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NbHD

"Mama! The Enslavers are coming!" I could hear them, clear as anything: the metallic hoofbeats of their steel horses, the clanging of armor and weapons as they approached inexorably across the desert sands. I ran to the window and moved the curtains to peek out into the blinding sunlight. I could almost see the clouds of dust they were raising in the distance.

"Misha, there's nothing to worry about," Mama spoke in her quiet, soothing tones. "It's another one of your visions. My little girl, no one is coming."

"Yes, they are!" My own voice was thin and high. My trembling hands made the curtains quiver like a breeze blowing through. "I can hear them. It's real, Mama, as real as the sound of our voices."

"Why can't we hear them, then?" my older sister Sheera asked from her corner, where she was hemming a hijab.

"I don't know. But I know they're coming."

"Allah will protect us. There is nothing to fear. The Enslavers have not been seen since the Great Disaster." Mama walked to the kitchen and turned on the radio. A burst of static flared out. She twisted the knob from one side to the other, watched the needle moving across the dial, and shook her head. "Each day there are fewer stations on the air. I wonder what happens to them."

After some adjustment she managed to tune into a news broadcast. The cold, impersonal male newscaster spoke of ordinary things. Peace hovered precariously over the country like a dove searching for dry land.

I knew of the Enslavers only from newsreels and textbooks, yet lately they haunted my dreams and invaded my reality as much as if I'd personally experienced their onslaught, as my mother and sister had. Sheera would tell me of it sometimes, in hushed tones at night.

I glanced once more out the window and went to comfort myself with the words of the Prophet, in a tiny green book I kept under my pillow. Sheera was teaching me to read.

As the day began to fade into evening, Sheera came to sit beside me in our bedroom.

"Misha, are you alright? You've been so anxious and preoccupied today."

"Yes. I wish you would take me seriously when I say they're coming."

"How can we take it seriously? No one has seen them. It's all in your head."

"There are signs… how can you explain the radio stations disappearing?"

"We may be getting interference from something. There's development going on nearby." She folded her sewing project and packed away the needle and thread. "Would you like to go for a walk in the fresh air to clear your mind? I need to fetch clean water for the goats."

We donned our hijabs, let Mama know where we would be, and walked slowly together down the road to the local well, balancing clay jugs on our heads. The cloudless desert air was cooling rapidly once the sun had set, and a few people passed us, leading loaded donkeys, headed home from a day's work at the markets.

We trudged past the development which Sheera had mentioned, a skeletal framework of steel girders which seemed to loom ominously against the receding sunset, breaking up the seamless horizon. Tanks of gasoline and heavy equipment lay scattered about. Barbed wire fencing pasted with warning signs surrounded the construction site.

"So what is this, anyway?" I asked.

"They haven't announced. I assume it will be housing or shopping, like they have in the cities. What cities are left after the Great Disaster," she added.

When we arrived, a lone man stood at the stone well, examining a sign which had been posted. It was written in bold red Arabic script, with a prominent government seal. I peered cautiously at it, trying to decipher the words.

"It tells everyone to turn in their radios or face steep penalties," Sheera read, a note of confusion in her voice.

"But why?"

"One does not question the government," the strange man said abruptly, picking up a jug of water and striding off. "You would do well to obey orders."

Sheera and I looked at each other with concern. The radio was our last link to the world outside of the local area.

"First the Internet was destroyed by the Great Disaster," Sheera fumed. "Then they said television was forbidden as a matter of Shari'a law. Now they don't want us to have radios either?"

"Will books be next?" I thought of my little green Quran, of Mama's small collection of textbooks and studies of the Hadith .

"They are siphoning away our sources of knowledge." Sheera filled one jug and handed it to me. "At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if the Enslavers did appear one day soon, Allah forbid."

We collected our water and set off towards home. Ageing orange incandescent lights gave off a hesitant glow along our path; our robed figures cast shadows which morphed larger and smaller as we passed through each pool of light.

Sheera was quiet, but I could sense her concern for me and my visions. I prayed they would stop. Surely there could be no truth to them.

Suddenly our shadows disappeared as the street was plunged into darkness. An eerie stillness settled on the houses as the whirring of window AC units cut out. A thin line of orange lingered on the horizon.

"Misha, the power went out!"

"What happened?" I shifted the weight of my water jug, wishing I could reach out and grab her hand.

"Hurry home!"

We ran as fast as we could, hearts pounding. At home, Mama was sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, leaning in over the radio. She waved at us and held a finger to her mouth. We sat close.

"Listen! The airwaves are being hijacked!"

A gruff, raspy voice came through as Mama adjusted the antenna.

"Ten miles west southwest of Al-Azeera. General Marko is headed there with a thousand men. Takeover will be completed by morning."

"Roger. Keep us posted."

"Roger out."

The voices faded back into static, and Mama switched it off. She stood up.

"We must leave now. Misha, your visions were prophetic. The Enslavers are coming."

In a panic, I rushed to my room and started gathering up my belongings into a pile on the bed. I didn't have much, merely a few changes of clothes, some toys, stuffed animals, a box of trinkets…

Mama looked in, her forehead creased.

"Please, honey, there's no time to pack. Leave it all behind."

I slipped my hand under my pillow and grabbed the little green Quran. I couldn't abandon the sacred words. It fit into the folds of my burkha.

Together we exited the back door and headed out into the wilderness away from town, leading our two goats along.

"Where must we go to get away from them, Mama?" Sheera asked.

"I don't know. On foot we cannot get far."

A vision struck me like a bolt of lightning, bringing me to my knees in the sand.

"No Man's Land! We have to go there!" I cried.

"What? To those ruins haunted by Jinn and evil spirits? Never!" Mama shook her head.

"No, that is what they tell us, what they want us to believe. Our salvation is hiding in the midst of the destruction. It is the only way, inshallah ." I spoke with conviction. I could see it as though it were right in front of us.

"We have no other options. Let us go." Sheera spoke up.

Without another word, Mama looked up at the stars and headed us in the direction of the No Man's Land. At the top of a crest, I turned for one last look at my hometown, now darkened under the shadow of an approaching army.

"Goodbye," I whispered to everything I'd left behind. "I'll miss you."

Kish, our male goat, butted me as if to nudge me forward impatiently, and I remembered my family was still with me. We walked for hours up and down great hills of sand, marked by the occasional worn-out sign indicating where a road had once been.

The crescent moon rose slowly, giving only a faint light to the blank, endless barrenness. A wind gusted along, sending twirls of sand circling our feet. As we reached another high point of a dune, there appeared a solid, living wall coming towards us, reaching across the horizon as far as I could see.

"A sandstorm! Tie yourselves together!" Mama took our hijabs and wrapped them tightly around our noses and mouths, then bound us up in a three-way tangle of burkhas as the swirling sands descended on us with a roar like a freight train.

We clung to each other, huddled on the ground. I mentally recited prayers to Allah for protection; there was no opening one's mouth under such circumstances. It was difficult to breathe without inhaling sand. Any exposed skin would become raw from the abrasive blasts. Fortunately, as followers of the Prophet, we were covered from head to foot.

I wondered if we would be buried alive, if the wind would die down and let go of its load of sand on top of us like a dump truck. What became of our goats? What would become of us?

After what seemed like a lifetime of mind-numbing noise and pounding wind, the storm blew past us. We got to our feet, unbound ourselves and shook the sand out of our clothes. I threw my arms around Kish and Zarah, who had somehow survived.

"Look! A city skyline!" Sheera pointed into the distance. The topography had changed with so much sand being moved, and now we could clearly see the ragged broken spears of skyscrapers along the horizon, even in the dark.

"That's No Man's Land," I said.

***

Dawn was bleeding across the edge of the sky as we finally approached the abandoned city of Al-Zaren. Sheera read a special passage aloud from the Quran to guard us from any mischievous Jinn which might be there. Our footsteps echoed against the crumbling walls.

I walked with confidence, recalling landmarks from my vision. We went downtown and approached a courtyard of several acres. In the center, sitting as though it had been waiting for us, was a dirigible—a rigid balloon, heavy treated fabric skin stretched tight over a ribbed framework.

"This is our freedom," I said. "We can fly to refuge in some safer country."

"Is this viable?" Sheera reached out and touched the shiny lacquered cloth surface.

"Yes, inshallah." I felt as though I'd already been here. I knew where the tanks of helium were stored.

***

Flying thousands of feet in the air, across the desert towards the ocean, we caught sight of the Enslavers and their legions of iron horses sweeping down upon our land. Somehow we made it across the sea to land at an airport in Novirsk, a narrow country along the coast.

My steps faltered as we came down the ladder from our dirigible, our dusty clothes hanging limp. A man wearing a turban and khakis came to meet us with a clipboard. On explaining our situation, he told us it was a neutral country, providing a safe haven for refugees.

"You will be welcome here."

"Alhamdulillah , we are safe!" Mama hugged us close. The goats squealed and nudged in between us. I felt the leather binding of my little Quran under my robes, and knew my visions were over.

Word Count: 1918.

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