by Max Barry

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DispatchAccountDrama

by The Republic of Insaanistan. . 24 reads.

Part 1: Missing

Fazluddin struggled and struggled, blindfolded and gagged. However, he just couldn’t free himself. He heard a door open, and the footsteps of multiple people. They took off his gag, and some of the people began to beat him. He groaned and blow after blow fell on him, but tied up, he could do nothing.

Eventually, they let up, and took of his blindfold and sat him up. His eyes eventually adjusted to the room, and he looked upon the face of the person behind his kidnapping.
“You...” he said. “Who would have thought. Why are you doing this?”
“You’re too much of a threat to me, Fazluddin,” came the reply. “If you shut up and do as we say, you’ll be okay. If not, well, let’s just say, we don’t exactly need you alive.”
The person smirked and made a hand gesture at the guards. After forcing him to drink water, they finally untied him, leaving food on the table in the room without windows. They then filed out and locked the door behind them.

Fazluddin looked at the plate of food on the table. He wasn’t sure whether it was now Ramadhaan or not, but it didn’t matter: they had made him drink water anyway. Besides, he was hungry.

Saying bismillah, he began to eat the food in front of him. Spaghetti with garlic bread and more water.
Khoda, he prayed. Find me a way out of here.



Shaheeda and Muhammad checked to make sure everyone was asleep. Then, Muhammad pulled out a screwdriver and began trying to unscrew the shut window.
“Hurry up,” Shaheeda whispered.
“The more you tell me to hurry up,” he said annoyed, “the slower I will go.”
Suddenly, Soraya turned to look at them. The two both froze.
“I thought you said you were sure everyone was asleep,” Shaheeda told Muhammad quietly.
“I thought I did!” he whispered.
“You can’t do anything right! You never listen,” Shaheeda retorted.
“Shhh!” Soraya told them.
“Soraya Aunty,” Shaheeda said in a hushed voice. “We’re trying to escape. We’ll go to Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Sharifistan, Turkey: we’re not sure. But we need to get out of here. We’ll come back for you all, we promise! Kasam Allah!” She nudged Muhammad, who repeated the phrase. Soraya slowly reached into a bag she had snuck in and handed them money. 5,000 Dinars, or at present, about 3,000 NSD.
“How...” started Muhammad. Soraya hushed him again. She said quietly the first real words she had said in weeks.
“Be safe,” she told them in Persian.
They both nodded, and Soraya turned back to the holy book in her lap, reading.

The two teenagers picked up their bags. Muhammad continued to unscrew the window before finally succeeding. Slowly, he opened it. He looked out, down at the city below him, where cars were still zooming through the streets.
“Sooo...” Shaheeda. “How do we get down? You know, without dying?”
It was a valid query: they were many stories up.
“Uhhh...I... uh...”
Shaheeda rolled her eyes. “Okay, I have a plan. We’ll go window by window until we reach a balcony. We can use my hijab to pull us down.”
She started to take it off, then noticed Muhammad looking at her. “Oh, look away, or so help me...”
She never finished the threat as Muhammad closed his eyes. She removed the headscarf and handed one end to him
“Now, open your eyes, provided you don’t look at me.”
Muhammad opened them, looking down. Using the scarf, he moved down on top of an extended window frame. Shaheeda then did the same. Muhammad looked in the opposite direction.

The two never saw, but Soraya did another thing she hadn’t done in a long while.
She smiled.

Shaheeda and Muhammad repeated this until they finally came upon a balcony. Muhammad dropped down first, then Shaheeda followed, putting her hijab back on. From the balcony, they reinterred the palace, walking silently, and hiding whenever they heard voices or footsteps. They finally got to the second to last floor. From there they’d have to climb down from the outside again: the ground floor was crawling with guards. Shaheeda once again removed her headscarf and helped them climb down. However, there were also the guards at the Palace’s perimeter to deal with. They crawled in the bushes surrrounding the building, until they came up right behind a guard. “What now?” Muhammad mouthed. Shaheeda simply took out a knife and stood up behind the guard. She covered his face, muffling and quieting his yells. She then stabbed him, and the man stopped yelling and struggling, and instead fell to the ground, lifeless.
“You just killed a guy!” he whispered, alarmed.
“I’m a spy, remember?” she told him, “I kill people sometimes. You get used to it.”
“That’s just said,” he replied.
“Come on!” she said. They ran across the busy street, warranting honks from several angry drivers, before then walking the streets of Muslimbol.
They finally came across an ally where they looked at each other. “Okay, where to?” she wondered.
Muhammad took out a half dinar coin
“Heads Turkey, tails Saudi.”
He flipped it.
“Okay. Now, heads Ethiopia, tails Sharifistan.”
Another flip.
“Okay, heads Saudi, tails Sharifistan.”
Another flip.
Sharifistan it was. Shaheeda determined their best bet was to make it to the Red Sea. Luckily, they soon caught a bus headed towards Bur Saīd (Port Said).
It would be relatively long ride, but they were ready. They handed the driver their money, and boarded.



The adhan sounded in the early morning, telling the city it was time for Fajr prayer. However, nearly everyone had already been awake, as they had gotten up and eaten suhoor. The suhoor meal had been brought to the Royal Family’s room.
But something was odd, thought the guard who brought them their plates. It seemed he had two extra. He shrugged it off, assuming the cook had simply miscounted.

Asim finished praying, asking Allah to let him hear news from his representatives in Italy. After the second night of the conference, they had stopped contacting him. He needed to know what was going on, and whether the Coalition forces preferred Fazluddin to him.

The Republic of Insaanistan

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