The Agreement of the Dead

I was not always dead.

No, death came much later—like a belated apology, or a kindly word after the firing squad. My name, though unimportant now, once sat proudly on university plaques and inked letters of recommendation. Now, I am only remembered in whispers. And worse still: in documents signed in bloodless ink by breathless men.

I was born in a house that knew both affection and belts. My mother, a religious woman, washed the walls with prayer and vinegar. My father, a proud postman with a proud fist, believed God lived in his right hand. I learned discipline before love. I learned silence before language.

Yet I loved.

Her name was Samira. She lived across the street and smiled like she was hiding treasure behind her teeth. We were seven when we made our first pact—beneath the neem tree, with chalky fingers and scraped knees—we swore to never betray each other.

We lied.

I. Injustice Smells Like Hospitals

At twenty-four, I was working for a small city newspaper. Not the fancy kind that exposes prime ministers or arms deals. No. The kind that covers ribbon cuttings, baby showers, and the occasional cat stuck in a tree. I wanted more.

The world was boiling—children dying in border camps, elders whipped in public squares for forgotten blasphemies, mothers hung from trees for birthing girls. But my editor insisted: "That’s not news. That’s history repeating itself."

I wrote anyway. Quietly. Anonymously. Through ghostly fingers on stolen typewriters. Exposing men in robes and suits alike. I was benevolent in truth—cruel in style. A satirist of the soul.

But the soul, when offended, fights back.

They found me.

Two masked men. One leather belt. A hospital room with nine stitches and no questions. The police laughed: “Maybe don’t write fairy tales next time, son.”

And so I cried. Not for the pain, but for the pity in their laughter. For the respect I had buried under satire. For the freedom I had sewn into silence.

II. The Girl Who Came in a Dream

Samira returned in a dream.

Older. Wiser. Eyes ringed with injustice and insomnia. Her voice, a lullaby dipped in acid.

“Why are you still alive?”

“What?”

“You should’ve died that night. But you didn't. And now you're here—rotting. Slowly. Pathetically. Alive only in ink and excuses.”

She vanished in a scream. My own. I woke with teeth marks on my palms. I hadn't bitten myself. The marks were small. Feminine.

Real.

III. The House with a Thousand Doors

I moved. Into a house older than sin and twice as silent. Rent was cheap. Because it came at a price.

I first noticed the doors on the third night. I counted them: twenty-seven. My house only had six rooms.

Each door was painted a different shade of guilt. One oozed cigarette smoke and apologies. Another smelled of rain and burning diaries. A third—one I dared not open—whispered my father’s name in reverse.

But one door... the thousandth, though invisible to eyes, pulsed behind the wallpaper.

And behind it: her.

IV. Abuse Wears Familiar Faces

Samira stood there, dressed in the memories I had erased. She smiled with teeth made of newspaper clippings.

“They lied to you.”

“Who?”

“Everyone. Your father. Your editor. Your nation. Even me.”

“What do you want?”

“An agreement.”

A scroll appeared in her hands. Written in a tongue I couldn’t read. But I understood.

She wanted me to confess.

To everything.

To loving her despite her bruises.

To writing truths and calling them fiction.

To turning pain into poetry.

To benefitting from cruelty.

To watching my mother break and saying she bent.

To using injustice as my muse.

I signed.

In blood. Mine.

V. The Mirror of Hypertension

The next morning, my blood pressure shot to 180. My ears rang. My vision blurred. And my heart thudded like a verdict. I was admitted.

Doctors said it was stress. But they didn’t know about the dreams. The doors. The girl who wasn’t dead, yet wasn’t alive.

She came again. This time, through the hospital mirror.

“They’ll come for you now. All of them. The abused. The abandoned. The honored. The hopeful. You told their stories. Now let them tell yours.”

The mirror shattered.

So did my peace.

VI. Trial of the Living Dead

They came at midnight.

A procession of forgotten souls.

A boy I once wrote about—beaten for stealing bread.

A girl raped behind a shrine, her justice buried with her body.

An old man hung for praying in the wrong direction.

All faces I had etched into stories. All ghosts I had profited from.

They screamed:

"You turned us into paragraphs!"

"You fed your ambition with our agony!"

"You mocked oppression, dressed it in jokes!"

"You said you cared... but you cashed the checks."

I tried to speak. To cry. To confess.

But the court of the dead only allows action.

So I tore out my tongue.

I wrote an apology.

On the walls.

In blood.

Again.

VII. Piety in Punishment

They forgave me.

But not before they branded me with every name I had ever written: liar, hero, victim, abuser, witness, lover, coward.

They left.

But the doors remained.

And so did the thousandth.

I open it every night now.

Inside: a desk. A typewriter. A candle that never melts.

I write not for fame. Not for claps or clicks. But for atonement.

VIII. Final Entry: Freedom Tastes Like Rust

I died last week.

Heart failure, they said. But I know.

It was justice.

Samira came to collect me.

She didn’t speak. She held my hand like we were seven again. Like the world was fair. Like promises mattered.

We walked through the thousandth door.

And behind it, at last, was silence.

Not the cruel kind. But the gentle kind that follows a scream too long held.

Epilogue

This is not a horror story.

This is a truth. Dressed in metaphor. Bathed in irony. Served with satire. And sealed in fiction.

If you read it, and felt nothing—

You are already dead.

But if your heart hurt, just once—

Welcome. You are alive.

And you are not alone.

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