Part 1–The Longest Night
The road was quiet. Too quiet.
A narrow highway cut through the darkness like a scar, flanked by the faint silhouettes of trees and low hills. The headlights of a small, aging Toyota flickered weakly ahead, as if even the machine wanted to close its eyes.
Inside, the air was tense, thick with the kind of silence that follows too many spoken words. A child sat in the backseat, his tiny hands wrapped around a plastic dinosaur with a chipped tail. He made quiet growling sounds, pretending the toy was alive. His name was Min Thuta, nine years old, and unaware that this would be the last night he'd ever pretend.
In the front, Zaw Min gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary. His knuckles were pale, his jaw locked. Beside him, Thiri was mid-sentence, her voice sharp but trembling — not with anger, but exhaustion.
"It's not just about work, Zaw. It's about us. You're here but you're not really here."
"I'm driving, Thiri," he muttered, eyes locked on the road. "Now's not the time."
"You say that every time. And our son? He sees it. He hears it—"
"Stop!" a small voice piped up.
Min Thuta's face, round and innocent, peeked from the back. He pressed his palms hard over his ears, eyes wide with confusion and dread. His parents hadn't even noticed his voice cracking.
But something else was coming. Something worse than words.
From the opposite side of the highway, headlights suddenly cut through the dark like a blade. Too fast. Too close.
A truck.
It swerved, its path jagged, unpredictable. It crossed the center line.
Zaw's eyes widened. The horn blared. The truck's lights flashed like panic signals from a drowning man. The driver — drunk maybe, or just careless — tried to correct too late.
The seconds that followed stretched like slow-motion nightmares.
Zaw yanked the wheel hard right. "Hang on!" he shouted. Tires screamed. The car jolted, veered off the road—
Then: Impact.
A violent explosion of glass, metal, and noise.
The world spun.
A crash, a roll, then silence.
When the noise faded, it left a ringing void. A high, ghostly hum inside Zaw's ears. His face was cut. His hands trembled. His world was upside down — literally. The car had flipped. Smoke curled from the engine.
He coughed. Blood in his mouth.
"Thiri…" he croaked.
She was slumped beside him, groaning. Alive. Breathing.
Relief surged, then vanished as he turned to the back.
And the world collapsed again.
His son wasn't moving.
"Thuta?"
No response.
"Thuta!" he tried again, louder, but it came out hoarse, broken.
The boy's dinosaur toy lay beside him on the ceiling-turned-floor, its head cracked clean off.
Zaw stared at the still body, and something inside him caved in — a silent implosion. No words. No screams. Just a stunned, open-mouthed stare. The kind of silence deeper than death.
Then the darkness swallowed everything.
Part 2 – After the Fire
Eyes opened.
A sharp breath. Damp sheets. A thin layer of sweat clung to his skin like smoke that never cleared.
Two years had passed since the crash. It was 2015 now, but for Zaw Min, time hadn't moved. His body had aged, his hair had thinned, but his soul was still trapped in that overturned car, listening to the broken wheeze of his son's final breath.
He sat up slowly, pressing both hands to the back of his neck. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath, staring at the dimly lit ceiling. "That dream again…"
A voice called from the kitchen — Thiri, clear and steady, like every morning.
"Come outside and eat breakfast. Food's ready."
He didn't answer at first. Just sat there, shirtless, skin damp with cold sweat. Eventually, he stood and walked to the old wooden drawer by the bed. It groaned as he opened it. Inside, among a few scattered papers and worn-out items, was a cracked wristwatch. The glass was fractured, frozen at 3:17 a.m.
He stared at it for a long moment, then slid it over his wrist like it still had meaning — like it still ticked for someone.
He threw on a loose shirt, pulled on his pants, and stepped out of the bedroom. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet.
Thiri was plating rice and boiled eggs, her movements calm, practiced, quietly resilient. When she saw him, she paused, scanning his face. She already knew the answer, but still asked — a ritual at this point.
"Was it the same dream?"
He nodded silently, lowering himself into the chair at the table without looking her in the eyes. He couldn't. Not today. Maybe not ever.
Because no matter how many times he rewrote it in his head, he was the one driving.
He was the one who had a chance to swerve earlier.
He was the one who still breathed.
Breakfast passed in near silence. The only sounds were the gentle clinking of cutlery and the occasional chirp of birds outside — mocking, maybe, in how normal they sounded.
He chewed without hunger, swallowed without taste. Just going through the motions.
Grief makes ghosts out of the living.
When he was done, he stood from the table, brushing crumbs from his shirt.
"I might be late today," he said softly. "Eat dinner without me if I don't make it back in time."
Thiri didn't respond. She just gave the slightest nod, as if she already expected it.
As he turned to leave, he passed the small wooden table between two old chairs in the hallway. His eyes paused on it.
It was there they used to drink tea.
There, their son used to sit between them, swinging his legs and laughing at something only kids found funny.
Now it was just empty.
He stood there for a moment, lost in it, until the silence became too loud. Then he grabbed his backpack from the table, slung it over his shoulder, and stepped out the front door.
Part 3 – The Streets Are Speaking
The stairwell smelled of rust and stale cement. Zaw Min moved down from the third floor in silence, footsteps steady, the weight of his backpack shifting with each step. The city was already humming awake — a low, familiar noise of motors, brooms, clinking teacups, and radios echoing from open windows.
At the bottom of the stairs, he stepped out into the street.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a scuffed-up Nokia phone, its keypad worn smooth. The screen flickered faintly: 7:00 AM.
Even though his old wristwatch had stopped ticking long ago, he still wore it. A habit. A ritual. A grave marker for a moment that never moved forward.
As he walked down the street, he passed a tea shop — small, weathered, alive with sound. Old men sat on red plastic stools, some glued to the flickering television in the corner, others in loud conversation over tiny cups of tea.
Something about the normalcy felt surreal. But he stepped in anyway.
He took a seat near the edge of the shop, just beneath a dusty electric fan that spun lazily overhead. A young waiter walked up, chewing betel nut and holding a worn notebook.
"What'll it be, brother? Tea? Cold drink?"
"Sweet and sour tea," Zaw Min replied, without looking up.
As he waited, voices from the next table drifted over, low and half-laughed — until something caught his attention.
"Hey… have you noticed the rats lately? They're not acting right."
"Yeah, man! I saw two of 'em eating a dead cat on my doorstep two nights ago."
"Ugh—come on, we're drinking here."
"I'm just saying what I saw, okay? Their eyes… glowing. Like little red lanterns. Creepy as hell."
Zaw Min took a sip from the glass placed in front of him, steam curling up into his tired eyes. He heard the words — but didn't really register them. Rats. Glowing eyes. He'd heard stranger things in Yangon before. Most of it was cheap talk. Rumors and half-truths baked in heat and boredom.
He paid for his tea, nodded to the waiter, and stepped back onto the street.
Just ahead, walking with a slow, familiar gait and a bundle of tools slung over one shoulder, was a man he recognized instantly.
"Hey, old friend," Zaw Min called out.
The man turned and grinned through a mouthful of smoke.
"Young son of a bitch. You still breathing, eh?"
"Barely," Zaw Min smirked. "You?"
"You know how it is. Working the sewers. Nothing but piss, plastic bags, and rats. Oh—speaking of rats… I saw something last week, Zaw."
Zaw Min's expression shifted slightly — not alarm, not disbelief. Just a subtle sharpening of the eyes.
"Big one," Sein Maung said, his tone growing serious. "Not 'big' like usual. I mean wrong. Bloated. Veins pulsing. Looked like it'd been cooked in acid."
Zaw Min didn't interrupt.
"Later that day, shift ends. Everyone clocks out. We head home. But a few hours later, I get a knock at my door. Coworker's wife — says her husband never came back."
"You said you saw him leave?"
"We all did. Said goodbye right at the tunnel mouth. But he never made it home. Vanished. No body, no nothing. We checked back. His flashlight was still down there. Just lying in the dark."
There was a long pause. A crow cawed in the distance. Zaw Min adjusted the strap of his bag.
"Wish I had time to hear more, but I've gotta run. I'm late already."
"Yeah, yeah, don't let the boss hang you. Just try to stay out of the drains, yeah?"
Zaw gave a quiet nod and turned to leave. But Sein Maung called after him:
"Hey. You should buy a new watch. And stop beating yourself up."
Zaw Min paused. His eyes glanced down at the cracked face of his wristwatch. Then, without a word, he kept walking.
Behind him, Sein Maung exhaled slowly, tightening the grip on the tools in his hand.
"Shit," he muttered. "One more day in the gut of hell."
Then he turned and disappeared down the alley, toward the sewer mouth, where something far darker than rats was already waiting.