Lost in Chaos: Lost in the EMP, #1

By S. H. Miah

No lights. No electricity. No shelter. Pure survival against terrifying foes.

 

 

Tarik fights the homeless battle every day, an escape from a past he seeks never to return to.

 

Aliyah believes the idyllic life with her husband and daughter can never be shattered.

 

Zahra struggles to honour her mother's last wish – to raise Zahra's two brothers in the aftermath of their parents' deaths.

 

But a devastating EMP throws their lives into chaos. In the wake of Britain's worst calamity in centuries, those seeking to take advantage of the vulnerable prowl London's streets. And they've set their sights on Tarik, Aliyah, and Zahra.

 

Can the three of them survive the terrors of the EMP? Or will they succumb to the crippling darkness and the evil forces lurking within it?

 

Lost in Chaos is the first book in the brand-new, action-packed Lost in the EMP series. If you like to read about deadly enemies, treacherous feats of survival, and the shine of humanity as the world goes dark, then you'll love the Lost in the EMP series.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. H. Miah
• Release date: Mar 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215947685

Book preview

Lost in Chaos

Lost in the EMP Book One

S. H. Miah

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Muslim Fiction Project

Copyright © 2023 by S. H. Miah

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Contents

Terms used

1. Tarik

2. Aliyah

3. Tarik

4. Aliyah

5. Tarik

6. Zahra

7. Tarik

8. Aliyah

9. Tarik

10. Zahra

11. Aliyah

12. Hafsa

13. Tarik

14. Aliyah

15. Tarik

16. Zahra

17. Aliyah

18. Tarik

19. Aliyah

20. Zahra

21. Tarik

22. Aliyah

23. Tarik

24. Zahra

25. Aliyah

26. Tarik

27. Zahra

28. Lexi

29. Zahra

30. Tarik

31. Aliyah

32. Zahra

33. Tarik

34. Aliyah

35. Zahra

36. Tarik

About MFP

About S. H. Miah

Terms used

Some foreign terms are used in this book. To dispel confusion, here is a list of some with their translations provided:

Musalla – an Arabic term denoting the place where prayer takes place

Du’a – supplicating to Allah, typically when seeking something

Afa – what a brother calls their older sister in Bangla

SubhanAllah – means Glory be to Allah

Zuhr – the noon prayer

Janazah – the prayer performed over a deceased Muslim

Asr – the mid-afternoon prayer

Wudu – the ablution Muslims perform, enabling them to perform their prayers, among other things

Tayammum – when Muslims do not have access to water, this is an alternative method to wudu that purifies oneself for prayer

Salah – the Arabic word used to signify ritual prayers

Qibla – the direction of the Ka’ba one must face when praying

(SAW) – an abbreviation for sallallahu alayhi wa sallam (Arabic transliteration), meaning ‘peace and blessings of Allah be upon him’, that Muslims say after the Prophet’s (SAW) name or title is mentioned

Isha – the last of the five daily prayers, prayed at night

Khala – a Bengali term that refers to one’s mother’s sister. Bengalis use the word for a female friend of their mother, or sometimes for the female friend of a much older sister

1

Tarik

3 hours before

The autumn skies, brimming with a dreary grey as if the clouds were nearing old age, brought with it a breeze that told of the harshness of the coming winter. Birds screeched as their wings battled the wind, ferociously vying to return to loved ones holed up in nests nestled at the tips of trees now beginning to shed their leaves. The roads below pulsed with the squeak of engines and the rumble of voices hurried and isolated, as if every individual was busy, had somewhere to go, no time for anyone but themselves. The gutters of London featured sewage sliding across the ground, litter that could rival a dump, and men lying face down, tongues lolled out and nearly tasting the dirt, ragged to the bone, with life seeping out of them as if they were garbage cans oozing and spilling with old liquids.

Amongst these humble ruins, with a too-thin, torn jacket cushioning his back against the brick wall of the bakery behind him, and eyes darting to the alley entrance at the advent of each new second, Tarik Mahdi lit a cigarette, his last one, and with a shaky hand stumbled the tip to his lips and inhaled the toxins as if it was his final breath. Deep in the recesses of his brain, where perhaps the fumes of the smoke he inhaled couldn't penetrate his mind, he knew the wrong of what he was doing. How each drag of dirtied air flew into his lungs and squeezed the life out of him. How every breath he took wasn't his, belonged to The Most High, and the cigarettes sullied the body Tarik had been gifted with the toxicity of sin. Yet still, he chained himself to his cigarettes with a shorter leash than that of his will to continue life itself.

Perhaps it was that dogged stubbornness that had ruined his life, after all. That had caused the jumbled mess he could barely call an existence.

The relief of smoking now curling his back against the wall and releasing the tension from his legs, he puffed out and basked in the warmth of the arid fumes. The previous few days were wrought with scavenging across London's east side, scrounging for scraps of food—bits of old bread, restaurant leftovers that hadn't spoiled, fruit souring but not quite rotten—wherever they unveiled themselves from their hiding spots. Many others like Tarik blocked his path, protecting their own territories of filth and dirt like settler colonists when in fact they were all defiling the city together, united as part of the ongoing homeless crisis.

Some of them, those Tarik had cautiously called friends at the start of his homeless journey, resorted to senseless begging. Loitering on crowded high streets, swinging their heads back and forth as if possessed, and reciting rehearsed words of some tragedy or other to arouse sympathy and some cash along with it. Tarik had despised that. He may have been homeless, but he wasn't invalid. His father had always repeated that a man should use his own two feet to stand, not crutches or limping whilst holding onto someone else.

It was perhaps the only thing his father had taught him. And it wasn't a lesson Tarik had heeded much, if at all. Using a similar analogy, Tarik was kneeling as opposed to standing, crawling as opposed to walking, surviving as opposed to living and a far cry from thriving.

The dust from the cigarette littered Tarik's jacket as the relief dwindled and the putrid smell disintegrated. The cigarette burnt shorter and shorter, and millimetres before the flame tinged Tarik's fingers, he lobbed it towards the jet black bin bags he called roommates. His hand ghosted to his back pocket, out of habit, and then flopped onto his right knee when he remembered he'd run out of cigarettes. And sourcing more of them, when the threat of fiery rain loomed large over London, was a task seemingly greater than slaying Goliath.

Still, the one constant in his life now, the killers residing in his back pocket, seemed to be his only tether to life. One way or another, Tarik would get his hands on some.

With a herculean effort, Tarik scraped up the wall on legs that almost snapped under his weight. Breathing hard, with the remnants of nasty yet satisfying toxins infused in every exhalation, Tarik clawed himself with a palm on the wall and tumbled around a few stray, festering garbage bags. The rush of wind slapped him and his lungs as he inched towards the alley exit, stumbling along with his hand fast chafing against rough brick. A wiry staircase stood to his left, leading up to miniscule flats housing students and those at the tail end of the working class.

At times, Tarik inspected the windows to see who lived there. An elderly woman with fraying hair and the face of a drill sergeant who'd had enough. Two students who shared a flat, but rarely exited through the back alley, leading Tarik to wonder whether they ever left the confines of home at all. Tarik wished to spend just a night in one of the flats, with a soft bed cradling his side like a cot and warmth hugging him from every direction, almost as much as he longed for another cigarette.

The stench of uncollected garbage attacked Tarik, but he blinked away the regular smell and edged closer to the bustle of traffic that marked a main road. Car engines squealed and grated, those inside hurrying to destinations eager to receive them. Women ambled past the alley entrance, not daring to spare Tarik a glance, with bags weighing them down like an anchor, and some with toddlers and babies clinging to them for dear life.

The familiar sensation of insects creeping over his skin settled over Tarik like the heavy clouds that sat atop the sky and cast a darker shade of life over the world. Shunned by society, even entering public spaces carried with it the shame of his identity—or lack of one, in reality. Bag slung haphazardly over his shoulder, Tarik tentatively stepped out to the street and stumbled his way west, seeking his next fix of tar and goodness from the only source he knew that had it: Big Harry.

Big Harry was, as the name suggested, a large man—a behemoth in fact, towering over Tarik at six foot five, beefy arms crossed and pressed against his mammoth chest, the muscles underneath rippling from every minute movement. Tarik had met him early on in his homelessness, two weeks after he’d left home for the roar and comfort of the streets. Big Harry, when Tarik one day encroached unknowingly on an old man’s turf, finally put his muscles to good use and saved Tarik from an impending beating. Taking Tarik back to his hideout on the outskirts of Barking, Harry showcased his impressive stash of drugs lining shelves in a small cupboard he called a warehouse—weed, different assortments of alcohol Tarik wouldn’t touch with a twenty-foot pole, even cocaine and cannabis in small, clear bags. Slipped into the corner were a few packets of Benson and Hedges, Tarik’s favourite brand of cigarettes. And a new friendship between Big Harry and Small Tarik, as Harry called him, was born—well, as tentative as friendships could form between a homeless drug dealer and a homeless addict both fighting for their lives daily.

The bustle of the high street and screaming cars with angry drivers gave way to the quiet side roads with rows of houses each sitting next to one another in soldier-like formations. In these poorer parts of east London, Tarik almost blended in with his fraying jacket and shoes with holes more in number than Swiss cheese that had already been shredded apart. At the far end of one particular road, a right turn revealed a dead end demonstrated by a solid wall eight feet high that menacingly told anyone who approached to stay away. When peered at closely, however, a chink in the wall’s armour was exposed in the bottom right corner. A small gap that, when ventured into, illuminated a winding alleyway leading deeper into an abyss.

Tarik treaded with care through the alley, and on the other side met the unformidable sight of Big Harry slumped in his usual large bean bag, glass clung to in hand with an unsavoury liquid sloshing inside like sewage waste. Harry’s stash of goods was located through a small door to Tarik’s left, and the yearning tug at one’s lungs that all smoker’s intimately knew drew him in its direction.

Hope y’got the money for it, Big Harry said, lumbering over with the beverage in hand. The sour taste of alcohol emanated from him like heavy cologne, and Tarik’s eyes almost watered from the smell.

Tarik said not a word about money—he had nothing to his name. How the cigarettes would fly from the cupboard stash to his hands he had not a clue. How you been, my man? he asked instead, thinking goodwill could get him a free cigar.

Big Harry laughed. Good as ever. He placed the drink down with a clank on a rickety wooden table and stretched his muscles. His bones clicked with ferocity, like they had been dislocated and were now snapping back into place. Business’s been down lately. But with you coming ‘ere, things’re turning up for me. God’s got blessings to give, still.

You’re a drug dealer mate, Tarik thought. But he dared not say the words aloud.

Guess you want the usual, then, Big Harry said. He donned no jacket, choosing to wear thick overalls to withstand the wintery foreshadowing of autumn's whisper. Grimy jeans shielded two tree trunks for legs. Leather skin boots, dustier than Victorian tomes and calloused beyond repair, adorned his feet to complete the odd look for a homeless bodybuilder. Tarik had asked once how Harry built the muscles. Harry just laughed, saying the prison black market sold anything one wanted for the right price, in this case copious amounts of anabolic steroids.

Tarik hadn't asked what conviction had sent Harry to prison in the first place. And whether that was linked to his nickname, either.

Tarik followed Harry as he fished out a set of keys from the front of his overalls. The keys jangled as he picked the right one under a watchful eye, then turned the lock and heaved the heavy-set door open. The contents inside filled Tarik not with excitement but dread. Though he smoked cigarettes, Tarik couldn't understand the impulse to distribute drugs and alcohol to a community rife with poverty and strife and a host of issues ignored by those in authority who were meant to care.

But what filled the back shelves caused Tarik's tongue to salivate and that yearning within him to intensify. Benson and Hedges, rows of them, each glinting gold under the shafts of light penetrating the inner reaches of the cupboard. Big Harry grabbed a pack of twenty in a dirty hand and chucked it. Tarik fumbled the catch, but when the packet settled into his palm, he cradled it like a new-born baby before shoving it in his back pocket.

So, the money, Small Tarik? Harry said, hand stretched out.

Tarik's tongue dried. He didn't speak. He made a show of patting his jacket down, randomly searching his pockets for cash in a performance worthy of an Oscar if only the homeless took part.

Don't have it, do ya?

Big Harry's stare was ironclad.

Tarik's head shook a 'no'.

Well, give it back. I ain't in the business of freebies. Discounts, maybe. How much you got?

Nothing. But Tarik wasn't prepared to return the cigarettes, either. The Benson and Hedges burnt in his back pocket, as if a warning of what was to befall him should he refuse to pay.

Big Harry slammed the cupboard door shut. The wood splintered, crackling the air with energy, and Harry's leather boots scraped the concrete.

Ain't giving it back, are you? Harry asked.

Tarik's back straightened. He glanced to the exit leading back to the road, the passage narrower and longer than he recalled, then at Big Harry's sneer and bulging biceps.

Decision made in the split of a second, Tarik bolted past the cupboard door, knocking into the table and splashing booze onto the ground. The glass shattered into a million shards that spread like fireworks with a bang to match. The alleyway accepted and carried Tarik towards civilisation once more, despite how uncivilised an act thieving from the homeless was.

Big Harry, with the speed of roided-up legs and huge arm swings assisting him, sprinted behind Tarik in hot pursuit. And with violent, screamed threats of a fate worse than death.

2

Aliyah

3 hours before

Aliyah Begum, of all things, would not call herself a morning person. Despite a seven-year-old daughter who woke up at least twice a night and her fajr prayer alarm blaring every day at dawn, the sight of orange and blood-red brushes and streaks across the majestic horizon filled her with dread rather than hope. At least today, a grey shade of dread adorned the sky, with glimpses of sunshine peeking out from behind the menacing clouds before each ray of light flitted back to its hiding spot, as if lacking the permission to display itself.

Aliyah yawned, inched her reluctant body out of bed, and stumbled a unique path against the cream painted walls to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and hair whilst staring at her reflection. After birthing her first and only child, the youthful glow of her skin had disappeared, replaced by a weariness and weatheredness as if every sleepless night and unplanned wake had scratched their toll on her face. Her hair thinned over the years, and each tangle she sifted her hairbrush through uprooted more hairs to join the party at the bottom of the dustbin.

Still, despite the changes to her body, both drastic and tiny, Aliyah would not trade Hafsa, her beautiful glowing daughter, for the world and everything in it.

Sleep still clinging to her legs like a needy toddler, she clutched the railing down the staircase and ambled into the kitchen. Hafsa, now gleefully rushing out of her chair, flew into Aliyah's stomach.

Mummy, come look. The girl grabbed a fisthold of Aliyah's dress and chugged her along to the table. Besides Hafsa's breakfast porridge, a healthy denomination of oats, walnuts, and honey, lay a notepad with drawings of various colours sketched onto one page. Each drawing, of the yellow sun and white dandelions and Daddy's dark blue Chevrolet, meshed with each other like they were incarnations of the jumbled thoughts no doubt brewing in her daughter's cauldron of an imagination.

Aliyah smiled at her husband, Sharif, over Hafsa's head.

Long day today? he asked with a grin. A familiar grin that seemed to penetrate Aliyah's heart with a comfort found nowhere else. Despite Sharif's dad-bod and balding hair, Aliyah found him just as dashing as the day their marriage commenced.

Aliyah slipped out of Hafsa's hold and popped a couple slices of bread into the toaster. It's only nine in the morning, as well, she muttered.

We've all got to start somewhere, Sharif said.

The toaster snapped and Aliyah jumped in fright. With a groan, and under the background noise of Sharif's laughter, she swiped the bread and plopped herself onto the table, butter and knife already laid out.

Mummy, our toaster always scares you. Isn't it, Mummy?

Yes, Mummy, Aliyah replied, ruffling Hafsa's head before buttering her toast. The warmth of butter on toast danced and melted along her taste buds, and the coffee Sharif had prepared earlier, in spite of its bitter aftertaste, helped wash the bread down.

Heading to the mosque? Sharif asked, sitting down opposite Aliyah and nursing his own cup of coffee in both hands.

Yes, Aliyah said, ripping up her second toast and shoving a piece in her mouth. She wasn't a morning person, but by Allah did hunger gnaw her stomach when she did wake up.

Eat slowly, Mummy, Hafsa said, waving her hands, with a pink crayon dangling between her forefinger and thumb. Me and Daddy are going to paint today. She glanced at Sharif. Isn't it, Daddy?

Right, sweetheart, Sharif said, rolling his eyes at Aliyah when Hafsa returned to attacking her porridge with a blue, plastic spoon.

Aliyah knew her husband despised painting—he hadn't an artistic bone in his body. And yet, his willingness to forgo his own happiness to look after their daughter and gift Aliyah some alone time on a Saturday morning melted her heart.

And after painting, Hafsa babbled through a mouthful of porridge, we're going to the park to play on the Big Swings.

Swallow the porridge first, sweetheart, Sharif said, patting Hafsa on the arm. And yes, I can feel the Big Swings calling to you today.

That's right, Hafsa said, pumping her fist and sending a spoonful of porridge flying towards the ceiling. The liquid arced down and splattered the table.

I'll get that, Aliyah said, wiping the porridge with a tissue. And you, young woman, please be careful with the porridge. Big Swings don't like girls who spill their porridge.

Hafsa pouted. Okay, Mummy.

Sharif smiled, and Aliyah tackled the rest of her breakfast in record time. After spending another hour washing and hanging Hafsa's dirty laundry, she cloaked herself with the black, silky abaya she loved dearly, a gift from Sharif last Eid, and a grey scarf that cushioned her head with its soft chiffon. Bag wrapped around her right shoulder, she shouted her goodbyes and swung the front door shut just as the replies made their way through.

A half hour later, the sight of King Street Mosque graced her eyes. The green dome of the mosque stretched high into the sky, as if the clouds floating above rested on its tip. Thick, sliding double doors permitted worshippers into the mosque's halls, and as Aliyah stepped through the women's entrance, the familiar peace only Allah could give her settled within the chambers of her heart. Calligraphy, of both Allah's perfect names as well as the shorter sayings of the Prophet