Al-Juhaini House, written by Ahmed Mahmoud Sharqawi
A while ago, I was absentmindedly browsing through the family photo album, and my eyes fell on a picture of my father, and my uncle and aunt were with him. I preferred to look at the picture of my father, and my eyes began to shine with tears. May God have mercy on you, father. Then I looked at the picture of my uncle and aunt, whom I had not seen for almost 20 years. I hope they are alive, especially my uncle. I have a feeling that if he were there, he would compensate me for the presence of my father, or even remove the smell of my father, who died without any prior warning, all at once.
When I put the album back in its place, I found a small piece of paper that had fallen from it. I held it quietly and opened it to find a detailed address written on it.
The city of..., the northern cemetery area, the Nile Ferry
Mahmoud Abu Al-Futouh Al-Juhaini
I was a little surprised by what was written, but it said the same thing, and I went to have lunch with my mother and opened the biography with her and asked her about my uncle and aunt and why they had disappeared for 20 years. I found that her looks changed all at once and she told me that she had not known anything about them for a long time.
I finished eating and opened the paper and read again: Mahmoud, this is my grandfather’s name. Is this the address of my grandfather’s house? Well, if I go there, I will find my uncle and aunt living there. Why did my father prefer to interrupt them over these many years?
I don't know why I decided to go and see who lives in this place, and I might actually find family instead of being alone like this, me and my mother. In fact, the second day I went to the city and asked the tuktuk driver how to go to the northern cemetery area, he said that I would go on the Nile Ferry and from there I would take a tuktuk to the area. Cemeteries..
In fact, he took me to the ferry, and from there I took a tuk-tuk and told him that my religion was the courtyard of the cemetery. He asked me in amazement and said:
- Who are you going to in the yard, Pasha?
- I am going to Mahmoud Abu Al-Futuh Al-Juhaini’s house
I met him with a very surprised expression and said:
- What are you going to do, Pasha, going to Al-Juhaini’s house? This whole place is a closed area
You were surprised by what he said, but you said:
- This is my uncle's house
He got out in a tuk-tuk and we walked through a place all of agricultural land for half an hour, and at the end cemeteries appeared blocking the road. He stopped and said:
- You will walk along and you will find Al-Juhaini’s house, Pasha, but don’t stay there if you look at the house.
I looked at him and I was very surprised. I walked along a very small road, and to my right was agricultural land and to my left were cemeteries. In the end, I actually reached the end of the road and saw a very huge house. If you want to imagine what I saw, I would like to tell you that Dracula’s house looks comical in relation to this house.
The house was a gloomy black color, and crows were nesting on it, and their voices reached me. It was a living example of exactly the houses from horror movies. I kept standing in front of it and feeling awe. Could it be haunted until today or not?
If it is haunted, who is living in it now? I thought for a while and went to bang on the huge door. Then the window curtain moved and I saw two eyes looking at me. I felt a strange fear and kept waiting for a while and the door opened and an old woman appeared, dressed in black, and one of the two eyes was pure white.
She looked at me coldly and said in a high voice:
- what do you want
- I, originally, was...
- Don't pronounce
- I was asking about Hajj Mahmoud Al-Juhaini
- Hajj Mahmoud died a long time ago, and the one who is here now has a son, Attia, and I have a daughter, Saadia.
I smiled a lot and told her:
- How are you, aunt? I am Walid, your nephew, Saeed, may God have mercy on him
She looked at me a lot, and then she said quietly:
- Come in, Walid
I was surprised that she did not welcome me or that I felt interested in her, and I began to suspect that something big had happened between my parents and them. Was it an inheritance problem or was the issue bigger than that?
I entered inside and looked at the house that was made like a palace. The ceiling was very high, the whole house was dark, and the smell was very bad, as if the house had not been cleaned for many months..
A few moments later, I found an old man coming down from above:
- Of course you are my uncle Attia
He smiled a simple smile and said:
"See also"
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The story of the repentant magician, Daoud Muhammad Al-Farhan, by the writer Muhammad Mhenni
- And you are the son of my brother Saeed, right?
I went to hug him, but he pushed me with his hands to keep me from hugging him. I felt very embarrassed by this strange situation. I spoke to him after a few seconds and said:
- Sorry, I haven't asked about you all these years
Then my aunt spoke and said:
- Why do you remember us now?
The embarrassment increased greatly and I found myself moving to the door and saying:
- Okay, uncle, God willing, I will come and check on you again
Before I reached the door, I heard him say:
- Prepare the room for the newborn, Saadia, so he can sleep in it
I looked at him in amazement and tried to come up with anything as an excuse, but he insisted that I stay with him so he could take me to the ferry tomorrow morning by tractor, and this was because I couldn’t find anything to take me.
Unfortunately, I gave in to their words and went out to the room that my aunt had prepared, and before she insulted me, she looked at me with a very scary look and said:
- No matter what you hear or see, never leave your room at all
It was then that night began to enter upon us. Alia closed the door and looked at the room. It was spacious, large, and a little cleaner than the rest of the house.
What was scary was that the room had a large window that overlooked exactly the graves. I mean, while I was on the bed, I could see all the graves through the window. It looked terrible and very dark, especially since the sun had set at that time and there were very many shadows on the gravestones..
I sat on the bed blaming myself a thousand times for deciding to visit these crazy people, but how am I going to sleep right now? It's still seven o'clock and I'm going to sleep at least three o'clock.
I stretched out for a while, and the strange thing is that I felt that I really wanted to sleep, and I fell asleep, and I saw in my sleep that there was a very big fight, and the uncle whom I saw was running after my aunt, and my father was trying to catch him in any way, but my uncle was big and strong. I found him hitting my father with a knife in his hand, and he grabbed my aunt and started kicking her in front of her. About my father..
I got up from my place terrified, my heart was pounding hard and my whole body was sweating and working hard, and the first thing I saw was the graves, the moonlight was very visible on them, as if you were looking into the land of hell and not just graves..
One moment and I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door of the room. I quickly lay down and made myself sleep. A few moments later, the door opened and I heard the sound of footsteps approaching me until I stood next to my bed.
I was feeling very afraid, and then I heard my uncle whispering:
- He looks asleep
My aunt replied:
- Yes, he is sleeping, let's go
They left the room and my body was shaking. What are these people doing at home? Suddenly, I got up from my place, walked comfortably, and left the room.
I went down the stairs to listen to anything, and an open room caught my eye. I entered it and was surprised to find the bed was literally covered in blood.
It was as if someone was still lying in the place, and before I could move, I heard the sound of hot breathing behind me. My whole body became electric, and I remained standing like a paralytic, waiting for a knife stab or a blow to my brain, and suddenly I heard a very loud screaming sound..
I tried to locate the screaming person, but I did not know. The screaming was coming from literally everywhere in the house, and then I saw my aunt running upstairs and screaming. I ran after her, but she entered a room and the sound of her screaming stopped.
I no longer understood anything except that I opened the door of the house and ran outside, and behind me I could hear a thousand screams and screams. I ran into the heart of the graves while I was approaching and unable to take myself away..
I saw a lot of visions, but I didn't stop for a single moment until I got out of it and found myself in the middle of the agricultural land. I stayed there for more than an hour and a quarter, while my whole body was sweaty and terrified.
In the end, I reached the Nile, and there I saw a boat of fishermen fishing at night. I consulted them and they returned to me and I rode with them. There was a kind man and his son asked me quietly:
- What's wrong with you, my son?
- I was originally at my relatives' house here
- Whose house, my son?
- Mahmoud Al-Juhaini’s house
I found the man's features changed and he said:
- You must bring a sheikh, my son, and cleanse this house
- God willing, Hajj
I lured the man into talking one by one until I realized the catastrophe. A murder had occurred in this house. My uncle slaughtered my aunt because he had a mental disorder and then he killed himself. From that day on, the people of the house left the house and left it forever, and as the days passed, the house became a playground for demons. When a funeral comes to bury a dead person, they hear strange noises in the house, so that anyone who tries to take a risk and go will come back crazy or not come back..
I was going crazy, I mean, the ones I saw were goblins for my uncle and aunt, and the dream I saw was an interpretation of what happened. Indeed, a house like this should be cursed, an abandoned house, a murder had occurred in it, and it was also next to the graves..
I mean, Ammar's nightclub, the place, the jinn of the graves, and the victim's wife, and perhaps what saved me from it was that I belonged to the same place, and the screams I heard that day were the screams of the day my uncle killed my aunt, but what I was surprised by was the blood I saw, and it was clear that it was recent.
At that time, I felt pain in my leg and found a very long wound that was bleeding. I don't know how I didn't feel it until now, how I got all this blood, and how I moved to bed..
The important thing is that I ran away from the whole place and swore that I would never go back until the day I die, I will be buried in another place..