Neve Emek: Room 102 - Part 9 of ?

9

I advanced through the heart of the serene settlement, steadily making my way to the mosque-turned-synagogue in the northeast. What had been left of the minaret guided me through the dawning like a beacon, grounding me to the present and helping clear my mind of the creature. But it wasn’t the thought of reaching the local bus in time that occupied my mind as I advanced.

The caretaker had not lied.

A slew of villagers moved through the lanes alongside me, avoiding and giving me hostile looks as if I had trespassed and was not welcome. Mostly elderly men with knotted hands and hunched backs, shuffling past with their sticks tapping against the stones, while the few women I saw wore their scarves tightly around their heads, hiding half of their faces. But it wasn’t the hostile nature of their gazes or arcane antics that sent a shiver up my spine. It was the implication behind those gazes.

All of them watched me.

Not with the caution of seeing a new face where there shouldn’t be one, but with suspicion. Like they expected me to suddenly do something that would warrant them the right to attack me. Like a ticking bomb. But why such palpable hostility? I did not know any of these people, nor did they know me. What happened between the Palestinians and the Israelis several years ago had nothing to do with us, the people in the present, so why should I accept being seen as inferior and a subhuman? As if the tears of blood Palestinian mothers shed through decades were not enough, just not enough.

A cold, marrow-deep certainty then crawled through me: I didn’t belong here, this place my grandfather once called home. It was a foreign place I had only heard stories about. My late mother used to tell me that there had once been a time when she and my missing aunt used to run about in these lanes with the other kids – Muslims, Christians, and Jews – playing marbles with stones and skipping rope with makeshift ropes.

Thinking back, I suppose Mum never gave up the hope of returning. Maybe she told me all those stories so I wouldn’t forget my roots – or my missing aunt. And maybe… she believed telling me those childhood memories would one day help me find her – Amal Khalil.

I remember overhearing my mother and grandfather talk late at night, when they thought I was asleep, that our village was one of the few left untouched back when Khāle was still with us. It had yet to be accused of being built over an ancient Jewish site, set on fire, and renamed for imperial motives. But rumours spread like wildfire: nearby settlements were already being emptied into displacement camps, and those who resisted were taken by the Israeli military, never to be seen again.

 

Had my aunt been taken too by them or perhaps caught in the crossfire between those who resisted and those who oppressed them? Then again, who knew? It was total pandemonium back then, with the corrupted press deliberately withholding information about the recurrent settlement abuse and displacement camps. And maybe, in that chaos, she encountered a much more gruesome fate.

As I was having these thoughts, the caretaker, whose name I still did not know, crossed my mind. He said his family had worked for ours for generations. Did that mean he’d seen my missing aunt back then? Surely, if she did make it here as she told everyone she was going to, he’d be the last person to have seen her alive? But why did he not mention anything about her if that were the—

I stepped back instinctively.

An old man spat on the ground two feet from me and snapped me back to reality. What was the matter with these people? They were acting like I wasn’t a human being like them, but some other species! What kind of deep-rooted grudge was this to last for decades? Surely, if someone needed to harbour such vile sentiments, it was the very people forcefully displaced and then accused of being terrorists wherever they went!

At the same time, I did not want to cause a scene. So, I moved on, head low, hands curling into fists beside me. It would be a lie to say I did not fear, that these villagers did not give me the heebie-jeebies. There was something innately evil about people who hated other humans for no other reason but for the colour on their skin, the religion they followed, the culture they grew up in and had no say in, or the clothes they wore, or simply because they were “the other” – an outsider. Hard to describe exactly, but this was close enough, I guess.

I pressed on, telling myself I would reach the bus stop in time without needing the help of these people. What else could I do? The caretaker told me it was hard to miss once I passed the synagogue. Worst case scenario, I’d have to return to the burial grounds and hit up the solicitor, ask to postpone the meeting. But for now? All I wanted was to find that bloody bus stop on my own, without getting involved with anybody.

Right then, a stone skittered across the frost-hardened ground at my feet, cutting through the stillness out of nowhere. My legs jerked back as adrenaline flowed through my veins. The surface was jagged, but carved deeply into it was a single word in Arabic script: kāfir. Heathen.

My gaze shot upwards, scanning the small crowd that had gathered unbeknownst to me, forming a circle around me and standing too close. I spun in place, perplexed,  as every face was turned towards me, the hollow eyes unblinking, and mouths fixed in grim lines. I could almost hear it, those words drilled into their indoctrinated brains: leave or regret.

My breath came in short bursts as I weighed my options, or rather, the absence of them. Every instinct screamed at me to flee, but my legs refused to listen to my commands, keeping me rooted in place. My mind reeled nonetheless, skimming every potential path forwards, every subtle movement that could signal compliance or escape. I knew that any misstep, any hesitation, could be noticed and misunderstood. And yet—

There was one sound now, distant but unmistakable, that pierced the prevailing silence: the low growl of an engine drawing closer by the second. Around the same time, as if on cue, the villagers dispersed, and a small opening formed in the direction of the oncoming bus. I broke into a run without waiting for the villagers to close the gap once more and trap me, sprinting towards the noise to my left, beyond a bend, past the run-down synagogue.

The bus stood at the edge of the settlement itself, its windows reflecting only the flat, brightening sky. My legs carried me forwards in a sprint until at last I reached the steps and hauled myself inside. The stale warmth was the first thing to greet me, mixed with oil and dust.

The chauffeur didn’t look at me as I entered. His eyes were fixed ahead as though I did not exist. I tried a greeting. There was no sign it had been heard or acknowledged. I slotted some coins into the metal tray anyway and stepped further down the aisle. The few passengers scattered along the seats were sparse, but they were all watching me as I apologetically passed by.

Heads turned with slow motions, so much so that it sent a chill down my spine and put me on high alert. Like they were all mannequins that mimicked one another and were pulled by invisible strings, yet looked just as human as I did.

I edged towards the back and slid into the final row, pressing my shoulder and back against the window. Outside, the frost on the glass caught the first pale morning light, breaking it into pieces. I exhaled shallowly, trying to steady myself, but the sense of being observed lingered still.

Then the doors clanged shut.

Silence returned as if the bus had swallowed the world outside, and time itself had stopped. Minutes passed slowly, stretching, each tick of the clock telling me that the meeting with the solicitor drew closer and closer. I twisted in my seat. Uneasy. Why wasn’t the bus moving? Though I had no words for it, this growing pit in my stomach, I did know that something was off. According to the caretaker, the bus was supposed to leave the village several minutes ago, so why were we still stuck here?

Now that I thought about it, the engines had been shut off, too.

I rose and moved towards the driver. The aisle felt longer than it should have as I did so, each step resonating against the floor. My hand lifted, a small tremor betraying my tension. And then, suddenly, the bus jolted forwards, and the world lurched violently on its axis.

I stumbled, grabbing instinctively at something solid to steady myself.

“Sorry,” I muttered as I looked back. My fingers had closed around—nothing. Just air. The support I had thought was there, another hand, a railing, or some graspable edge was gone. My body swayed slightly, anchored only by the floor beneath my feet and the weight of disbelief pressing down. What the fuck?

I sank back into my seat, knuckles whitening as I gripped the seat in front of me, unsure of what to make of what had just happened.

Outside, the landscape stretched with steep drop-offs, twisted and uprooted trees, and glimmering stone paths surrounded by olive trees. It was a beautiful sight, one that symbolised the resistance of my people, of their determination to fight till the very end. The sun had risen fully now, too, a bright and cheerful light that should have comforted me but bitterly failed.

I pressed my head against the cold glass and let the sunlight wash across my face. But even as the warmth kissed my skin, the unease settled deeper, whispering that this calm, this fleeting normalcy, was only skin-deep.

Indeed, so it was – only I didn’t know at the time.

The bus rattled and groaned as it traced the narrow cliffside road, tyres scraping against the gravel. The slope below plunged into a dense forest, where sunlight pooled in golden patches between thick clusters of pine and olive trees. For a fleeting moment, I let my shoulders relax. The brightness of morning, the gentle sway of branches, the distant hum of the engine – all of these eased the tightness of panic in my chest, and my hands unclenched, and I finally allowed myself to watch the trees slip past in a calm, hypnotic rhythm.

But calm was but a fragile illusion.

A hut appeared, hunched against the roadside at one point. Not that it arrested me. Not at first, that is. Beside it, a single gnarled tree twisted strangely at an angle, roots clawing at the soil. A thicket of brushwood surrounded the hut, too, bristling and restless in the wind. I blinked, overcome by the sweet and tender embrace of sleep.

And the bus passed it once, and then…

Again.

The same hut.

The same bent tree.

The same thicket.

My frown deepened, confusion and panic taking shape in my chest as I forced my eyes open, staring hard outside the window. At first, I thought it was a trick of my tired mind, a hallucination born from lack of sleep. But each repetition came with subtle changes: the hut sagged lower, the tree’s bark peeled, the thicket darkened, and the sky above began to darken too without warning.

By the fourth cycle, the hut was nearly unrecognisable, a collapsed shell leaning into the earth. I felt sick, as sick as a dog. This made little sense! Something beyond reason was at work, twisting the world to an unfamiliar pattern of repeating cycles! Then…

The bus screeched to a sudden halt, and the air shook with the hiss of doors opening. I pressed back into my seat instinctively, knuckles white against the cold metal, looking out the window once again – eyes widening.

From the ruins of the hut, the creature that had pursued me back in Neve Emek slowly came into existence. Its limbs elongated and twisted at unnatural angles, joints jerking with dissonant rhythm. Its posture was bent, its movements lurching – too fast. And then—I held my breath.

Our eyes met.

I blinked.

It drew closer.

I blinked again, harder, faster.

This time, its crooked limbs snapped forwards with impossible speed, like a film reel skipping frames, and I screwing my eyes shut, teeth clenched, every muscle braced for the impact of claws or hands or whatever it would use to drag me out the window and tear me up.

When—

There it was – right before me! Inches from the glass!

Its face slammed into focus with its skin stretched thinly across sharp bones, the eye of the Khamsa wide and empty, pupils nothing but pits of absence. Its mouth yawned open in a rictus, the gums slick and teeth long and crooked. Frost appeared instantly on the window where its breath touched, several branches of lines spreading outwards like a blooming flower or the roots of a tree.

I jolted back with a strangled gasp, and in that heartbeat—

“Chaver, tat’orer… ata cholem.”

My eyes snapped.

Hyperventilating.

“Ata beseder?” You okay?

This was a phrase I knew, one of the few I knew by heart. You okay. A scrap of memory from another place, another time. And now, somehow, it was the same phrase that pulled me back into the present, steadying me, helping me push through the haze that still clung to my skin in beads of cold sweat.

With frantic eyes, I glanced at the young man, who had woken me up from whatever nightmare this was, clutching his arms and digging my nails in without being aware of it. Then I let go. Still out of it. Still breathing too fast.

Outside, through the window, lay rolling, golden fields under a sun now stark and scorching. The road had straightened, trees realigned. The bus was no longer in the middle of nowhere, no longer near that bloody hut.

Heck, had it even stopped at all?

Most of the passengers were gone by then, leaving only me and the young man behind in the aisle. I let out a hushed, cracked “Todah” – thank you in my broken Hebrew – and followed the young man out, still shaken. I couldn’t, for the life of me, recall how or when the bus had ended up here.

Or when I’d fallen asleep.

Never Emek: Room 102 - Part 8 of ?

8

When morning came at last, albeit reluctantly, a subtle streak of grey sept through the frosty windowpanes. But it was so thin it barely illuminated the dark and shadowy corners, as if the sky itself were wary and hesitant to enter. I lingered at the window long after dawn, fingers pressed to the cold glass, tracing the frost with the tips of my fingers. It wasn’t until I withdrew that I noticed the twisting patterns on the glass, a map made of lines – all of which led to the same place.

The caretaker’s hut.

I couldn’t shake the image of what I saw. Thought I saw. But it wasn’t even these images that gnawed at me, that bore me down and distorted all my senses. It was the uncertainty of it all. Was it all real or just my imagination running wild? As a former journalist, I knew the supernatural did not and could not exist. At the same time, I couldn’t make sense of what was happening to me. And whatever it was, it started the day that letter arrived. Was I being set up? But by whom? The solicitor or… something else?

Eventually, I pulled away from the window and forced myself out of the room. This time, the door gave way under my touch and creaked open without issues. As though I had imagined it trapping me inside hours earlier. How ironic. Maybe I did hallucinate it, after all? But I knew I hadn’t. Couldn’t have. Because my flight through the corridor yesterday was still present, neither erased nor covered up by whatever haunted me. Almost as if it… wanted me to know. To not forget. To not doubt its existence. But why go to such lengths if it wanted to kill me? If it wanted to kill me.

Ring. Ring.

Down the corridor, near the restroom door, a phone rang. I instinctively reached for my pocket. It was my phone. My… phone? I briefly looked away as it continued ringing, trying to recall the exact moment I had lost it. Then I did, and a shiver shot up my spine, one I quickly shook off. But who would be calling me at this hour? Alena? No, she wouldn’t. Not after what happened the last time. Then maybe—my daughter?

Every step I took was heavier than the former as I approached the phone, my heart pounding hard against my ribcage and smothering me. A frown formed on my brow as soon as I picked it up as gingerly as I could. The screen was cracked into pieces, but that wasn’t what caused me to arch my brows and gulp hard. There was nothing on the display. No name, no phone number to help me identify the caller. Just a black screen and the option to answer or decline the incoming call. I hesitated for good reasons. And when I did answer and the ringing let up at last, everything hushed. Like the entire building held its breath in anticipation.

“Hello?”

No reply.

“Hello?” I tried again. “Who’s this?”

Again. No response. But this time I heard something else. It wasn’t breathing or anything of the sort. No, this was something else, something I once knew but had forgotten. A tune. My hand shot to my aching chest, the pain surging and roaring from within without warning. What was this melody, this agonising pain? It was melancholic in nature, in the way the low pitch rose and fell with a sombre cadence and brought back flashes of memory from inside me, causing a deep pang of ache to form in my chest and spreading. Where had I heard it before? I must have!

Then it dawned on me, and my eyes flew open with the realisation, with the shock of it, and my eyes flickered from place to place as the memories rushed back and overwhelmed all my senses. I was five—no, younger. Maybe three. I sat on the lap of a young woman, sleepy. But I didn’t want to sleep. Couldn’t sleep due to the bombings and drones. The woman then hummed a tune, lulling me into the warm embrace of sleep. A lullaby—

“…Khāle?”

The words slipped my mouth before I could hinder them, before I could process what had already taken form and space in my distraught mind. The tune stopped in response, and a shallow, laboured breath replaced it.

“Khāle?” I began, my breath hitching and mind going haywire. “Are you—where are you? What happened to you? Khāle—”

The line died.

I stared at the black screen for several minutes, my mind reeling, the unanswered questions taking over every inch of me. It was her. It had to be! But why wouldn’t she talk to me? Why wouldn’t she—

Knock.

I directed my unfocused eyes towards the guestroom, or rather, the wall next to it – where a door was missing. The one that led to that room I saw through the gap. The knocking itself, however, came from within the wall, from the space where a door should’ve been. I was certain. But it didn’t repeat itself. I drew closer nonetheless and listened, tapping on the wooden surface to find a hollow spot. Then I heard it. A faint knock back. As if someone trapped inside the walls replied to me. I tapped again, hoping for a reply back when—

Ring. Ring.

I answered without looking at the screen this time. Holding my shallow breath, hoping to hear my aunt’s voice. To hear her say something, anything. To tell me she was alive and well despite everything, no matter how foolish that hope was. But wasn’t that what hope did anyway? Offering miserable people a thin, trembling promise of a tomorrow that would never come.

“You… shouldn’t… be… here.”

“Khāle?”

“Don’t—”

Wet, staggered gasps spilt through the line. Slowly. Certainly. Yet… soft too at the same time, like she was trying not to cry as her breath caught violently in her throat. Like she was being… choked.

“Please! Don’t—hurt me! Don’t [unintelligible]—help me!”

“Khāle!”

“Someone please [unintelligible]!” Then the choking ceased, replaced by a wheezing sound for half a second before—. “Sami?” But it didn’t come from the phone. It came from behind me. From inside that wall.

And I turned, painfully slow, every hair on the back of my neck rising as goosebumps crawled all over my skin, and a cold breath brushed the back of my head. Until it no longer did. The breath vanished. And in its place, something else began to seep through the walls, spreading fast and frantic, like a wildfire racing in the dark. It surged through every space in the corridor, multiplying, filling every crack, every hollow, as if it meant to swallow the entire place whole.

I staggered back, eyes wide and heart pounding out of control, and before I even realised it, I was running. Down the stairwell and up again, towards the far side of the building where the entrance was. All the while, the walls writhed with the countless critters, shifting and breathing as though the entire building had come alive.

Can’t even remember how I made it out. The details eluded me for some reason, as if my brain willed me to forget, to not recall a damn thing. Looking back now, I guess I was too out of it to recall, to process what was going on. All I knew, all I wanted to do at the time, was to get out of the building before I lost my mind completely. To break free from the chains of events that made no sense whatsoever. Had I known what I knew as I’m putting these words on paper, I might not have reacted the way I did. But saying these kinds of things was only possible in hindsight. What mattered was the moment. When it happened.

The ground was completely frost-bitten as I stormed outside, the biting air the first thing to hit me, like a well-deserved slap to regain my senses. Strangely, it worked. Kind of. But it wasn’t the slap itself that did it. With it, the whistling wind carried the scent of the frozen earth, grounding me to the moment, steadying my galloping heart and frantic breathing. It was like entering an invisible portal to the past, to my forgotten childhood, sniffing the air like an addict looking for a quick kick; flashes of memories passing in a blur. Funny how certain smells bring back those kinds of memories, the ones deeply hidden in our brains to protect us, only to let themselves be known in the moment…

But I wasn’t ready to face those memories. Not yet.

So, I drew a deep breath and cleared my thoughts.

The burial ground stretched out before me, quiet and endless as it was and would forever be. Yet, every lump of stone seemed to watch me. Study me. But it wasn’t these peculiar observations that arrested me as I drew closer to the cemetery. There, just a few meters away, where before there had been a hollow, disturbed earth, now the soil lay flat and smooth, pressed down. There was no mound, no indentation, no hint that the ground had ever been touched. Even the grass around it glimmered with frost, each blade coated in crystals that crunched under the weight of my hesitant steps.

I stood there, frozen in place, trying desperately to recall the memory of the caretaker bent low over the dark pit with the perfect stillness of the witching hour. So, how was this—I crouched. My fingers twitched as I prodded the surface for some clue, something that could disprove what my eyes were seeing but could not make sense of. But found none. The entire patch was undisturbed. The unmarked grave was… gone. No, it had never been there. Couldn’t have.

Was my memory betraying me? Or…

My eyes now settled on the caretaker’s hut at the edge of the burial ground, and before I knew it, my legs had begun moving of their own accord, the frozen grass crunching softly with each step and echoing in the hush of morning. I wasn’t even sure why I was going there. Perhaps I was still trying to reason with my mind, to convince myself that I was overthinking, that I was nothing but sleep-deprived. That it ought to be like that. That speaking to the caretaker would somehow convince there had never been an open grave there. Maybe I just wanted to believe that was the case. For a sound mind.

The brain is an amazing machine, you see. It does everything it can to forget things that ripple through your very marrow – at the cost of your sanity. And then, suddenly, your heart aches, but you don’t know why. Only that it happens now and then, when a sudden smell or image triggers something in your unconsciousness, making you feel the pang without telling you why it happens. So cruel… so unforgiven. So—disturbed.

I knocked once and waited, the sound thudding against the swollen wood. But no one answered the door. I heaved a sigh and relaxed. Not that I didn’t want to confront the guy. I just… didn’t know how. What was I even going to say? That I saw him last night? No, that would be—huh?

Noises. From inside the hut. Like something moving. But too slow. Too… distorted? Neither footsteps nor scraping, but more like the constant rattle of something slithering through the decayed floor, forcing itself forwards with a shuffling sound. Something was in there. But it wasn’t the caretaker. It couldn’t be. Perhaps my imagination was running wild again, playing tricks on me to taunt me, but whatever this was, it was not human. That, if anything, I knew.

The door cracked open.

I froze; heart thudding so hard it drowned out everything else.

Then—

It ceased. That strange sound.

I scrambled back, taken aback and panicked, desperately trying to see what had caused the door to crack open in the first place. As I did that, however, I saw the eye of the Khamsa in the gap as it met mine through the darkness inside the hut, and then it—blinked. Right then, something rose in the darkness, catching the morning light and glittering: a thin, curved blade.

My heart kicked into a full gallop, and instinct took over.

I spun on my heel and bolted for the gravel path, refusing to look back even for a mere second. All I could think about was running; getting as far from the property as my legs would carry me. The gravel spat up under my shoes as I sprinted, each step jarring through my legs and causing severe pain in my joints. My lungs burned too, my chest tightening as though the entity’s presence clung to my back, while shadows flickered at the edges of my vision, urging me faster. Only when the path widened into the village road did the pressure ease. Only then could I slow down, catch my breath, and look behind me.

There, at the boundary where the burial ground met the village, the humanoid figure stood watching me. Motionless, its blade lowered at its side, its single eye tracking my every breath. It didn’t advance. It simply waited, as though biding its time… as though hoping I’d be foolish enough to step back towards it, to let it tear me apart. But I couldn’t let it. Not until I figured out why it existed, whether it was a product of my mind or something else entirely.

Yet I couldn’t make sense of what it wanted from me. Should it want me dead, it had plenty of chances to do so last night. But it never did, just chased me down whenever… something happened. Whenever I thought of her. My aunt.

I tore my gaze away from it, refusing to meet its piercing eyes locked onto me. My mind reeled as several thoughts crowded in and tripped over one another, all demanding to be heard, each one trying to make sense of what I’d seen, to give shape to something that felt beyond understanding.

Then… my thoughts sharpened, breaking through the fog of fear, of the uncertainty, and a pattern began to form, chaotic but undeniable. Was it guiding me? Forcing me to see something? To find something? But what? I’d come to Neve Emek knowing nothing. Only that my aunt had vanished here, that she had been the rightful owner of the property. But now… now I knew something else. Something darker, something sinister to the core. I’d heard her choking through the phone. Dying. That had to be her! And then… her voice. My name, called from inside that room, through the walls writhing with the crawling critters, as if the building itself fought her, tried to stop her from reaching me…

But why this creature? Why did it appear every time I thought of my aunt? It made no sense. None! Unless… there was a link between the two. One I had yet to figure out. But those harrowing thoughts did nothing to calm me or soothe my frantically beating heart. Instead, every question, every single thought taking space in my mind, clawed at me and demanded answers, each one worse than the last. And I didn’t know how to stop the madness. But from beneath all that panic, one truth pushed its way to the surface: if I could understand the creature – its purpose, its origin – I might finally learn what happened to her, too.

Neve Emek: Room 102 - Part 7 of ?

7

I stirred awake with a gasp, my hands wrapping around my throat as if I were surfacing from the depths of the ocean, heaving for air. Eyes shot wide open.

For a short while, I did not know where I was. The ceiling above me was cloaked in darkness, the frame distorted and sagging, barely holding up something that should have long since collapsed down on me.

The walls loomed close, breathing foully, their patchy and mottled surfaces full of rot due to the damp air. I lay there motionless, utterly confused, my mind racing to understand and stumbling through fragments of memory as I finally recalled how I ended up here. From the airport’s harsh white lights, the train’s rattling windows, to the taxi driver’s stubborn refusal to cross further than the outskirts. Each image returned like the scattered shards of a mirror, until at last the truth arranged itself into something coherent, something that made sense to me.

Neve Emek.

Cold sweat trickled down my still body as the name of that place overtook my mind, the shirt clinging to my bare skin as though I had run a fever. A bead rolled from my temple down the side of my cheek and sank into the pillow, which reeked far worse than what I wanted to describe in these passages.

I turned on my side, trying to force my breath into a calmer rhythm, but the silence pressed in from every angle and suffocated me. Something had woken me. Something that no longer was here, inside. But what? The certainty of it gnawed at me, though I could not say what. No sound lingered now except the faint, insistent throb of my own pulse drumming in my ears.

But I was sure. Something had stirred me.

It almost sounded like… dragging.

The sound of metal scratching against the decaying floorboards, digging deeper and deeper into the rot, until it turned into a bone-chilling shriek.

I closed my eyes for no longer than a few seconds, forcing myself to chase the comforting embrace of sleep again, but behind the lids, a dull pressure now swelled. Unbearable. The thought wouldn’t leave me; it carved itself into my mind, as irrational as it was: why had I woken at all? What had been here that wasn’t anymore? What was that sound, even?

I rolled onto my back and fumbled for my phone; the glow blinded my eyes, too stark against the surrounding murk, but I managed to squint at the digits. 03:36 am. I had only been asleep three and a half hours. Now, sleep wouldn’t come to me. Not as easily as it did hours earlier.

That was when I recalled the last image of yesterday in my mind and sat up abruptly, my shaking gaze settling on the crumbling wall across me. It was gone. The doll. Then again, was it ever really there? In either case, it did not matter. What mattered was that something woke me up, and now I couldn’t sleep anymore. I had to check it out. Though the thought of feeling blindly through the corridors again did little to soothe me, it was either that or… lie here like the dead in their tombs and wait for it to return.

The air outside the covers wrapped me in clammy cold, pricking sweat into gooseflesh across my arms. I reached for my phone and let the dim glow stretch into the dark. Its beam caught swirls of dust drifting in the air, dissolving as quickly as it formed.

The door handle was cold to the touch when I closed my fingers around it and paused. Listening and straining my ears to catch anything out of the ordinary beyond the door. But there was nothing to hear, save my own irregular and shallow breath.

Then, steeling myself, I twisted the handle and stepped into the corridor.

Turning my head from one direction to another, a deep frown now formed between my brows as I tried to make sense of what had happened during the few hours I had slept. How was this possible? The entire corridor was darker than I remembered, darker than it should’ve been, as though the walls themselves had absorbed what little light remained and left nothing but a heavy, oppressive black in its place.

My hand found the switch just beside the doorframe. I flicked it up, then down again, once, twice, thrice – straining for even the faintest flicker. But nothing happened. Not even a spark. Then again, why did I even assume this place had a working electronic system? And even if it had, surely, the overhead lightbulbs were in no condition to switch on.

I advanced reluctantly, navigating my way through the murk. Each step forwards seemed to linger longer than it should, reverberating down the empty hall and returning to me as though someone else were walking at my back.

The first door I tried was stiff, the knob so cold it numbed my fingertips. I twisted hard, but the lock held firm and resisted with a groan, travelling down the corridor in a strange, amplified way, before spitting back in a low echo.

One door after another was either locked or immovable.

My phone’s glow stretched thin against the walls, trembling with every shift of my hand. In its quivering beam, the corridor seemed to bend at odd angles and distort, twisting even. Peeling paint flayed like scabs, water stains crawled down the walls in shapes that morphed into grotesque faces, and mouths were frozen open in silent howls.

By the time I reached the end of the corridor, my nerves were haywire and my distraught mind a jumbled mess. How come I found nothing? Not even a single—

A creak pierced through the silence.

My eyes stretched wide, frozen for a split second by the bizarre sound, before I whipped around and held my breath. My heart pounded hard against my ribs, faster and louder by the second, my mouth dry as chalk. Unable to calm down or ease my senses. Not until I saw where the sound had come from.

Down the corridor, not far, not even halfway, one of the doors I had already tried now stood ajar. It hadn’t opened for me, not an inch, yet now it hung cracked wide enough to show the blackness within. For a long moment, I could not move. Something about it pulled at me in ways no words could even come close to describing, causing a sudden tremor in my whole being.

My body decided before my mind did, and I retraced my steps.

The stench hit me before I even fully pushed the door open.

A sour odour that clawed down my throat and made my stomach churn. It was the smell of rot layered over waste, of damp stone left to rot, of pipes that hadn’t carried clean water in years. I retched in place, teeth clenched, bile rising in the back of my throat.

But necessity forced me forwards, one reluctant step at a time.

Overhead, a single bulb dangled on a length of cord, swaying faintly in the draft that seeped through unseen cracks. It was dead, no glow left in it, just the brittle rattle of its glass shell when I brushed near.

My phone’s flashlight cut a flickering arc through the dark, sweeping across the ruin: cracked tiles buckled from damp, streaks of discolouration running up the walls like the veins of a tree, each stain resembling something organic and animate. But it wasn’t these things that arrested me as I stepped further into what I could only describe as a restroom of some sort.

The only intact sink was slumped against the wall at a crooked angle, its porcelain riddled with cracks like spiderwebs, the edges sharp nubs. Rust ringed the drain in the colour of dried blood, thick and ugly, as though whatever water had once passed through it had taken pieces of it with it.

The faucet resisted at first, stiff, then gave with a groan, shuddering and coughing, before it spat from the tap with the stench of corroded metal and something more pungent. The thick stream of water, greenish-brown in colour, was so sour that I jerked back unwittingly, chest seizing, but then the water thinned and ran cold against the porcelain.

I dipped my hands under, the chill biting at my skin as I gingerly sniffed it. The sour smell had faded, as had whatever had caused the foul colour to form. What remained was the stench of corroded metal from years of still water inside the pipes. It wasn’t safe to use, not to mention drink. Perhaps the caretaker knew where to find clear water? I’d better ask him.

When I twisted the tap shut, however, it didn’t stop. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why it wouldn’t. The stream kept running and pooling into the basin. I turned harder, wrenching it back and forth until my wrist ached, but the water gushed stubbornly on. A strange tightness now pulled in my chest, rising with each second I failed to stop it.

Then… the water began to change. Again.

Slowly, gradually at first – then all at once.

It darkened and thickened, shifting back to that foul murk, until it became a sludge-like torrent that filled the sink with alarming speed, bubbling. It then frothed against the drain, lapping at the cracked porcelain lip, before spilling over and gathering on the floor. It all happened so fast, I had no time to react properly or process what was happening. Not fast enough, that is.

The stench was unbearable now, suffocating. It pressed into me, gagged me, clawed up into my sinuses until I staggered back, the foul water seeping inside my shoes and soaking my feet through. And then—

The door slammed shut behind me.

It was so violent that it caused the tiles under me to vibrate, driving the foul water into twitching rivulets and setting the bulb above trembling. Had I not held onto the cracked sink just in time, I might’ve lost my footing. But when I swung my phone wildly, slicing through the dark, towards the door, it was still cracked open. Just like I had left it.

My eyes narrowed as I took in the scene before me, unsure of whatever had just happened – if it had happened – when my gaze suddenly settled on the sink I was clutching hard. Dry.

I let go with a wheeze, hyperventilating.

The entire basin was empty, and the tap sealed tight. Not a drop was spilt over, nor was there any puddle on the floor. No evidence that it had ever run at all.

I staggered back against the wall as the realisation hit me like a punch to the guts, my breath coming out in ragged bursts, sweat crawling cold across my skin despite the heat. How!? How on earth…

Too out of it to think straight, trembling all over, I staggered out the open door and did not dare look back. All sorts of dire and macabre thoughts were racing through my mind to distort me further, but I pushed them all away and made it back onto the drafty corridor blanketed in pitch-black darkness. But as soon as I turned my back against the restroom door, something stopped me.

That sound again. The one that woke me up.

The shuffling.

Gulping hard, my glassy eyes unable to focus, I turned around.

Slowly.

Afraid to make a sound, to make a hasty move.

And my eyes narrowed.

There. Beneath the narrow gap between the doorframe and floorboards, a shadow shifted inside the restroom. A definite movement, not a trick of my unsound mind playing games with me. Then that sound again. Metal scraping against the floor. Scratching and shrieking in a morbid tune, drawing closer for every second I lingered here.

Every nerve screamed at me to run, to return to the safety of the guestroom, but I couldn’t move. My whole body was crippled, paralysed beyond repair. Like I was a puppet pulled by invisible strings, strings that controlled my every move, my every thought.

Then it came to a stop.

I held my breath, my feet finally staggering back.

It left, whatever it was.

I thought.

A sudden crash tore through the corridor as the restroom door burst outwards, the frame cracking and spraying splinters across the corridor as the hinges screeched, then tore free entirely, sending the door skidding past my feet. From the darkness behind the shattered frame, something heaved itself forwards – huge, uneven, its silhouette dragging against the dim-lit walls.

I staggered back, blinking. But not enough. My legs still wouldn’t listen to my commands, still wouldn’t do as I instructed them. All I could do was watch as the horror unfolded before me, drawing closer and closer by the second. But what was I even looking at? How to describe it without sounding mad?

It was made of fragments, of body parts that should never have been bound together. Overlapping stitches, dozens of human shapes pressed into one another as if they were one single entity. Some faces were visible only in profile, eyes closed, as if still in prayer; others blurred into the creature’s torso.

And its head, if one could call it that, was encased in a tarnished metal helm shaped like a tilted Khamsa, fingers stretched downwards instead of upwards. The helmet was engraved with eroded calligraphy of verses of the holy Qur’an, though the writing was incomplete and the verses incoherent in places. I recognised it almost instantly, my mind reaching deep into my memories of a time when my grandfather recited the Qur’an in the peacefulness of our home.

A massive metal blade lurched behind it, carving a jagged trench through the floor as though the floorboards were nothing but paper. It hauled the weapon with a slow, grinding pull, each movement accompanied by a metallic shriek that shot up my spine.

Then it straightened.

Not like a person rising, though.

Its spine snapped into place with a brittle, jerking motion, the movement so sudden the air seemed to recoil from it. The warped metal helm tilted, as if listening to something I couldn’t hear.

Then—

Without warning.

The blade arced upwards in a single motion, rising with impossible speed despite its massive weight. The air didn’t just whistle – it fucking screamed, a thin, tearing sound like something ripping under water. The very air around the blade arced, the corridor’s lights flickering as if afraid to illuminate the swing, as dust billowed up in a choking cloud, fluttering like ash.

My lungs clamped shut as it all went down in a rapid sequence of events. It felt like the thing had cut the air itself, severing the breath right out of me. I hardly managed to process what was unfolding before, unable to focus.

Not until it lunged. Straight at me.

I wrenched my eyes away almost instantly, forcing my feet down the corridor, barely managing a stumbling near-run. My heartbeat hammered so wildly it felt broken, slamming against my ribs with enough force that I swore it would rip out of my skin any second.

The corridor became distorted as I fled, everything blurring except the knowledge pounding in my skull: I couldn’t slow. One misstep and it was all over. But finding the exit, the stairwell going around the obstacle ahead was impossible in this darkness – if not feasible. I couldn’t risk it. Instead, I directed my flickering eyes to the right side of the corridor, searching for the guestroom like a madman, the scraping sound behind me overwhelming all my senses and forcing them on high alert.

It was around this time that I noticed belatedly that I no longer had my phone with me to illuminate the corridor. I must’ve lost it during my flight, somewhere down the corridor behind me. Even so, there was nothing I could do about it now. I couldn’t turn, not even look back over my shoulder. Not until that thing stopped pursuing me. What was it even? Some kind of ghost? Entity? Or—

The guestroom!

My hands were slick with sweat as I fumbled to slide the key into place. It was like my hands had forgotten how to function. When at last the lock came into place with a harsh clack, I pushed the door open and locked it, stepping away without taking my eyes off the door. Waiting for something to happen. For the door to burst into pieces. But nothing happened.

That was when I noticed it was gone. That shuffling.

Still, I wasn’t convinced. I did not budge, not even for a second, for several minutes. Just listening and waiting. To be proved wrong.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

I doubled over and gasped for air, only now realising I had been holding my breath this entire time. Relaxing, although still not fully convinced I was safe. Thousands of thoughts were racing in my head, each one worse than the other. My first thought was to flee. To escape this place. But what if it was still out there? What if it waited for me to make a mistake and fall right into its trap? For now, it seemed, the guestroom was the only safe place to be. Though I did not understand why that was. Why had it failed to come here?

My eyes unwittingly drifted to the hole in the wall.

Blinking. Frowning.

Something moved. Inside that room. Beyond the wall.

I advanced.

My whole body trembled as I drew closer, crouching to take a closer look inside through the gap. My shaking hand resting against the thin wall, unable to ease, my quivering eyeballs fearing the worst.

I peered inside.

Sitting atop the crumbling bed was the humanoid creature, its sharp blade as heavy as lead tucked at its side. Its helmet-like head was turned towards the gap in the wall, dropped low, as if it knew I would be there. Then—

It stood up, the metal blade falling to the floor with a loud thud, the eye of the Khamsa locking onto mine without hesitation.

I backed up. Waited. Listened.

But not for long.

The air behind the wall thickened, pressing against my skin as though it carried the weight of something monstrous. I arched my brows, unsure of what was going on, when my ears suddenly rang with a low hum, a vibration that seemed to come from nowhere.

Then came the first scrape.

A long, dragging sound that rattled through the walls.

Another followed, louder, slower this time.

I held my breath, every fibre in my body screaming at me to run for it. To flee before it was too late. But my feet were frozen to the floor. Paralysed. Still, I tried hard to make my body listen, to move. Even so, it felt like I was stuck in place, rooted in cement and unable to budge.

That is… until a violent, unnatural shudder split the wall, bending inwards with a wet, splintering crack, so that dust and fragments rained down in a choking cascade. I couldn’t believe my eyes! The wall bulged like it was made of flesh, pushing towards me!

I stumbled back from the shock and tripped over.

That was when the walls stopped moving. Just like that. As if I had hallucinated it collapsing just seconds earlier! Like I had lost my bloody mind!

Before I could recover, however, the wardrobe burst open with a violent snap, and a swarm of critters poured out. Cockroaches. Dozens of them. Their legs skittered across the floor like a thousand tiny claws, surging towards me before I could crawl away, scattering over my arms, my chest, my neck.

I slapped at them, clawed at them, but more kept coming in waves. They climbed inside my clothes, under my collar, down my sleeves, and across my cheek. I shook violently, twisting on the floor, trying to peel them off. But one of them managed to shoot straight towards my mouth.

I gasped in shock and rolled over, my face flushing and turning blue, as the critter forced itself deeper into my throat, suffocating me. My gag reflex fired violently in response. I retched, coughed, clawed at my neck, tears streaming from my eyes.

Panic drowned out every other sensation.

The room spun.

I managed to scramble to my feet, stumbling towards the door, throwing myself at it. It didn’t budge. Not even slightly. I fumbled with the lock. The keyring slipped from my grasp as I did. By then, my vision had become so blurry that I could no longer discern the keys from the floorboards.

My breath came in shuddering bursts around the critter lodged in my throat, my nails scraping uselessly at the doorframe, at the handle that refused to turn. When I staggered towards the window, my vision now tunnelling, the first thing I noticed was the frost crawling across the panes in thick, white lines. I had to seek help! If not, then I—

My fingers burned as I pressed my palms to the frozen glass, smearing it with streaks of heat from my breath and tears, as I tried to shout for the caretaker. But all that came out was a strangled, choking rasp. The glass was too thick. I had to open it. Now fumbling with the latch, coughing, retching, the creature inside me withered with every heave.

The latch gave way.

And then…

Everything stopped. I felt my throat repeatedly, trying to find a trace of the critter despite breathing normally now. Even the walls behind me had stopped moving and pulsing violently. What…

My hands trembled as I blinked at the frosted window. In the mess of smeared condensation from my laboured breathing and desperate fingerprints, a clear streak cut through – just wide enough to see out.

The burial grounds unfurled beyond, bathed in the pallid glow of the moon. The headstones stood rigid, their shadows stretched and contorted into crooked silhouettes like an army in eternal formation. And there, exactly where I had seen the open grave before – a movement.

It was the caretaker. But what was he doing there, in the dead of night?

I froze as my breath fogged the glass, unwilling to blink or look away. Then, too suddenly, he straightened and his head snapped upwards, face tilting towards the frosty window. Even at this distance and angle, despite the depths of darkness, I saw his eyes glint as he met mine for a split second, and I dropped back at once, pressing flat against the wall, heart hammering in my ribs like it wanted to break free.

The pane of glass was so thin, the frost so fragile – had he seen me? Or had the veil of ice concealed me just enough to trick his brain? I didn’t know. All I knew was the sound of my laboured breathing and frantically beating heart. And in those harrowing moments, all I could do was count each beat of my pulse, each shallow gasp of air.

Seconds stretched into minutes like this.

When at last I dared another glance, sliding low towards the cleared streak of glass, the graveyard lay still in all its eeriness. This time, the caretaker was gone, and only the disturbed patch of soil where the grave marker was supposed to be remained as proof he was ever there.

The frost had reclaimed the window once again in those few minutes, sealing my view ahead, but my eyes still lingered on it. Sleep was impossible now, even in this standing position. Every time I shut my eyelids, I saw the caretaker’s face turned upwards, those eyes glinting in the moonlight, or the creature that had pursued me down the corridor, charging at me with its heavy blade.

So, I lingered near the window. Hour after hour, rubbing fresh circles into the glass and staring out at the burial grounds. On high alert. Ready to flee the second I caught anything unusual in the stillness.

The gravestones seemed to me to shift in the shadows as though they leaned closer whenever I blinked sleep away. Like they were alive and watching me – just as I was watching them. And each time I wiped the glass clear, I expected to find the caretaker or that creature standing there, shovel in hand, staring back at me. But nothing of the sort happened.

Now and then, the wind stirred the branches and frost cracked faintly against the glass, every sound jolting through me like a nail driven into my chest and my body bracing with each flicker of movement.

And like this, the night stretched thin and black morphed to grey, then purple and orange. By the time the first smear of light rose over the horizon, I was still there, stiff and shivering in front of the window. For the first time in my life, I was afraid, afraid of what my mind was capable of. At the same time, I wasn’t fully convinced I had only seen things. That my mind simply came up with stuff to scare me witless.

What I saw – what I thought I saw – maybe they were all fragments of a truth this place was desperate to hide. And if that was the case, the caretaker knew more than he let on. I had to get to the bottom of this mystery. Before whatever haunted this place got to me first, that is.