Misunderstood Villain: Heroines Mourn My Death-Chapter 228: I Saw A Dream

Malik's body screamed. Every nerve in his skin, every bone under flesh, every breath clawed out of his lungs. He lay there, sprawled on the cracked, blood-stained ground, face turned upward toward the heavens.

The sky above him was still. Pale, uncaring. That sky had watched him bleed more times than any living soul. It had seen him fall. Burn. Break. Be unmade. Again and again. That sky had been the ceiling to his tomb more times than he dared remember.

What was the number now? A billion? Trillion? Quadrillion? Quintillion fractured blinks folded over each other like ash and paper and grief? Who the Hell knew?

Somewhere, in the middle of all those loops, all those endless rewinds and do-overs and screams that didn't echo anymore…

He had started dreaming once more.

Stupid dreams. Beautiful, stupid dreams.

Like the one that he saw before all of this...

Before blood spilled like water...

Before a ballad got ripped in half right in the middle of its best damn note...

Oh, he had returned... though only for glimpses.

He saw Rehan's dumb, dopey smile when he talked about his past exploits.

The way he laughed over the campfire.

He saw Huda bitching about the food, poking it with her tongue like it had personally offended her, then devouring it anyway.

He saw Safira—nervous, stammering, awkward Safira—trying to say something meaningful and tripping over her words, and he saw the true Safira, the ever-curious one, the strange one, the weirdly mature one.

He saw Jasmine and her dream—her wish. That fragile, radiant thing she held close to her chest. A dream she was almost afraid to believe in... a dream that would never come to pass.

He saw Faqir and his life. His family, his children, his tragedy. A man who had loved his people more than they deserved.

He saw Layla, annoying as ever, asking questions that made his head hurt—but looking so alive, so cute, that he always answered anyway. She had this way of laughing that made even his headaches feel worth it.

He saw Black. Crimson. The chaos he brought, the peace he left behind.

He saw... Sinbad.

God. Sinbad. That idiot. That little brother. That storm of a boy who made Malik want to be a better person. The one whose death began his descent into something way beyond madness.

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He dreamed about all of them.

And in that final breath…

As the sky blurred, as blood filled his mouth, as exhaustion claimed him, he thought:

'Next time, I'll walk away.'

Maybe that was the answer.

Maybe the world didn't need his saving.

Maybe it needed him to leave it alone.

No more sacrifices. No more rewinds. No more pretending he could fix anything.

He would no longer be an example of hypocrisy.

He would uphold his promise.

Next time…

He wouldn't fight fate.

He'd let it win.

'I'm so... tired...'

Malik closed his eyes.

The darkness surged in like an old friend—quiet, cold, familiar.

He let go.

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'No... I don't like that answer.'

'Death delays my visit...'

'I still breathe...'

'Hear me...'

'I'm still alive.'

'I'll never let go.'

Blink.

...

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink...?

The cycle paused.

Malik floated somewhere beyond.

He was in a void, surrounded by nothing but silence.

His eyes were closed, his brows furrowed, face relaxed.

"I saw a dream."

His words were not to anyone in particular...

Just to IT. Wherever IT was.

The thing that watched. The thing that waited. The thing that always sat behind the curtain of his life.

"My first dream… the good one. Everything felt right. I thought I was just… lucky to see that 'What If.' Really lucky."

He laughed softly.

"Then I had another dream. The second one. It spoke of Faqir's life... The world was real here. It was wrong. Everything was broken. But it was real."

He picked up a pebble from the void and rolled it in his hand.

Where'd it even come from?

Didn't matter.

"And now?"

He dropped it.

It didn't make a sound.

"Now I saw another one. My final dream."

Malik looked up at nothing...

Or maybe at IT.

"A dream where I saved them."

He took a beat.

"A dream where I saved them all."

His voice shook—just a little.

"I found a way, you see... I did it by intertwining my soul... my fate with theirs. I don't know how exactly—I just know it worked. With our souls laced together, they were given pieces of my strength, my curse, my immunity. It made them like me. Untouchable by Corruption."

He clenched his fists.

"But it wasn't free. Of course, it wasn't."

He sighed, a low, soft sound.

"By giving them my strength… I had less left for myself, and, of course, I had sacrificed much of my remaining life span."

A slow breath.

"I couldn't save them all; I had to make a choice. A sacrifice."

And he did.

"…After Corruption failed to take them, after I finally won…"

His eyes fluttered open.

"I woke up."

Safira's laugh, Duban's smirk, Nasir's proud smile.

He could still feel Yusuf clinging to his leg. Could still hear Faqir yelling at him for not cleaning his boots before entering his new home.

"It was beautiful. So stupidly beautiful it hurt. Because, like all dreams…"

He blinked, his voice becoming softer.

"It wasn't real."

...

Malik now stood at the edge of nothing.

"This was about choices. And I made mine."

He straightened up, a soldier waiting for judgment.

"I chose to save Safira."

"I chose to save Duban."

And…

"And to do that… I chose to kill Faqir."

The word sacrifice hadn't crossed his lips.

No, he believed himself to have killed him.

Guilt didn't choke him for that admission.

It didn't. It just sat there. Familiar.

"I chose to kill Nasir."

"Uncle Jafar."

"Jamal."

"Farid."

"Adil."

"Saif."

"Bahir."

"Karim."

"Zaid."

"And every damn soul in that wedding hall."

His hands were empty. And that made it worse. If they'd been bloody, it would've felt fair... at least a little.

"Sacrifices usually mean you give yourself, right?"

He paused.

"But I'm a cursed man. A selfish man pretending to be selfless. I didn't give myself. I gave them."

He uncurled his fists.

"My curse, it..."

Pausing for a moment, he looked up.

"It had someone else's name on it."

That someone had to matter.

"So I gave it to someone who would change the world more than I ever could. Someone who still had something worth building. Someone like Safira. Someone like Duban."

He wiped his face. Dry. Bone dry.

"Faqir… he was better than me. He was more than me."

Another silence. A heavier one.

"But the fix my curse gave me… it needed weight. And he… he..."

So Malik made the choice.

"Forgive me for giving up what wasn't mine to give."

He took a breath.

"They lived... in my final dream. They lived."

He closed his eyes.

"I hope that's enough."

The world paused.

"I... really... do..."

{End Of Volume Four: I Saw A Dream.}