She was in the spring of her life, not yet thirteen years old.
An orphan of a mother, yet full of joy—her laughter echoed in every corner. Behind her smile, she carried a silent wound no one could see.
Her father was her world—both her mother and her protector. She loved him deeply, never imagining that fate was weaving a nightmare in silence.
One day, monsters cloaked in human skin crept into her village. Hearts made of stone—if stone could feel, they were colder still.
They kidnapped her.
A child. Pure, innocent, unaware of the cruelty lurking in this world. She believed all people were as kind as she was.
Her father… When he received the call, he shattered.
They had her, and his soul screamed.
He loaded his weapons, fired into the night, not at enemies, but into the shadows of despair. His only daughter, his treasure, had been taken.
The next day, the rumors began. "She ran away with someone."
Words sharper than any blade spread across the village.
The whispers infected her father's heart. He began to doubt.
On the third day—Friday, March 30, 2012, just before dawn—they brought her back.
She stood trembling outside her home, tears streaming, desperate for an embrace, for a hand to say: "You're safe."
But instead of comfort, she was met with bullets.
Her father, broken by the lies, aimed and fired.
Her small body fell.
A tear still on her cheek.
Her wound wasn't just from the gun.
It was from every mouth that spoke against her.
From every person who whispered lies instead of seeking the truth.
As for the ones who took her? They fled.
But from the justice of the Most Powerful—there is no escape.
Chapter Two: Whispers of the Village
The village was small, but its whispers were louder than the mountains that surrounded it.
Every household knew its neighbor, and every heart counted the breaths of those around it.
Though the place was simple, evil lurked in its corners like dust hiding in old cracks.
There were men who sat silently at the village market. They didn't speak much, but their eyes knew no rest.
And women—gathered at doorsteps, their lips moving fast, weaving tales out of glances, smiles, or nothing at all.
No secret remained untouched.
No soul remained unjudged.
Salmā had no idea that behind those smiles she greeted every day, some eyes watched her too closely… too darkly.
She was a girl who believed in goodness, never taught to fear shadows—because no one had told her that sometimes, the monsters don't hide under beds…
They walk among us.
She would run through the village barefoot, carrying her schoolbooks, laughing with children, her hair dancing with the wind.
But what she didn't know was that, in another corner of that very village, her name was being passed from tongue to tongue…
Not as a child, but as a story waiting to be twisted.
The whispers began like insects in the dark—soft, quick, venomous.
"She's always smiling, too friendly with boys," said one.
"I saw her walk alone near the river," said another.
Little by little, words turned into knives, and knives into wounds unseen.
And somewhere, in silence, a trap was being set.
Not by strangers, but by those whose faces she passed every day.
Her fate was no longer in her hands—
It was being shaped by the very lips that spoke her name… without mercy.
Chapter One: An Orphan's Smile
The sun rose lazily over the village mountains, dew soaking the wild thyme leaves.
In a small mud house, Salma rose from her tiny bed, shaking off the threads of sleep from her long hair, and smiled.
She didn't smile because she lived a carefree life, but because she chose to plant light amid the darkness of her loss.
Orphaned since the age of five, she had never learned to cry. She believed sadness was a betrayal to the laughter her mother taught her in her last days.
Every morning, she kissed her father's hand and made him tea, then ran through the village alleys like a butterfly unaware of her fragile heart… fragile enough to break.
The villagers knew her and loved her smile, but few saw what hid behind it…
A deep pain in the chest of a little girl who only wished to be hugged.
**
One evening, Salma sat in the yard, gazing at her mother's photo hanging on the wall. Whispering, she said:
— "Mama… if you were here, would you hold me?"
She fell silent, then wiped a sneaky tear and said:
— "Dad says you became an angel… but I still need a hug, not with wings, just a warm hug."
**
Salma was full of life, but she didn't know that life itself was hiding a slope with no return.
Elsewhere in the village, eyes were watching, hearts filled with sickness without mercy, weaving their plan in the dark…
Her father didn't feel a thing; he laughed with her in the morning, sang to her at night…
Everything seemed normal.
Until the day…
The day her laughter choked, forever.
Chapter Three: The Day the World Stopped
The village awoke that morning with an uneasy silence.
The birds didn't sing their usual songs, and the wind seemed to carry whispers of dread.
Salma had vanished.
Her father, a man who had always been strong and proud, felt his heart shatter into pieces.
His only daughter, his light and joy, was gone without a trace.
Days passed with no word, no sign. The villagers spoke in hushed tones, their eyes shifting nervously.
Rumors spread like wildfire — some claimed she had run away with someone she loved, others whispered darker tales.
Each rumor was a blade, slicing deeper into the father's soul.
He wandered the village with a rifle in hand, firing shots into the empty air, his tears falling like rain.
On the third day, at dawn, a cruel message arrived —
They would return her.
When the sun rose, Salma appeared before her home, trembling, tears streaming endlessly down her face.
Her heart was shattered, longing for a hand to hold her, a chest to shelter her.
But the world that should have been her refuge turned into a nightmare.
Instead of an embrace, her father greeted her with bullets.
The little girl, who only knew innocence and laughter, fell silent forever.
Her blood mingled with the dust of the village streets, a tragic end to a story that should never have been told.