2:00 AM…
I was submerged in a heavy, dreamless sleep when I was violently jerked awake. The air in the room felt electric, vibrating with a sound that clawed at my eardrums—a piercing, jagged scream of a girl who sounded as if she were being consumed by the fires of hell itself.
I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart thumping like a trapped bird. Darkness pressed in from every corner, broken only by the pale, sickly moonlight filtering through the balcony shutters. The screaming intensified, rising in a desperate crescendo. The palace remained deathly still. How could this agonizing noise not wake them, when it felt like it was splitting my very skull apart?
I hesitated, paralyzed by a cold dread. Part of me wanted to rush toward the source—perhaps this girl was a victim, a soul in need of salvation. But the horrors I had already witnessed within these walls made me shrink back. I pulled the heavy quilt over my head, burying myself in a cocoon of fabric, trying to block out the world. But the voice wouldn't let me go.
The more I ignored it, the louder it became, as if it were a sentient thing—defying me, calling to me.
She didn't use my name, yet the summons felt personal. Her shrieks were directed at the void, a raw plea for help. A thought struck me, making me sit up again: What if she is being tortured here, just as I am? What if her mind is being dismantled piece by piece?
I felt a sudden, urgent need to save her. Yet, a darker thought followed: I didn't know the nature of her torment. If I stepped into the shadows to find her, would the same fate swallow me whole?
By the way… though Khorshid is my husband, Lady Nazli told me the doctor had ordered him to leave me in a separate room until I "fully recovered." She claimed solitude would aid my healing. I didn't understand the doctor's wisdom, but I didn't question it. It was better this way—as if the doctor could read my mind and gave me exactly what I wanted: distance.
Finally, I decided to break through the dark chambers of my mind and face my fears. I would find the source of that voice. Perhaps this girl held the key to the enigma of my life.
Do not wonder at my stubborn certainty. Despite their constant efforts to plant the seeds of madness in my mind, my intuition told me there was a mystery to be solved—a knot of lies that needed to be unraveled from the root. In the end, even if they were right—if I had lost my mind in the accident and not just my memory—I would find peace in knowing the truth. But does a madman ever admit his insanity? There is a saying that if a madman confesses to his madness, he becomes the wisest of men.
I moved with the stealth of a shadow, treading on my tiptoes. I eased the door open, praying the hinges wouldn't groan. The entire floor was a cavern of darkness, the doors to the other rooms shut tight like tomb lids. A dim, flickering light came from a lone lamp at the far end of the hallway. The screaming was clearer now, vibrating through the floorboards. My feet led me toward the source with a mixture of yearning and absolute terror.
It was coming from the basement.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. How could I go down there alone? The light was fading, and the palace was terrifying enough in the silence of the night. I retreated to my room as quickly as I had left it to grab my oil lamp. With trembling hands, I struck a match and watched the flame flicker to life. I returned to the basement stairs, whispering to myself to steady my heart: Go on, Asia. This girl might have the answers you've been dying—and living—to find.
The staircase was a throat of shadows. Without my lamp, I would have been swallowed by the dark. As I reached the final step, my light fell upon a figure huddled in the corner. Her hair hung over her face in matted strands, and she was moaning with a soul-crushing exhaustion. My voice was a thin, shaking reed when I asked her what was wrong. She reached out a hand toward me, her fingers trembling.
"Please... help me," she rasped.
My god. She was bleeding—a dark, thick pool was spreading around her on the cold stone floor. I leaned in, my eyes widening as the truth revealed itself. She was in labor. She was giving birth. My mind recoiled. What kind of nonsense was this? How could a girl be hidden here, pregnant and alone?
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to step closer. "Don't worry," I whispered, my voice thick with fear for her. "I'll help you. I'll get you out of here."
She lifted her head then, and her hair parted just enough to reveal half of her face. I wished, with every fiber of my being, that she hadn't.
I have never seen a sight so grotesque. She looked like a demon birthed from the pit. Her face was a warped mask of horror. She began to laugh—a jagged, terrifying sound—as she shrieked: "Get yourself out first!"
Her laughter threatened to stop my heart. I was frozen, anchored to the spot by sheer terror. That is how I react to horror—I turn to stone, my body refusing to obey. With an agonizing slowness, she reached into her own body, pulling her offspring from her womb with a brutal, sickening force. She held the creature out to me with her clawed hands.
It was a cat. A black cat, its fur matted with gore, its eyes staring at me with a sharp, intelligent malice.
That was enough to break my paralysis. I turned and bolted for the stairs, a scream tearing from my throat. My lamp fell, shattering against the stone and plunging me into total darkness. The dark only amplified the horror. Her laughter and the sharp, piercing mewling of the cat echoed behind me. In that moment, I wished for death, just to escape the sheer, concentrated dose of fright.
I burst out of that cursed basement, my lungs burning. How could they sleep through this? The noise was enough to wake the dead. I began to hammer on the doors in the hallway with all my strength, not caring whose room I was disturbing. I just needed someone to wake up—anyone who could offer a shred of safety.
Aunt Fikria was the first to emerge. She grabbed me by my clothes, dragging me toward her with a violent cruelty, cursing me for being an intruder on her sleep. I pushed her away, my body quaking. My words came out in a jumbled, incoherent mess. She began to scream for Maria, demanding the maid take me away before she "lost her temper and silenced me forever."
Lady Nazli appeared at last, moving with her signature, glacial coldness. Her deep voice cut through the chaos, asking for the meaning of this late-night disturbance. Fikria answered with a barrage of insults directed at me. Nazli approached me, a thin, chilling smile touching her lips.
"Will we never have a day of peace from your delusions, my daughter-in-law?"
Oh God, what was I to do with these hags? I had no choice but to wake Khorshid. He was the only one who treated me with any semblance of kindness.
I screamed his name again and again, but the only response was the arrival of Shams and Maria. The circle was complete. Everyone I dreaded was there, except the one man I needed. Wait... what was this? I stepped back as I realized they were forming a semi-circle around me, just like they did at my bedside.
Even in this chaos, they maintained their eerie precision. It was unnatural. I screamed at them, the fear burning through my chest: "I want Khorshid! Where is he? I want him now!"
The circle tightened. They all wore the same hollow, predatory expression—like ghosts devoid of life. Nazli stood at the center. She bared her teeth in a snarl, and my blood turned to ice. Her teeth... they were jagged and sharp, exactly like the girl's in the basement.
All of them had those teeth. They stepped toward me, one slow inch at a time. I felt as if they were about to pounce and tear the flesh from my bones. I turned and ran for my life toward my room at the end of the corridor. I ran with everything I had, only to slam into something solid.
It was her. The girl from the basement.
I was paralyzed; my legs could no longer support my weight. She gripped my shoulders with hands that ended in long, filthy nails, her laughter joining the others. She was in front of me, and they were closing in from behind. I was trapped. A violent, nervous fit took hold of me. I screamed until the world turned black and I collapsed.
I hate the repetition. I woke the next morning to the same cursed semi-circle, with Khorshid sitting by my side. I looked at them with a hysterical terror. Khorshid kissed my forehead the moment I opened my eyes. I pushed him away, but he moved back toward me, claiming he had been away from the palace to attend to urgent matters.
I told him, sobbing, what his family had done to me in his absence. He looked at me with pity, telling me I was exhausted and hallucinating. His mother had already told him a different story:
"My son, I woke to your wife's screams. She was attacking your aunt, trying to strangle her. Shams, Maria, and I could barely pull her off. She was pointing at nothing, screaming about an evil spirit and claiming your aunt was possessed. It was pure madness. We were all terrified of her."
I screamed that she was a liar, that none of it was true. But Aunt Fikria was watching me with a taunting, hateful glint in her eyes—the same look she had last night. I felt she was about to pounce, so I lunged from the bed, tackling her to the floor and striking her with all my might. Khorshid grabbed me, pulling me away and slapping my cheeks repeatedly to "bring me to my senses." I pushed him, screaming that I hated him and wanted a divorce. I wanted to leave this tomb of a palace.
The needle appeared. He pulled it from his jacket as if it were always there, waiting. He plunged it into my vein. I couldn't fight anymore; my strength had been spent resisting these monsters.
I slept for an eternity. I woke to the sensation of hot, burning breath on my neck. I turned my head slowly to find the girl from the basement lying next to me, trying to wake me with her foul, disgusting saliva.
I tried to scream, but her black cat sat on my chest, its weight suffocating me. I struggled, my voice trapped in my throat, until I finally managed a sound. Khorshid burst into the room. He saw her! He looked at her with fury, his eyes blazing.
He saw her. I wasn't mad. He was yelling at her, ordering her to leave. She hissed back at him, but he lunged, grabbing her by the arm to drag her from the room.
I felt a surge of triumph. He couldn't deny it now! He was touching her, talking to her!
I scrambled out of bed to follow them, to see where he was taking her, but the door was locked from the outside. I hammered on the wood until my strength failed. When he finally opened the door and took me in his arms, I whispered, "Who is that girl, Khorshid?"
His answer was a thunderclap. "What girl, Asia?"
My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. My throat went dry. "Khorshid, what are you saying? You just saved me from her! You dragged her out! Are you trying to drive me to the edge of insanity?"
He sighed, a sound of profound frustration. He told me he was tired of my "hallucinations" and that he would have to call the doctor again to prescribe a stronger sedative.
Back to the beginning. Who was right? My eyes and ears, or their words and actions?
I resolved to watch them. I would return to the basement tonight, in secret. I would go with a brave heart, and I wouldn't leave until I had the truth.
I waited until the house was silent. I crept down the stairs, my new lamp lighting the way.
I reached the bottom. I held the light high.
The surprise was absolute. The place was a tomb of dust and decay. There was no girl. No cat. No blood. There was nothing but spiderwebs, insects, and the scuttling of rats in the dark. The basement was perfectly, hauntingly empty.