The island had not seen a sunrise in seven days. The skies stayed muted, the winds drifted slow, and inside the walls of the medical wing time itself seemed to hesitate. Mirshad lay still, his body unchanged, yet his presence filled every corner like a silent storm that refused to fade. The doctors had run every test, scanned every cell, measured every pulse, every reading. "His vitals are perfect. No trauma. No internal issue. He's not injured… he's just… not here," one of them whispered, but science had no answer for a soul that chose not to wake. Sophia never left his side. She sat in the same chair day and night, her hand locked with his. Rayyan came each morning, asking the same question. Amir brought food no one touched. Malik leaned in the doorway, murmuring quiet strength. Baba stayed against the wall, his gaze heavy, his silence a weight deeper than prayer. Every few hours his body surged — not with breath, but with lightning that curled through his veins and lit the air around him. The lights would flicker, and someone would look away before their tears fell.
On the seventh night the moon hid behind clouds, and the house was a vessel of waiting. The family sat in the lounge without words when it happened — the sword glowed. The same sword that had followed Mirshad into every war, that never moved unless he called for it, was now floating gently, humming as if the air itself bowed to it. Rayyan was on his feet first. "The sword…" It drifted forward, touching each of them lightly, a shoulder, a hand, a chest, then turned toward the hallway leading to Mirshad's room. It hovered at the wall switch and tapped it once, twice, again, until Rayyan's voice came low and certain. "It wants the roof open." He pressed the switch, and above the treatment room the ceiling panels slid away to reveal a vast, starless dark. The wind slipped in, and the sword gestured toward them. They stepped back without question.
Inside the room the sword moved alone, drifting toward the bed until it hovered over his chest. Slowly, it lowered until the hilt brushed against his fingers. His hand closed around it like it had never let go, and the blade pulsed once. The sky answered. Clouds tore apart. Thunder split the heavens. A bolt of lightning, pure and white, roared down from beyond the stars and struck Mirshad's body with a force that made the island tremble. Glass shook, lights burst, the sky screamed. The family froze in the glow of what they could not name.
When the silence fell, smoke rose in soft spirals from where the lightning had found him. The sword was still in his grip. Nothing moved—until a breath came. Slow. Measured. His chest lifted, his fingers tightened around the hilt, and beneath the mask two eyes opened, glowing with the light of the storm. Sophia's hands flew to her mouth, tears spilling as her voice broke, "He's awake… he's awake…" Rayyan stepped back as if the air had grown too heavy to breathe, Amir gripped Baba's shoulder, Malik's whisper cutting through the stillness. "He didn't wake. He was returned."
The medical doors opened. The sword drifted back to the family, and Mirshad stayed where he was, breathing, silent, but awake. No spell, no science, no force in the universe could have reached him. Only the sky. And the storm that lives within it.