Chapter 5
I saw a person get their neck snapped.
Not a person…a demonic-looking thing.
Snapped by the boy in my dreams.
I returned home breathless from my run. Luckily, no one, or thing, seemed to have followed me.
I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself down before my dad and Ehsan returned.
Dad had gone to meet some of his new colleagues, while Ehsan was next door playing with his new friend.
I was glad no one was home yet; I had seen too much to pretend to be normal.
You look just like your mother.
How did that thing even know what my mum looked like?
Dad came home not too long after me. I wasn’t sure how long I stared into space before he arrived.
He was full of stories about his coworkers. While he might want to control my every move, he hardly paid close enough attention to notice how I was feeling. So, I didn’t have to try that hard to hide how shaken up I was.
“They’re so much friendlier here,” he commented.
I leaned against the kitchen cabinet as he talked at me.
My heart was beating far too quickly. I dug my nails into my palms to focus on that pain rather than my messy mind.
“I almost forgot, how was your trial, azizam?” he asked, while opening the fridge and frowning at the lack of contents.
Inside was a carton of milk, some cheese, and a loaf of bread.
Dad had gone to a nearby shop for a few things yesterday, but we still hadn’t done a proper food haul.
I had told him about the trial last night, and I think he liked the idea of me tying myself to Denver in some way.
“I got the job,” I whispered. In fact, if he hadn’t turned around, I might have thought I didn’t answer him.
It was like my mouth was running off without me, and I was watching myself pretend to be normal.
Since my mum passed, I had developed a knack for pretending to be fine, but this was taking things to another level.
He clapped his hands together. “Of course you did! Shall we get some takeout to celebrate?”
Normally, I’d comment that that was his idea of celebrating—mine was to go out to a restaurant—but I was in no mood to argue, so I mumbled, “That’d be nice.”
I started to consider whether everything I had seen was a hallucination, an extension of the dreams. But I couldn’t convince myself of that; what happened felt too real.
Leaving the kitchen, I stopped just before the stairs and went to Ehsan in the living room.
He had come home shortly after I returned from seeing a man’s neck get snapped.
I had to keep saying it, because the more I thought about it, the more I really deeped what I had seen.
And with each passing minute, I asked myself new questions.
Did Zain really snap that thing’s neck?
Were its eyes really black?
Crucially, and not to be forgotten: Why did that thing mention my mum?
Ehsan was playing Overcooked. He often tried to rope me into joining him, but we had played it every day for a month last summer, and I couldn’t stomach it anymore.
He still whined for me to play, hoping I might change my mind.
He didn’t even have to ask in a full sentence now, all he said was, “Please?”
“Later, maybe. I have a headache,” I lied. I reached for my bag on the sofa, remembering his gift. “I got you this.”
His eyes lit up. Abandoning his game, he opened the pages, running his fingers along the illustrations. “This is so cool.”
Scooping my legs underneath me, I sat back on the cream sofa. It was comfortable and sunk beneath my weight.
“Ehsan, do you think jinn exist?” I asked.
Mum told us about jinn growing up. They were demonic spirits.
The thing Zain killed could be a jinn, but saying the word aloud felt sticky.
I didn’t think I believed in those kinds of things.
And yet it didn’t look human. In fact, it reminded me of the sleep paralysis demon that haunted my nightmares.
“Obviously, they do,” Ehsan said after a beat. “Azar told me they did. And it’s in the Qur’an.”
While we were a Muslim family, and believed in Allah, we didn’t strictly practice our religion.
It was something I thought about more lately, since Mum had died and my bad dreams worsened, but I wasn’t sure where to begin with learning more about the religion.
I had always been told what I shouldn’t do, more to do with Iranian culture than anything else, but not the fundamentals of Islam.
“Yeah, but like, do you really think they do? Like that they’re physically here now? Not just spirits we can’t see?”
Ehsan put the graphic novel down on the seat next to him and furrowed his brows in concentration as if he was really considering my questions.
“Sometimes they look like monsters. But sometimes they look like you and me. Those are the ones you need to watch out for, because they’ll try to trick you into doing evil things. ”
He was regurgitating what Mum had told us. It was coming back to me now, hazily. No doubt, Azar had relayed this to Ehsan, too. When Mum died, Azar became something like a mother to him.
A vague memory resurfaced, of Mum telling us that the real jinns are the ones you think are your friends, but they’ll influence you into doing sinful things.
I’d thought she just said that to make sure we didn’t do anything illegal.
Now I was starting to think that maybe she wasn’t exaggerating at all.
My mind wandered to Zain and the ease with which he’d snapped the thing’s neck. It seemed too graceful, like this wasn’t the first time he had done it.
“Do you think jinns ever fight each other?” I was painfully aware that I was leaning toward him now, desperate, like my little brother was an expert on the supernatural.
Ehsan’s round face appeared perplexed for a moment, but more because he was pondering my question rather than why I was asking.
“I mean they’re mainly evil, so they probably do have enemies within their groups. It’s like any superhero movie. A villain is a villain. There’s no loyalty if you’re evil.”
“Right.”
Once upstairs, I took out my laptop, sat crossed-legged on my bed, and googled “jinn.” One article piqued my interest:
In Islam, humanity starts with a jinn’s rebellion when Shaitan, the devil, refuses to bow to Adam. He is consequently expelled from heaven, sparking his conflict with God and humanity. Shaitan later deceives Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, resulting in their banishment from paradise.
Shaitan and other jinns are created from smokeless fire and share a spiritual similarity with humans, as they possess the capacity for independent moral judgment and free will.
Not all jinn are strictly evil. In fact, many have acted as friends and supporters of mankind, although interactions between the two are discouraged.
I opened my window a crack to let out some of the dead air in the room and stop the sudden suffocating feeling within me. Then, I got back onto my bed and searched the street the diner was on for news of any murders or crime. Nothing.
The translucent face and black eyes were seared in my mind.
Even so, I couldn’t help but doubt my memory.
Was the person just pale? Had I imagined the pattern of veins on his face?
And were his eyes simply dark rather than black?
In my gut, I knew that what I had seen was not human.
But was that because it was easier to think that than accept that I had just witnessed a person be killed? In self-defense, but still.
I checked the time; it was late for both Nic and Azar. I knew Azar was at a party anyway, and likely wouldn’t reply, but I chanced it with Nic. When I FaceTimed her, she answered on the fourth ring.
“Why are you up?” I asked, even though I was the one calling her.
“I can’t stop scrolling on TikTok, and now I need to try Everything Bagel seasoning. Do you have a Trader Joe’s near you?”
“Um, I’ll check,” I began, and the next words spilled out of me so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to back out. “Can I tell you something and you won’t think I’ve gone mad?”
“Obviously.”
And then I told her exactly what had happened outside the diner. I word-vomited, and there was a long silence afterward.
“Are you being serious?” she asked, her tone flat.
“I mean, yeah.”
“You saw a demon get their neck snapped?”
“Yes.”
“By the boy from your nightmare?”
“Yes.”
“And you think he might be a demon, too?”
“Possibly. I’m not sure.”
Silence.
Then: “I think you’re still really jet-lagged and met some strange people down an alleyway.”
I sighed. “I know what I saw.” My voice wavered, contradicting my words. Did I know what I saw?
Her face softened. “Okay. Have you called the police?”
“What could they do?” I asked, as though the question was ridiculous.
“I mean, you were physically attacked. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, impatient now.
“Okay, that’s good. And the person who was attacked—did you just leave him there?” Her voice told me she was not judging but assessing.
“Well, no, he sort of…” I trailed off.
“He sort of what?”
“He disappeared.”
Nic narrowed her eyes, clearly not buying my story.
“I mean, you need to remember people can be quite weird in America.” At this, I rolled my eyes.
Nic loved generalizing. “The man probably tattooed his eyeballs or something. You always see videos of them doing bizarre things in New York. It’s probably the same in Denver.
They were probably doing all this to freak you out.
A joke, and then he ran away. I mean, if his neck was broken, wouldn’t he have been on the ground still? It can’t have been a real thing.”
“Do you think?” My voice was quiet, sort of pleading.
“Yeah. They were messing with you. People are strange, Rox. Just forget about it. Also, don’t go down any alleys anymore. And even if the guy looks like the boy in your dreams, I’d stay away. Never trust the hot guys, I always tell you.”
I couldn’t help but snort.
“You laugh, but the hot ones are the most dangerous, the most unstable. They get away with it because of their pretty faces.” She pulled a knowing face. “Trust me. You know, I was just reading our horoscopes today.”
“Yeah?” I hadn’t checked my app since coming here.
“Yours says that change is coming, and you need to be prepared for it, not just physically, but mentally.”
“Generic but interesting, and what does yours say?”
“That big decisions are coming my way.”
“And are they?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but let me know about the bagel seasoning next time you go out. Maybe my big decision is whether to get that or one of their tote bags.”
I let out a half-hearted laugh. “Jesus, Nic, priorities.”
“Sorry, sorry. But I’m being influenced!” She yelled the last part. “And it’s three a.m., so I need to sleep. Remember: No more walking down alleyways. And please don’t stress yourself out. Love you.”
“Love you too,” I said before hanging up.
Resting on my bed, I told myself to follow Nic’s advice and forget about it. All of it. That whatever happened earlier was none of my business and I simply needed to get through my summer here.
Except, those words—you look just like your mother—spun, creating a web around me, tightening and tightening around my brain.
I followed my nighttime routine. Took a long shower, sprayed my bedtime spray of lavender, frankincense, and chamomile on my pillow.
I had a light dinner, only ate one slice of the pizza my dad had gotten for us to celebrate.
I limited my screen time. Took magnesium tablets to soften my muscles.
These things would relax me. These steps always worked to stop the bad dreams from rolling in.
It was bad sleep hygiene that encouraged sleep paralysis.
Or at least, that was the case before I moved here.