Do you believe in jinns? The old people say that there are jinns in the world besides humans. We can’t see or hear them, we can’t touch them or smell them. Jinns are wholly hidden from humans. But they see and observe us clearly and can even take possession of us. A knowledgeable person will tell you how to protect yourself from jinns, but my family unfortunately did not know. Until now, we thought all this was just a fairy tale and almost paid for it with our lives. Now I will tell you my story, and you will believe that jinns do exist.
We lived in a small town then, more like a big village. My father had a large farm: dozens of horses, cows, sheep and goats. He even had a few people from our village working for him. Mother, on the other hand, was a housewife. After school, I spent a lot of time with my father on the farm. To tell you the truth, I liked animals from childhood. I especially wanted to ride horses. But I didn’t like goats. I always thought they looked at me funny. Maybe it was because of their rectangular pupils, or perhaps it was just my childhood fantasy playing out.
When I turned twelve, I got a little brother. My father was overjoyed. Sometimes, I even felt like I’d been forgotten about. As a teenager, it was a little hard for me to realise that I was not the only child in the family.
That year, the lessons started in the second shift and ended late, so after school, I could no longer go to my father’s farm. On one of those days, my classmate Askhat and I were coming home from school. Usually, we walked the same way, but today, we decided to take a different route. It was already getting dusk. We were walking, chatting about school and classmates, when suddenly, we heard a strange rattle.
-Did you hear that? -Askhat asked.
-Yes, it sounded like someone was sick, – I said, listening.
Gradually the wheezing turned into coughing, and then we heard the words.
-Hey guys, help me, -someone was saying to us in a hoarse voice.
We couldn’t understand the voice’s origin for a long time. The coughing was getting louder and louder.
-He’s talking from there,” Askhat said, pointing to a small old house.
I listened harder. The rattle was coming from the house’s open window, on the left side of the street.
-I can’t get up, guys, come inside and give me some water,” someone told us.
It seemed very strange and suspicious to me. I started to persuade Askhat to get away from there. But he decided to check the house.
Let’s go in. Maybe someone’s really sick in there. If you are so afraid, take a stick,” Askhat said.
There was nothing to do; I couldn’t leave my friend. I picked up a piece of iron pipe from the ground and followed Askhat into the house. We carefully made our way into the corridor; it was dark and damp inside. The floor had long ago rotted away, the plaster on the walls had almost all fallen off, and the ceiling was covered with cobwebs. I knew at once that no one had lived here for a long time. A wheezing sound came from the far room.
-I’m here, guys, help me, give me some water, – the voice told us.
I clutched the pipe tightly in my hands and followed Askhat. When we entered the room, a smell so horrible that our eyes began to sting and hit us in the nose.
-How it stinks in here! – Askhat shouted.
It was very dark in the room, and we couldn’t see anything. Then, Askhat took out his phone and switched on a torch. At that very second, we froze on the spot. In front of us, on the bed, lay a vast, skinny man. There were many boils on his skin, oozing yellow pus. He was wheezing very hard, and yellow liquid was running from his mouth. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and the other stared at us.
-Give me water, give me water,” he wheezed.
At the same moment, Askhat screamed and ran out of the room, dropping his phone. Left alone with this creepy man, I couldn’t even move out of fear. Askhat’s phone switched off when it hit the floor, and I was left in total darkness. I couldn’t see well what was going on in the room. My whole body was covered with sweat from terror, and my heart was pounding rapidly in my chest. Then I heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer and closer to me. I had to get away from that damned house, but my body wouldn’t listen to me. Suddenly I felt something squeeze my left arm so hard that I screamed in pain. Then I saw the man’s creepy face right up close.
-How hard was it to give water to a sick man? -How hard was it to give water to a sick man? – he shouted at me.
The yellow liquid from his mouth poured all over my face. I abruptly realised that this was not a man. At that moment, my body woke up. Screaming even harder, I started hitting the thing as hard as possible with an iron pipe. I don’t know how many blows I gave it, but it didn’t let go of me for a long time. Eventually, I managed to break free of its grip. I flew from the open window into the street and fell to the ground.
As I stood up and looked around, I didn’t realise anything at first. To my surprise, it was a clear day outside instead of evening. “How could it be like this? After all, it had only recently started to get dusk!” – was going round and round in my head. Suddenly, right behind me, I heard a creepy devilish laugh. Turning round sharply, I saw a ruined, burnt-out house. Thoughts were jumbled in my head, but one idea was correct – to run away from here as soon as possible.
About half an hour later, after running to the house, I started banging on the door with all my might. My mum opened the door, her eyes full of tears. She hugged me hard and cried even harder. I didn’t realise what was happening.
-Where have you been, son? – she asked me.
-I don’t know, Mum, I don’t know, -I cried.
It turns out I hadn’t been home for three days. My parents immediately took me to the hospital and called the neighbourhood doctor there. The medical examination did not reveal anything special. And then Askhat’s parents arrived. His father started shaking me and asking about his son.
-Where have you been? Where is Askhat? – he shouted at me.
A fight almost broke out between our parents. Then I told them everything that had happened to us, but nobody believed me. The doctors said I was in severe shock and that I had temporary amnesia. I’d have to wait, and then I’d remember everything. But I knew for sure it wasn’t amnesia.
A couple of days passed, but Askhat was never found. I showed his father the house, but he found nothing there. I saw Askhat’s father angry with me. His parents thought I was responsible for their son’s disappearance. They stopped talking to me at school. No one believed my story. Everyone thought that Askhat and I got into trouble, so I left him there. I was very offended because he had left me.
At night, I woke up to a phone call. Wiping my eyes, I looked at the phone. Askhat was calling me. I immediately jumped out of bed and picked up the phone.
-Alo, alo Askhat, where are you? Everyone is looking for you! – I shouted.
But no one answered me, and then I heard a terrible wheeze.
Why did you come back, and I didn’t? Why did you leave me there? I’m still there.
It was Ashat’s voice, he was wheezing hard. My heart almost stopped with fear. I could not utter a single word. Askhat, meanwhile, kept talking.
-You beat a sick man with a pipe and left me here. You will burn in hell! – Askhat wheezed.
Unable to bear this nightmare, I threw the phone on the floor. It seemed that I was going mad. It was a long night, and I didn’t fall asleep immediately. The broken phone remained on the floor.
In the morning, I woke up to my parents talking loudly. When I went into the kitchen, my father and mother were arguing, and my little brother was sitting on the floor crying. It turned out that my father had a mass cattle death on the farm. He was very nervous about it, so the atmosphere at home was heated. I didn’t want to go to school, so I asked my father to go with him to the farm. At first, he yelled at me, but then he gave up and agreed.
When we got to the farm, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were only goats instead of dozens of horses, cows and sheep. Overnight, my father’s entire farm had been wiped out. The vets took tests from the cattle but couldn’t explain anything to us. I looked at dozens of dead carcasses and could not understand what had happened. Only the goats remained, which I now hated even more. Suddenly, one of them came up to me and started looking straight into my eyes. I had never seen that before, it was very strange. I tried to lush out it, but the goat didn’t react in any way.
-Get away from there! Stay away from them! – My father shouted to me.
I immediately obeyed him, but I felt very offended. My father had never shouted at me before.
At dinner, my father was not himself. My mother sat silently, feeding my younger brother. I ate in silence, too.
-They don’t know what it is. They said they’re gonna start an anthrax protocol. They’ll have to get rid of the goats too. We’re finished; we have nothing left,” said my father, pouring vodka into his glass. He hadn’t had a drink in over ten years.
Two weeks have passed since Askhat disappeared. During that time, my life became a living hell. My father went on a bender, constantly beating my mother. Every day I heard shouting and swearing. Most of all, I felt sorry for my younger brother. He was always crying because of my parents’ shouting. I couldn’t believe that our exemplary family had turned into this in such a short time. Things were even worse at school. I was constantly beaten up after school. My classmates said I was a coward for abandoning Askhat. I received calls from his number almost every night, but I was afraid to pick up the phone. Sometimes, I just skipped lessons and didn’t go to school. But it wasn’t easy at home either, so sometimes I would walk around our small town. I would come home when it was getting dark because my father was asleep by then.
One day, I came home very late. But, to my surprise, my father was still awake. It was dark in the room, and my drunken father was trying to light a fire in the cooker. He turned around and looked at me with great anger in his eyes.
-Where are you going? Do you want to disappear like your stupid friend? – he said to me with a snide smile.
I looked into his eyes, something was wrong with them. It was like they were burning with yellow fire. I don’t know if it was just the flames from the furnace reflecting in his eyes. But then I noticed a really scary thing. My father was sitting across from the cooker, casting no shadow. There were no other lights in the room. Everything was casting a shadow, but Dad wasn’t.
-I was just late for class, I’m going straight to bed,” I stammered to my father.
I quickly went into my room, undressed and got into bed. I could hear my father pacing back and forth outside the door. Sometimes, I heard a creepy laugh, sometimes a growl or something else. I was very scared; something bad had been going on with my father for a long time, and I was very worried about my mother and brother. The phone kept vibrating; it was Askhat calling.
I was about to fall asleep when my father burst into my room screaming at me.
– Get the family together! We’re going to solve the problem! – he shouted.
He dragged my mother across the floor by her hair while she screamed and tried to fight him off. My brother was nowhere to be seen. My father ordered me to leave the room and sit in the hall; he was holding a kitchen knife. I was very much afraid and obediently did as he asked. Mother was crying and looking at me with mad eyes. Father held her by the hair and shouted.
– Where is that little one? They’re the ones causing all the trouble! I’m going to put them back in! Back where they came from! I’ll have to rip your stomach open, wife!
I realised that this was no longer my father. His eyes were burning with yellow flames, and his neck and arms had boils of yellow liquid. But the worst part was his pupils. They were just like a goat’s, horizontal. My father kept shouting something in a language I didn’t understand, but I realised he was looking for my brother. Then he started shouting at me.
-You bastard! You’re the one who brought the disease! You’d better disappear like your stupid friend! – he shouted at me. – Okay, I’ll find the little one later, I’ll start with you.
He clutched the big kitchen knife tightly in his hands and headed in my direction. I heard the sound of heavy footsteps, just like back then in the abandoned house. Suddenly, our front door flew off its hinges and people burst into the house. At first, I didn’t realise who they were, but then I could see them. They were my father’s friends, our neighbours and the local imam. They quickly disarmed my father and tied him to a chair. The imam stood in front of him and began to say something in Arabic. My father was screaming, wriggling, insulting everyone with terrible words. I was shocked at what I saw, and I remained seated in my seat. Nobody paid any attention to me anyway. The mother disappeared from my sight.
-Say your name! Say your name!” the imam shouted to my father.
Then, words started coming out of my mouth, and I couldn’t control my speech.
– Hubaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal, Hubaaaaaaaaaaaaaal,” I started shouting.
I didn’t realise what was happening, my mouth was talking on its own. Suddenly I realised that I was sitting tied up in front of the imam. And my father and mother were holding my hands.
– In the name of Allah, I cast you out Hubal! – said the Imam.
At that moment, I lost consciousness. When I woke up, my mother immediately hugged me, and my father was sitting next to me.
-Thank God that everything worked out,” he said.
Later, I was told how it had happened. It turned out that Askhat hadn’t disappeared anywhere. He tried to help my parents find the house. But they didn’t succeed. It was as if the house had vanished and had never been there. After I came back on my own on the third day, I had very strange behaviour. I was unemotional, skipping classes and walking alone around town. At my father’s farm, there was no falling out. But I could stare at the goats for a long time when I went there. I never even went near the horses. Askhat said that I called him many times at night and threatened to kill him. Meanwhile, the doctors could not explain such behaviour. So it was decided to turn to the local imam. He immediately realised that I was possessed when he saw that I was not casting shadows and my fiery eyes.
The Imam said that I was actually the one who was walking around the house with a knife and trying to kill my entire family. So our family was very lucky that I didn’t have time to do terrible things.
-When a jinn gets possessed into a human, it shows him different hallucinations, as his whole life has turned into hell. When a person gives up and falls into despondency, the jinn takes complete control of his soul. It’s easiest to do this with children,” the imam said.
-I see… And, who is Hubal? – I asked him.
-One of the oldest and strongest jinns. Children shouldn’t go out when it’s dusk. He must have entered you just then, in the house,” said the imam.
