**24th of April 2036, Outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh**
Amar sat outside his uncle's store. It was too humid to work and the late afternoon sun sat on his shoulders like a lazy cat unwilling to move.
Amar didn't mind the heat. In fact, he rather enjoyed being coddled by the weather in his uncle's plastic lawn chair.
The store sat along a busy road that led into Dhaka. He watched the thick traffic struggle in and out of the city in front of him; inching forward in a blare of horns and diesel smoke.
Amar had gotten used to the sound of the traffic. It made for familiar white noise and the dust of the vehicles made the idea of standing up even more unbearable. He could feel himself lulling as he dangled his feet off the edge of the chair.
"Amar!" shouted a gruff voice from inside the shop. Suddenly, the pleasant afternoon warmth turned to ice inside the little boy's veins. He leapt out of his seat and cut through beads in the shop door.
"You napping again?" the gruff man asked accusatively, without looking up from the register.
"N-no uncle...", stuttered Amar.
The man grunted through his beard. "A fuse has broken in the refrigerator. I need you to wait here in case Mr Singh arrives with the delivery while I'm getting a new one.". The man pulled some notes from the register and closed it to look up at his nephew. "Do not open the door for anyone except me or Mr Singh. Understand?"
Amar nodded dutifully while Murshed rounded the counter and kneeled to meet his nephew at eye level.
"What are you to do?" asked Murshed, placing his hands on Amar's shoulders.
"Only answer the door for you and Mr Singh," replied Amar
"Good Boy, I won't be long," said Murshed quickly while giving his nephew a brief hug and a swift kiss on the top of his head before getting up and ruffling his hair. "Oh! And do not let me find anything missing from the storeroom when I get back!" said Murshed while closing the door.
Amar marched behind the counter, pulled himself onto the stool, and waited patiently, listening to the muted traffic pass by like bleating cattle. When the door was closed, there was no sunlight in the little shop, and the cheap fluorescent bulbs his uncle bought did little to brighten the space.
Amar didn't mind; however, while it wasn't as good as the lawn chair, this stool made for a perfectly acceptable napping place.
Amar slid forward onto the counter and gently shut his eyes.
Suddenly, Amar was awake. The air was cooler and the sound of the traffic had changed from lazy and irritated to something more panicked and severe. The cars were blaring constantly, through the sounds of crashes, alarms and dying horns. He wanted to open the door and see what was happening but heeded his uncle's words and waited, listening.
Then there was a knock.
----
Murshed baulked at the price of the new fuse, "400? That is ridiculous!" he exclaimed at the shop owner.
The wiry man sat behind a barricade of battered electronics boxes and stroked his chin. "The price is the price," he said dismissively.
"But this is five times what I paid last time," pleaded Murshed.
"Shortage." replied the man curtly
"What?" questioned Murshed.
"There is a shortage" he sighed with just enough breath to anger Murshed.
"Huar pola! You thief!" hissed Murshed.
The man cocked an eyebrow and said, "It is the price", he paused. "If you want to take your business elsewhere, then by all means, feel free to drive all the way into Dhaka".
Murshed didn't want to leave the boy for long, so he angrily stuffed his hand into his pocket, pulled out the crumpled notes and began counting. He handed the man his money and stopped out of the shop.
"Please come again," the man sang sarcastically as Murshed left.
Cursing under his breath, Murshed pulled out the key for his bike and rounded the corner, only to find it missing. He did a double-take before realising it had been stolen.
Murshed seethed and kicked a wall. He had been robbed twice, like some sort of fool. He checked his phone to find it without a signal and barged his way back into the electronics store.
"Do you have a phone?" Murshed demanded of the store owner.
The owner, bemused by his sudden return, said, "A phone?"
"Yes, I need to make a call. Now" Insisted Murshed, trying to hide his obvious rage.
"Ahh..." the man paused, feigning thought... "No."
"No?"
"Yes, No."
Murshed took a pause; without another word, he turned and knocked over a shelf of phone cables before, once again, storming out.
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Murshed marched up the street to clear his head and hopefully find a better signal. He thought maybe he could call Mr Singh and see if he would pick him up or at least let him know if Amar was okay.
He took his phone out of his pocket and... nothing. He stretched out his arm above his head and kept wandering along the road, staring at his phone until something on the Dhaka Skyline caught his eye.
A plume of smoke was rising to the sky, thick and black like ink pushing through the water. Other wispy tendrils followed the monolithic cloud and Murshed's stomach turned at the sight.
His frustration turned to fear. He had to get back to Amar and go home. He knew it would take him hours, but he may as well begin walking.
Murshed set off back to his shop, periodically checking his phone to phone, to no avail. After an hour, he noticed the traffic was heavy and tried to wave down a car in the jam on the road.
One man lowered his window and shouted at him, so Murshed walked up to the short van and briefly explained his predicament.
"Get in!" shouted the man.
Murshed obliged and got into the passenger seat.
The Stranger was old and wearing a thobe. His heavy eyes were heavily set in his skull, and his long beard hid yellowed, chipped teeth.
"You said you need to find your boy?"
"Yes, he is by himself, just some miles down this road," replied Murshed.
"No, is no time for a boy to be alone," said the man
"What do you mean?"
"You do not know?" asked the man, eyeing Murshed's weathered jeans.
"Do you mean the fire?"
"It is not a fire," he responded, surely.
"I don't understand. Is it a bombing? Are we being attacked?", asked Murshed, frustration and panic rising through his chest. He wished the traffic would move faster.
"No!" laughed the man, "It is Yawm Al-Qiyaamah!"
Murshed fell silent at the remark. Either this man was insane, or worse, had seen something to affirm this belief. No, he must surely be senile.
The stranger gave Murshed an odd look but left him to his thoughts for a while before breaking the silence.
"How far is your shop?"
"Not far. I will tell you when we are near."
Murshed felt an unusual tension from this man as they crept through the stop-start traffic. He was uncomfortable from the heat in the cramped cab of this stranger's van and thoroughly unnerved by the man himself.
Despite the traffic, this was quicker than walking and Murshed worried how the man might react if he tried to leave.
Murshed watched the stranger cautiously for a while. He could see the old man's skeleton trembling through the thin skin on his hands, the folds on his withered neck and his pristine thobe that looked out of place on someone so haggard.
But Murshed would always find his gaze returning to the man's eyes. With blag bags beneath, they retreated so far into his skull that Murshed almost couldn't see them from the side. The man's whites had yellowed and burst veins blistered across them like lightning pointing towards the man's dark pupils. His eyes, with their dark irises, appeared blank and glazed, fixed on the vehicle ahead as he muttered prayers to himself.
-----
Amar listened for some indication that whoever was on the other side was his uncle, but the person just kept knocking without a word.
Amar stayed quiet and waited; the banging stopped.
Then Amar heard a loud thud as something heavy hit the door.
-----
Murshed and the stranger came to a complete stop. The traffic had halted, and they hadn't moved for almost ten minutes.
Murshed bounced his leg, waiting for a break in the gridlock.
The sun was setting, but the sky was still light from the flames of the city. Murshed had to get out of the car.
The shop wasn't far and he could walk to it in about 30 minutes if he hurried; he opened the door and went to say goodbye to the stranger, but the old man didn't seem to notice and continued his chanting.
Murshed squeezed through the long stall of tuktuks, short vans and motorcycles to get to the side of the clogged carriageway, but before he could step onto the blistered yellow concrete, a man on a moped flew past in front of him. Murshed almost leapt backwards to prevent being run down by the rider and then stepped out onto the pavement to curse at the man for being so reckless. However, the man was already out of earshot.
Murshed treaded further along the path, checking over his shoulder for anyone else trying to cut past the road. Nerves were starting to get the best of him, so he tried to collect himself as he strode towards his nephew, but the sounds of hundreds of angry drivers made that impossible.
The sound of car alarms came into Murshed's earshot and smoke stacks marked their origin. Murshed assessed the damaged cars while he walked. No wonder the cars had stopped. The accident was astonishing. Vehicles of all sizes were crumpled, and metal was sheared in parallel lines. Murshed couldn't stop to look, nor did he have to as the pile-up kept going for what felt like forever while the smell of diesel and burnt rubber throttled his sinuses and turned his eyes red.
Murshed's attention was taken by a figure slumped against one of the boxy concrete huts lining the road. They appeared to be unconscious. Murshed wondered if they had been hurt in the accident. The store was only a few minutes away, and maybe if he could get this person on his feet, he could help them once he got to Amar.
The figure appeared to be a woman. She wore a lavender headscarf that draped along her nearside almost to the floor, covering her arm. A burgundy shirtdress covered the rest of her.
As Murshed approached, a different equally powerful smell took him. A smell of metal. He sped up and called out to the woman to no response before kneeling to her side and trying to shake her awake.
Her corpse peeled from the wall and fell lifeless to the ground.
Murshed didn't fully acknowledge the woman was dead until he looked at her chest, and her stomach and... Murshed turned to vomit.
She had been punctured and gouged - mutilated by someone. Upon a second look, Murshed realised that her flat burgundy shirtdress was several garments compacted and homogenised by the blood that had soaked from wide stab wounds. The blood on the wall was still somewhat fresh and sticky. It had held her body seated like cheap glue before Murshed had disturbed its hold. Her jaw hung slack and all her laugh lines had been streaked with spit and tears Murshed couldn't bring himself to look her in the eyes.
Murshed became very aware of his own blood rushing through his ears and by his temples. His entire face throbbing as he swallowed the bitter bile coating his mouth. Some semblance of lucidity returned to him and he realised Amar was not safe.
Murshed began to run. His vision flashed white and tunnelled through stinging eyes. He could barely register his surroundings as he moved, tripping over and kicking through things soft and hard, but he could see his shop, he could see the door.
It was broken.
Murshed rushed into the cramped shop, vision flashing, and promptly lost his footing on some of his wares strewn across the floor. He could barely make out the damage; the lights had been turned off.
Murshed launched himself forward into the store labouring and crawling through the dark, hoping to find his nephew hidden in the back room safely tucked behind some old pallets.
"Amar!" He cried through spit and bile.
He heard stirring in the back, followed by the tentative turn of a door handle.
Murshed kicked outward, clearing the clutter by his feet to scramble upright. As the door began to open, he was overcome with relief that collapsed into dread when the door finally opened. He froze.
The metallic stench hit him before he could see the outline of what stood before him. Its figure was gaunt and tall, so tall it pressed its head to the ceiling at an unnatural angle, as though its neck was broken. The arms were unnaturally long, and it had sharp, stretched fingers like blades. Murshed couldn't make out any of its features in the dark, but he knew it was looking at him.
The last thing Murshed heard was a gentle groan through a raspy bubbling coming from behind the creature. Then it moved.