Darkness.
Then color
Then darkness again
Then sounds…sounds?
"Who's talking?" It was wet and muffled, like trying to listen underwater.
No words. No thoughts. Just pressure, and heat. The rough edge of fabric brushing against skin so new it stung.
A voice, low and soft, speaking a language she couldn't understand. It wasn't just foreign. It was impossible. Her mind, still formless, didn't know what to make of anything.
She didn't know her name.
She didn't know where she was.
She didn't even know she was.
All she knew was needed. The sharp ache in her belly. The dry scrape in her throat. The disorientation of being awake and alive but not yet aware. Processing thoughts but not…As she opened her eyes, there she was, the source of these muffled sounds.
The woman, warm, dark-skinned, eyes rimmed with salt and worry, held her tightly. Zahra didn't know the word for "mother," but she recognized the rhythm of the woman's heartbeat. It was steady. It was something she could relate to, but couldn't figure out how.
The tent around them was dim, flickering with candlelight. Outside, voices murmured in low tones. The wind whispered through the canvas, carrying the smell of dust and diesel. There was too much information to process, too much stimuli, too much everything, and yet, within the confines of her mind was a blank canvas that remained blank and distorted.
Time passed. It always does.
And with it, something shifted.
Not around her, but inside.
A flicker.
A number.
7.2 million?
A white-gloved hand signing a check. A briefcase left under a mahogany table, just sitting there idly.
Zahra blinked.
What was that? What is happening?
But the flashes did not end. Like a magician shuffling a deck of cards, they were too fast to catch. A yacht in one. A glass of something golden in another. An elevator door closing. A wire transfer confirmation. "What are all these?" she thought. "What could these mean?"
There was no context to these flashes. No names. Just shadows and shimmers of wealth. Not her wealth. Definitely not Zahra's. Could it be a premonition of things to come in the future? Or maybe echoes of a past that should have remained forgotten?
She twitched again. Her body stiffened as another deck of shuffling memory slipped into her.
A male voice. Her voice?. But it was older. American?
"Trust is a currency. And I never invest without a return."
She gasped, but her lungs didn't cooperate. Her chest hiccupped instead. Her lip quivered. Her memories told her she had known luxury, that she was cold, precise, and invincible. But now she lay swaddled in rags. The pictures were not adding up. The pictures told a story of an adult but here she lay swaddled as a baby. A fly buzzed past her ear.
Another flicker.
"We can't afford a paper trail. Move it offshore."
More disjointed words. A black ledger with a signature that looked oddly familiar. Was it hers? The smirk of a tax attorney that also echoed fondness in her mind. A senator shaking her... or his hand.
Then…
A hospital bed. Beeping. The sharp taste of anaesthesia. Pain.
Then…
Nothing.
Then…
This.
The baby that was Zahra, that had once been Victor, began to cry again. These pangs were not for hunger or warmth. This time, it was confusing. It was the sound of a soul howling into the darkness, a desperate cry straining for clarity against the tide of oblivion.
Salma rocked her gently. "Hush, Zahra. My little blossom. You're safe."
But Zahra knew she wasn't.
Not yet.
Not while the memories kept coming.
Not while the ledger remained unbalanced.
She tried to cry again, but it came out different. This time it was less a scream, more a croak, as if her throat remembered speech but her body wouldn't comply. Inside her, memories swirled like storm clouds forming at the horizon. They came in pieces.
A voice from across a walnut table:
"Technically, what we're doing isn't illegal."
A click of a pen.
"It's a gray area. And in gray areas, we build empires."
She didn't understand the words, not now, but the feeling behind them clung to her like smoke. The cold rush of getting away with it.
Another flicker.
Satin sheets. Paris. A vault. The laughter of men who had never known hunger. A signature at the bottom of a contract that rerouted millions into nothing.
"Taxes are for the naïve."
Her fingers, incomparably small now, flexed unconsciously.
It didn't make sense. The room she lay in stank of iron and milk. The woman cradling her had callused hands and dark eyes worn thin by grief. Nothing in this world echoed what she was remembering. The past and present sat side by side like strangers sharing a bench at the end of the world.
Her brain ached with the pressure of two lives colliding.
Victor Blackwell had built walls with money and escaped every trap with ink. On the other hand, Zahra Bakari was now trapped in a body that could barely hold her head up.
But the worst part was not the contrast or disjointed memories. It was the slow, creeping realization:
She remembered nothing of love. Not a mother's voice, not a friend's. No warmth without condition. No hunger shared. No sacrifice offered freely. Her only memories were painted in ink and green notes.
What had once filled her life, offshore accounts, policy loopholes, high-rise views, wealth, now felt like echoes in a hollow hallway. The memory of gold felt cold in comparison to the gentle rhythm of this strange woman's heart.
Salma.
That was her name, wasn't it?
Zahra couldn't know it. But she did.
She curled slightly against the woman's chest. It was not out for comfort, but in response to something deeper going on inside of her. Something confused.
And then, another flicker.
Victor, older, standing at a podium.
He was laughing.
"They say greed is a sin. But it's only greed if you lose."
Applause. Laughter.
Then, the lights on his face dimmed.
And behind that podium… in the shadows…
A figure cloaked in starlight was watching.
Zahra stirred. Her lips parted and her breath hitched.
The Archivist.
She didn't know the name. But she knew those eyes.