Chapter Eleven: "The Bottom of Darkness"
He opened his eyes.
He did not know when he had lost consciousness, nor how much time had passed since the earth had swallowed him.
The last thing he remembered: the creature's voice whispering from afar, the roots twisting around his neck, the soil entering his mouth. Then nothing. Absolute darkness. Silence like death.
And now… he opened his eyes.
He found himself in another world.
It was not a forest, nor any land he knew. There were no trees, no sky, no damp earth smelling of mold that he had grown accustomed to in recent days.
It was a completely different place, as if he had fallen from one world to another, from one life to another that resembled nothing of the first.
It was a vast space with no end in sight. His eyes widened, trying to comprehend what was around him, but his gaze found nothing to rest upon.
No walls, no pillars, no boundaries. Only an expanse stretching in every direction, swallowing everything in its heavy silence.
The ceiling of this world—if there was a ceiling—was made of thick black smoke. Not ordinary smoke that rises from a fire then dissipates. It was an entity unto itself, moving slowly above his head like a dead cloud, curling and stretching, contracting and expanding, as if breathing.
It hid what was above, concealing it, as if saying: there is nothing up there worth seeing.
As for the ground he stood upon—or had fallen upon—it was made of embers. They were not burning, but they glowed with a faint red gleam seeping through their small cracks like sick eyes blinking in the darkness.
He felt their heat through his torn shoes—a heat not like ordinary fire, but a heat that pierced skin and bone as if searching for something inside him.
Yusuf stood there, not moving. His body was exhausted, his mind confused, his eyes disbelieving what they saw. He tried to understand where he was, how he had arrived, what was happening.
But no answer came. Only this vast space, this black smoke, and this glowing ground.
Then he saw it.
---
In the center of this space, a few steps away, stood a throne. It was unlike any throne he had seen in his life. It was immense, colossal, as if it had grown from the earth itself rather than being placed upon it.
Made of black stone gleaming like a dark mirror, topped with twisted iron thorns like dead arms stretched out to seize whoever sat upon it.
On that throne sat the creature.
The same creature that had deceived him with the woman's voice, that had confronted him in the forest, that had sentenced him to punishment.
It sat there, leaning on the throne's arm, its head raised, its red eyes looking at Yusuf from afar. But it was not alone this time.
Around it, there were hundreds.
Small creatures, none larger than a small child, filled the place. They danced, jumped, laughed, shrieked.
Their bodies were deformed, their faces unlike human faces. Some had a single eye in the center of their forehead, others had three eyes distributed unevenly. Their mouths were wide, smiling without reason, laughing without jokes.
They ran between the throne's feet, climbed over each other, rolled on the glowing ground as if it did not burn them. Their voices were loud, irritating, unlike the voices of ordinary children.
Fragmented sounds, as if emanating from cracked throats, mixing laughter and scream together.
One of them laughed near Yusuf's ear; he turned toward it. He saw a deformed face with wide-set eyes and an upside-down mouth, laughing and circling him like a rabid dog.
Yusuf stepped back and collided with another behind him. He gasped and moved away, but more were approaching.
The small creatures began to gather around him from every direction. They touched his clothes with their small, thin fingers, pulling, letting go.
They looked at him with their varied eyes, studying his face, smelling his scent. Some chuckled, some shrieked, some whispered words he did not understand.
Yusuf tried to move away, to find an exit. But the place was open without boundaries, and the creatures surrounded him from every side. They grew in number, drew closer, touched him more. He felt his heart about to burst from his chest, his breath quickening.
Then he saw the creature on the throne raise its hand.
The small creatures stopped suddenly. They stiffened in place as if turned to statues. Their laughter stopped, their shrieks stopped, even their movement stopped. A heavy silence fell—a silence unlike any before.
The creature on the throne looked at Yusuf from afar. It said nothing. It only looked. And its gaze was enough to make Yusuf feel naked before it, feel like nothing, feel like merely an insect beneath its foot.
Then it pointed its long finger toward Yusuf. A single gesture, needing no words.
And the small creatures descended upon him.
They no longer danced and laughed. They had suddenly transformed. Their small hands that had touched him with curiosity became sharp claws gripping his arms, his legs, his shoulders, his hair. Their nails were long, black, piercing his clothes, nearly reaching his skin.
He tried to scream, but one of them placed its hand—or claw—over his mouth. Its skin was cold, slippery, like a frog's skin. He tasted a bitter flavor on his lips, the smell of sulfur filling his nose.
The creatures dragged him. He was not walking; he was being pulled across the glowing ground.
He felt the heat of the embers through his torn clothes, but he did not burn. The heat penetrated him but did not scorch him. As if it only wanted him to feel it, to know it was there, without leaving a trace.
The creatures made sounds as they dragged him. They were not laughing now; they were whispering. Whispering words he did not understand, with multiple voices that overlapped and crowded.
Their words were like small arrows entering his ears and settling in his head.
He looked back as he was dragged and saw the creature on the throne. It still sat there, watching him. But something had changed in its face. It no longer smiled. Its face was rigid, like someone watching something they did not want to miss a single detail of.
Then the vast space suddenly ended.
Before them, a cave opened its mouth in the earth. It was not an ordinary cave. Its opening was completely black—so black it looked like a piece of nothing in the middle of the space.
He could not see inside. He saw only darkness. A thick, heavy darkness, like a black liquid filling the cave to its brim.
The small creatures did not hesitate. They pushed him toward the cave, and he fell into its opening. He felt himself falling, falling into a bottomless void. Darkness swallowed him from every side, and the air suddenly turned cold after the heat of the embers.
He could no longer see anything.
No walls, no ceiling, no trace of the creatures that had been dragging him. Everything was swallowed by the darkness. His eyes were open, but they saw nothing. His hands were outstretched, but they touched nothing. He was falling—or perhaps he had stopped falling. He no longer knew the difference.
---
The darkness here was not like the darkness of night he had once known. The darkness of night was ordinary; his eyes knew it and were accustomed to it. It came with sunset and left with sunrise. It had stars to illuminate it, a moon to lighten its blackness, trees moving in the wind, insect sounds filling its void.
But this darkness was different.
It was a dense entity wrapping around him like a cocoon. It seeped into his pores, entered his mouth and nose like suffocating dust he could not cough out. It crawled over his skin, touching him everywhere, like cold water that never dried. Each breath he took filled his lungs with unbearable weight, as if the air itself had become heavier than iron.
He felt it pressing on his chest from within, like a cold grip holding his heart and slowly squeezing it. He tried to breathe deeply, but each attempt increased the heaviness in his lungs. He felt he was suffocating, that oxygen was turning to lead in his chest.
He sat—or perhaps he fell. He no longer knew the difference between sitting and falling. Both led to the same result: the ground beneath his body. But the ground here was not ordinary ground. It was not soft soil, nor solid rock, nor sand flowing between fingers.
It was cold, but not cold like snow or stone. It was cold like something alive, like the skin of an animal that had never felt the sun's warmth. It was damp, but not damp like rain or dew. It was damp like cold sweat emanating from a frightened body.
He placed his palms on the ground to feel it. He felt something moving beneath them.
It was not an illusion. The ground was moving. Rising and falling gently, as if breathing. A faint pulse transmitted from its depths to his palms—a slow, heavy pulse, as if a giant heart beat somewhere far beneath his feet. He felt that the ground was not inanimate, but something alive, something that pulsed, something that breathed, something that suffered.
He snatched his hands back quickly and pressed them to his chest. He felt his fingers still retained the sensation, as if they had touched something that could never be washed away. He rubbed them together, but the sensation remained. It clung to his skin, his bones, his memory.
He sat there, curled into himself, not moving. He was afraid to touch the ground again. Afraid to feel that pulse again. Afraid to know that the earth beneath him was alive, that it suffered, that he stood upon its body.
Then the sounds came.
---
They did not begin suddenly. They had always been there. Perhaps his ears had simply not been ready to hear them. But now they were clear, loud, impossible to ignore.
A woman weeping. Her weeping was unlike any weeping Yusuf had known. Not weeping of sorrow emerging from the heart, nor weeping of pain emerging from a wound. It was torn, wounded weeping, as if her throat tore with each gasp, as if another voice emerged from within her that she did not want, could not stop.
She wept without pause, without taking a breath, as if she had been weeping for ages and had nothing left to give but this sound.
A boy screaming. His scream was high, sharp, piercing the darkness like an arrow that never missed its target.
It was not a scream of fear from something he saw, nor a cry for help seeking rescue. It was the scream of one who knew no one would come, yet could not stop. His scream rose and fell to a rhythm he did not understand, escalating to a sharp peak then dropping to a hoarse whisper, then beginning again.
And a man laughing. A mad, staccato laugh, as if emerging from a punctured chest that could not hold air. It began low as a whisper, then slowly rose, turning into a loud cackle, then stopped suddenly as if cut off by a knife. Then began again.
It laughed at something no one could see, at a joke only it understood. Its laugh filled the darkness, mixing with the woman's weeping and the boy's screaming, creating a choir of torment that never ceased.
Yusuf tried to locate the source of the sounds. He turned his head right and heard them from the left. Turned left and heard them from the right. Turned his whole body and heard them from everywhere. From in front and behind. From above his head and beneath his feet. They surrounded him, enveloped him, entered his ears from every direction as if laying siege.
He raised his hands and placed them over his ears. Pressed hard. Pressed until he felt pain in his palms. But the sounds did not stop. They came not only from outside. They came from inside as well. As if they were planted directly in his head, deep in his skull, in the folds of his brain. As if they were part of him he could not separate, as if they had become part of his very self.
He opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to scream: "Stop! Please stop!" He wanted to silence them with his own strength, for his voice to rise above theirs. But his voice did not come out. He opened his mouth again, pushed air from his lungs, moved his tongue, parted his lips.
But no sound. As if the darkness had swallowed his voice before it could reach anywhere. As if he had become mute in this world, become merely a receiver of sounds, not a source.
He whispered—or thought he whispered—words he could not even hear himself:
— "Stop… please stop…"
But the words died in his mouth. They did not reach his ears. Did not reach anywhere. The darkness swallowed them as if they had never been.
---
He drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He sat curled into himself, like a small child hiding from a storm that never ended. His body trembled.
Not only from the cold—though the cold was bitter, slipping under his skin like tiny needles searching for bone—but from a fear he had no name for.
Fear with no single source. It came from everything and nothing. From the darkness surrounding him, from the ground breathing beneath him, from the sounds filling his head, from his own silence. Fear beyond hunger and exhaustion, beyond everything he had ever known. Fear that gnawed at him slowly from within, as if eating his soul bite by bite, swallowing it piece by piece, until nothing remained of him but an empty shell.
This is not reality… it is an illusion. Yes, just an illusion. It must be an illusion.
He tried to convince himself. Repeated the words in his head over and over, made them a mantra to cling to. But even the word "illusion" began to lose its meaning. It repeated in his head until it became merely an empty sound, carrying no meaning. Like a name repeated until its letters became nothing, like a word repeated until it became a buzzing in your ears signifying nothing.
Then his thoughts began to crack.
He tried to remember his mother's face. He closed his eyes—though the darkness was the same whether he closed them or opened them—and focused with whatever strength remained. Her hair draped over her shoulder. Her large eyes. The small wrinkles that appeared when she smiled. Her smile that filled the house with warmth.
But the image would not hold. It trembled before him like a mirage in the desert. Each time he tried to fix it, it slipped away. The eyes dissolved first. Turned into two dark spots, then vanished entirely. Then the mouth. Then the nose. Then all the features. Then nothing remained but a shapeless shadow, a picture without details, a face resembling no one.
He tried to remember Fouad. His companion on the journey. His voice laughing before the sea swallowed the ship. His face when he stood on the deck looking at the horizon, saying: "Don't be afraid, the sea is calm tonight."
His image appeared for a moment like a distant shadow, like a memory of a memory, like a photograph taken from far away then dissolved. As if an old paper burned, turned to ash, then disappeared into the air.
He screamed inwardly. No sound emerged, but the scream was there. In his chest. In his head. In every cell of his body. A silent scream only he could hear, but it tore him apart from within:
— "No! Do not do this to me! Leave me at least my memories! If you take them, what remains for me? What remains for me if I no longer remember who I am?"
But the memories evaporated like water on a hot stone. Each time he clung to one, it slipped through his fingers like sand. Each time he tried to hold another, it faded like smoke.
He no longer remembered when he had last seen his mother. He no longer remembered the color of her eyes. He no longer remembered whether she wore perfume or not. He no longer remembered whether she preferred tea or coffee. He no longer remembered anything.
Then a question crept into his mind. A question that did not come from outside, but sprouted inside him like a thorn growing in his chest:
Who am I?
He paused. He thought. He tried to find the answer. It was simple. He had known it since childhood. Knew it like the name he wrote on every paper, answered whenever called.
Yusuf… I am Yusuf.
But the name sounded strange. As if it belonged to someone else. As if someone had whispered it in his ear moments ago, and was not his own name. As if he heard it for the first time in his life. He repeated it over and over, his lips moving in the darkness:
— "Yusuf… Yusuf… Yusuf…"
Until it lost meaning. Became just a sound: Yaa, seen, faa. Letters pointing to no one. Not pointing to him. It could have been anyone's name. Could have been a name someone placed upon him without asking.
Am I human?
He asked himself. He looked at his hands. He could not see them. He touched his face. Felt his features. His nose. His mouth. His eyes. His eyelids. He was there. He felt his body. But he was not sure. Does the feeling of existence prove existence? Or can darkness create sensation without reality?
Or have I become just an empty idea? A voice echoing in a dark vault without a body?
Each time he tried to cling to his mind, each time he tried to anchor himself to something, a new voice came from the darkness. He did not know whether from outside or within. Did not know whether the creature whispered it or his own thoughts turned against him. It whispered quietly, like someone reading an irrevocable judgment:
— "You are guilty… you are an outcast… you were never meant to live…"
He tried to deny it. Tried to scream: "I am not guilty!" But the words did not come. And the darkness did not answer. Only the whisper continued, repeating, echoing in his head like an endless refrain, like a bell ringing in a deep well that no one could hear.
---
The darkness was no longer still.
At first, it had been merely an absence of light. A negative thing, a void left by departed rays. But now it had become something else. A living entity moving around him, crawling on his skin, touching him everywhere.
He felt it on his face first. Cold, damp, as if adhering to his skin. He tried to wipe it away with his hand, but his hand touched more of it. It was everywhere. On his arms, his neck, his chest. It crawled beneath his clothes, touched his body directly, as if thousands of cold fingers touched him at once.
He felt it enter his mouth each time he breathed. The air was heavy, polluted with this darkness, filling his lungs with unbearable weight. He felt he was not inhaling air, but inhaling darkness. It entered his throat, his bronchial tubes, every part of his lungs. It weighed on his chest from within, pressed on his heart, slowly squeezed it.
He felt it pressing on his skull from outside. As if a giant hand gripped his head and squeezed, squeezed slowly, wanting to crush it. The pain was faint at first, then increased, became throbbing, became as if his head would burst at any moment.
He closed his eyes—though they were already open—and tried to remember something. Anything. His name. His age. The color of the sky. The taste of bread. The sound of rain. Anything to prove he had been human somewhere else before coming to this place.
But nothing.
He was empty. As if everything in him had been extracted. As if he had climbed to the highest mountain in the world, then looked down and found an abyss with no bottom. No ground beneath his feet. Nothing to hold him. He was falling into an endless void, and the darkness grew thicker the deeper he fell.
He screamed. This time, the sound emerged. It was not his voice alone. It was a scream mingled with the woman's weeping, with the boy's screaming and the man's mad laugh. His voice merged with theirs, became one of them. There was no longer Yusuf screaming alone. There was a chorus of screams, and he was one of its members. He had become part of this hell, part of this eternal choir that never ceased.
It is over.
That is what he told himself. Or what something inside him told him. He no longer knew the difference.
No use. No way out. No one will see me. No one will know I was here.
Even the word "was" began to lose its meaning. Had he been? Had he existed at all? Had there ever been a place called the world, a house with walls and windows, a mother with a face and voice, a friend who laughed with him? Or had he always been here? In this darkness, in these screams, in this torment that never ended? Had his whole life been merely a dream? And this was the reality he had finally awakened to?
He surrendered.
He relaxed his body. Stopped resisting. Let the darkness consume him. Let the screams overwhelm him. Let himself drown. There was nothing left to hold onto. Nothing worth holding onto. He was sinking into a bottomless pit, the darkness around him thickening, the cold growing harsher, the fear deepening.
He was about to disappear completely. About to become just another voice in this eternal choir. About to lose even the idea that he had once been a human named Yusuf.
Then he heard something.
---
A faint murmur.
It was very far away. So distant it seemed to come from somewhere other than this place. From a world he did not know. From a place where darkness did not exist. But it was clear. Clear as a silver thread in eternal darkness. Not a scream. Not weeping. Not mad laughter. A continuous, steady murmur, flowing slowly like water in a hidden stream.
The sound of water.
He did not believe it at first. Thought his mind, in its final moment of collapse, had created this sound as a last hope. As a final rope to throw himself before drowning. But the sound continued. Did not fade. Did not turn into a scream or weeping. Continued as it was—pure, clear, different.
It grew stronger. Became clearer. Drew closer.
He raised his head with difficulty. His neck was stiff, muscles cramped from long contraction. But he raised it. Turned his ear toward the sound. It came from somewhere in the darkness. He did not know where. Did not know how far. But it was there. It existed.
He wanted to run toward it. But he no longer had a body to run with. He no longer felt his feet. No longer felt his hands. Nothing remained but his ears, and this sound, and this thin thread holding him to life. He clung to it like one clinging to the last tree at the edge of a cliff.
Then—light.
At first, it was a small point in the distance. The size of a poppy seed. He thought it was another illusion, that his eyes had begun to deceive him as his mind had. But the point did not disappear. It grew. Grew slowly, then quickly, then faster.
It became the size of a fist. Then the size of a head. Then the size of a tree trunk. Then it became like a wound in the belly of night—a gap through which light poured like fresh blood, as if darkness was bleeding light.
The light split the darkness. It did not enter gently; it split it like a sword cutting through flesh. The darkness parted in two, and light flooded between them like a blind white wave, engulfing the place, engulfing Yusuf, engulfing everything.
He closed his eyes. The light was intense, painful, burning. He felt it on his face like unbearable desert heat, as if he stood before an open furnace. But he could not move away. His body was fixed in place, and the light washed over him from head to foot, entering beneath his closed eyelids, piercing his skin, reaching his bones.
Then he heard the scream.
But this time, it was not his scream. Not the woman's, nor the boy's, nor the madman's. It was the creature's scream. The one that had swallowed the earth, that sat on the throne, that had condemned him to this hell. It was screaming. Not a scream of anger or threat. A scream of pain. A broken, torn groan, as if the light burned it from within. As if every cell in its body melted and screamed together.
Yusuf opened his eyes with difficulty. His eyelids were heavy, the light still stinging them. But he opened them.
And he saw.
In the center of the rising mist from the ground, there was a shape. Not the black, horned creature. Something else. A luminous white creature, moving on four legs. Its body was misty, transparent, as if an image not yet complete, as if made of unstable light. But it was there. It moved slowly, each step leaving a trace on the ground.
From beneath its feet—or what resembled feet—flowers sprouted. Small, colorful, unlike any flower Yusuf had seen before. They bloomed in an instant, blossoming in all their colors: red as blood, yellow as sun, white as snow. Then they withered and died the next moment. Their petals shriveled, folded into themselves, turned to ash that disappeared into the air. Leaving a trace of brief beauty that did not last, as if saying: I was here, but I am gone.
Yusuf tried to see its face. He strained his gaze with whatever remained of his strength. But its features were misty, unclear, as if trembling under the light. He could not tell whether it was human or animal or something else. Could not tell whether it was a rescuer or just another shadow in this world. It was simply there. Moving. Leaving flowers behind. And disappearing into the light.
He opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to ask: who are you? Why did you come? Have you come to save me? Is there hope?
But his tongue did not move. His voice did not emerge. His body was so exhausted that he could no longer speak. Whatever remained of his strength had been spent just on remaining conscious.
All he could do was surrender.
Unconsciousness overtook him like a cold wave after the blaze of light. He felt his body sinking into a soft bed of nothing. That the darkness which had been strangling him moments before was turning into a peaceful stillness. That the screams were receding, receding, until they became a distant whisper, then nothing.
Before he faded completely, he heard something else. Not the sound of water. Not a murmur. A different sound. As if a seal was closing, as if a door was being drawn shut, as if a crack in the wall of the world had been sealed.
Then nothing. Only the peaceful darkness. Only the silence that no longer suffocated. And he felt—in the last moment before he faded—that something had closed behind him, as if a heavy door had been drawn shut in the depths of the earth.
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End of Chapter Eleven