at being a soldier in his life, and whether the two of them were happy with the lives that their daughters had lived.
Malik felt the glee in the fucking bitch's voice, as she gloated about grabbing her sister by the hair, stabbing her fingers into the braids in her bun, twisting her nails in her scalp, and then throwing her head into the tombstone, knocking her out, and leaving her to bleed, alone in the cold graveyard.
She sounded excited about the fact that her sister had died alone in the middle of the night, her body discovered days later, and ruled as a suicide.
And she sounded only too happy to report that, on the night that she had committed sororicide, she had slept with her husband, and that the fruits of her labour had blessed her with her beloved, darling twins.
Malik felt like he was going to be sick, and felt that maybe, dealing with those monsters and running to the scientist's door, despite what the old lady had told him, was a better idea than staying with her.
Her voice was beginning to grate on his nerves, like gears which were badly in need of oiling.
Malik knew that he had not killed anybody, but he was almost tempted to, starting with this old woman who would just not shut the fuck up, at all.
And he was happy to voice his feelings to her.
She only laughed in his face, cackling like she was a witch.
Malik shoved his eyes shut, trying to get some sleep, but found himself, simply lying there, emptying his mind of all his thoughts, with blissful unconsciousness just out of his reach.
The fire kept crackling, even without any more wood added onto it, and the woman seemed to shift her position every now and again, seemingly staying awake as well.
When Malik opened his eyes, he lamented that there was no window in the room, no possible way for him to tell the time in this place. He hoped that somebody would happily tell him when the sun was fucking up, because he was not going to be the one to open the door to check.
He closed his eyes again, and tried once more to fall asleep, forcefully keeping his mind blank, and eventually, the woman stopped moving as well, becoming still to the world, while the fire kept burning.
Malik had to concede that he wasn't going to fall unconscious and shuffled closer to the light.
He knew that he hadn't killed anybody.
He knew that he hadn't.
Who the fuck would he even kill?
He didn't have any siblings.
His mother didn't die during childbirth.
His father didn't die because he was some American toddler accidently firing a gun.
He didn't even know how his parents properly died, only finding out ten years later, when in high school, when Grandma told him that they had died in a fire, their house burning down to the ground - something that he did not remember at all.
Grandma had told him that the firefighters had saved him first, reaching his room first, the first room reached by going up the stairs. He had apparently slept through the entire incident, and only bursting into tears outside, cold and surrounded by strangers in an unknown place.
He had been asleep in bed the whole night, probably being tucked in, and read a bed time story, before hand.
Malik steeled his face, and thrust his hand into the fire, and felt the heat inside.
He felt his blood evaporating, his skin peeling off, his bone burning, and his nerves frying.
He kept his eyes on his hand, locking his pupils onto the surface of his hand. He brought his index finger and thumb together, and wiggled his pinky finger. He formed a fist inside the flames, watching nothing happen to his hand, despite the sensations.
Nothing happened to his hand inside the fire.
It would be useful to use in case he needed to throw the old lady away from him, and buy him some time.
Malik sat still and pulled his hand out, shaking and sweating, coated in a layer of dripping sweat.
He felt dizzy from the pain, and let himself fall to the floor, panting and holding the formerly seemingly burning hand to his chest.
He watched the flames leap up, spinning and burning in golds, reds, oranges, and yellows. If the light didn't make his eyes water, in exhaustion, all the adrenaline from before gone, the sight could have been relaxing.
Gradually, over time, the fire began to shrink, the shoots of fire began to fall quicker, no longer jumping as high. The fires were dying down. The coals, that the heat was apparently resting upon, were now becoming more visible.
With a small puff, the fireplace went out, plunging the room into darkness.