The Song of the Jhin

I write these words not to frighten you, but to cleanse myself of what I have seen. Perhaps if I put them on paper, the whispers will leave me. Perhaps the eyes that follow me in every shadow will finally close.

It began one summer night, when the air was so heavy with heat that even the walls seemed to sweat. I had gone to the old village on the edge of the desert, a place of forgotten wells and half-buried stones. My grandmother once warned me: “Do not sleep beneath the date palms there, for the jhins roam freely between the roots and the branches.”

I laughed at her warning. Who believes in such things anymore? But the village was silent, its people long gone, and the ruined mosque at its center seemed to beg me to rest inside. I spread my blanket on the cracked tiles and closed my eyes.

The first sound was not a sound, but a vibration inside my bones. It was like the humming of a distant swarm, yet it carried words. I could not understand them, yet I felt them cut into me as if each syllable were a blade. My chest tightened, and when I opened my eyes, I saw them.

Shadows at the edge of the room, too tall to be men, too crooked to be trees. Their limbs bent backward, like the legs of scorpions, and their faces… no, not faces. More like veils of smoke with a single burning hole where an eye should be. They circled me without walking. Their bodies slid, like mist pulled by an unseen wind.

I remembered the old prayer, but when I opened my lips, the words twisted. My own tongue betrayed me, repeating their language instead of mine. The shadows grew excited, closing in.

I fled.

Through the arch of the mosque, into the moonlit street. The houses around me breathed, their windows opening and closing like mouths gasping for air. The silence of the desert was broken by laughter — laughter that came from everywhere and nowhere. I ran to the well, hoping to climb down and hide.

But the well was no longer a well. When I looked inside, I saw not water, but endless faces staring up at me. Faces stretched thin, mouths opened in eternal screams. One of them was my mother. Another was me.

I stumbled back, but hands — cold, too many fingers, too long — shot from the stones and gripped my ankles. I kicked, screamed, pulled myself free. Blood smeared the rocks. I fled again, this time toward the palm grove.

The palms whispered. Their fronds swayed though the air was still. I heard my grandmother’s voice among them, calling me by name, begging me to stop. I fell to my knees, trembling. My breath came fast, and when I looked up, the grove was filled with lights. Small, glowing orbs floating between the trees.

For a moment, I thought they were stars that had fallen to earth. But then one came close, and I saw that inside the light was a face — human, yet not. Its mouth moved, forming a question: “Will you give us your breath?”

Before I could answer, the others swarmed. They circled me, pressing against my skin, seeping into my nostrils, my ears, my eyes. The world became blinding. I thought I would die.

But I did not die.

When I awoke, dawn had broken. The village was empty, silent, as if nothing had happened. The mosque stood as ruins, the well dry, the palms still. I staggered home, my body weak, my throat raw.

Yet ever since that night, I am not alone. When I close my eyes, I hear them — humming, whispering, laughing. Sometimes, when I pass a mirror, I see not my own face, but one of those stretched and screaming visages from the well.

And sometimes, when I speak, it is not my voice at all.

So I write these words. If you ever go to the desert’s edge, do not rest in the ruins, do not drink from the well, and do not answer the lights between the palms.

For the jhins are patient. And they are always listening.