Halima from the Future

She came to stop a disaster. He never knew it was his heart at risk.

Sarfaraz never expected the doorbell to ring at midnight. The city was silent except for the occasional hum of distant traffic and the steady tapping of rain against his window. He wasn’t expecting company, especially not at this hour.

When he opened the door, there she was.

A girl, drenched but calm, standing on his porch. Her eyes were strange — sharp and tired, like someone who had seen too much too soon. She pulled a soaked coat tighter around herself and looked up at him.

“My name is Halima,” she said softly, “and I’m from the future.”

Sarfaraz blinked. For a moment, he thought she was joking, or worse, crazy. But there was something in her voice — urgency, a fragile hope — that made him step aside.

“Come in,” he said.

Over steaming cups of tea, Halima explained.

“The world ends in less than a month. A disaster you cause, Sarfaraz, will trigger it.”

He laughed nervously. “Me? I’m just an ordinary guy.”

“Not anymore,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “You will be.”

She told him about the future she came from — a world ravaged by a collapse no one foresaw. She said she traveled back in time to prevent it. But more than that, she was here because… she needed him.

Sarfaraz felt a strange pull toward her, like a gravity he hadn’t noticed before.

Days passed, and Halima stayed. Together, they pieced together clues about the disaster — small details at first: strange weather patterns, unexplained outages, strange messages in the news. But Halima always looked at him differently, as if waiting for something.

One rainy evening, she told him the truth.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” she said, her hands trembling.

“What?”

“That disaster isn’t just some event in the future. It’s tied to you. And the choices you make right now… could either save us all or doom us forever.”

Sarfaraz’s heart pounded. He wanted to ask more, to demand answers. But instead, he reached for her hand, grounding himself.

As the days grew closer to the predicted disaster, Sarfaraz noticed changes inside himself — flashes of memories that weren’t his, feelings of fear and loss he couldn’t explain. Halima’s presence became the only constant, the only anchor in a swirling storm of uncertainty.

One night, under a sky streaked with unnatural lightning, Sarfaraz finally asked, “Why did you come to me?”

Halima’s eyes glistened. “Because in the future… you’re the only one who can make the choice to stop it. But also because I…”

She paused, searching his face for a sign he understood.

“I didn’t just come to stop the disaster,” she whispered, “I came for you.”

The night the disaster was supposed to happen, Sarfaraz stood beside Halima on the rooftop of his apartment building. The city below flickered with lights — some fading, some shining like stars refusing to die.

He looked at her, feeling the weight of everything that had passed between them.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “I’m with you.”

Halima smiled, a bittersweet curve of her lips.

As the clock struck midnight, a wave of energy rippled across the sky — lightning cracking open the dark, the air thick with electricity.

Sarfaraz reached out, touching her hand.

And in that moment, the future shifted.

Weeks later, the world felt different — quieter, safer. Halima’s warnings still echoed in his mind, but the disaster was gone, erased by choices made and sacrifices given.

She stayed by his side, no longer a stranger from another time, but someone who belonged.

Sarfaraz finally understood the greatest truth she’d carried all along:

Sometimes, saving the world means trusting the heart.