Novel: A Used Body (My Grandmother's Mix)
By: The Cellar of Novels
"Don't believe everything you hear, and not everything you see in the mirror is you!"
Chapter One: The Scent of Death
The tranquility of rural Egypt is unpredictable; sometimes, disaster lurks just waiting for the right moment. I'm Hind, a nurse just starting out. I accepted a job with an incredible salary at Haj Nassar's house—a huge, deserted house nestled amidst the fields—to care for his wife, Mrs. Zakia, an elderly, paralyzed, and mute woman.
The moment I entered, I was hit by a pungent smell of bitter almonds that choked me. Her son, Hamed, with his pale face, told me, "My mother's paralyzed, but she understands... and most importantly, the rooftop room is off-limits. No matter what you hear from her, don't go out!"
One dark night, the power went out, and I felt an icy hand grip my wrist with a bone-crushing force... It was Mrs. Zakia! Her eyes were wide with terror, and with a trembling finger, she pointed to a mirror in the corner of the room, covered with black cloth. At that very moment, I heard a thud—"dud...dud...dud"—and the laughter of a child coming from the forbidden rooftop!
Chapter Two: The Secret of the Cellar
Fear made me open the mirror... and the shock was that it wasn't reflecting me! It was reflecting Zakia as a young woman, and behind her, the silhouette of a little girl with completely white eyes. Suddenly, a trickle of blood ran down from the ceiling onto my face, and I looked up to see a half-open cellar door leading to the rooftop.
I went out with a heart of stone, and found the rooftop filled with wooden dolls dressed as nurses, just like me! In the middle was a large mortar and pestle containing a black mixture with a stench that made my stomach churn. Hamed emerged from the darkness, accompanied by Sakina and the terrifying girl. He said coldly, "My mother doesn't die, Hind. Every few years, we bring in a nurse with tender flesh, and the zar ritual and this concoction make my mother's spirit inhabit your body. This child is the one preparing the new vessel!"
Chapter Three: The Substitution
They began the zar ritual, and I felt a fire pulling my soul from my veins. In a moment of despair, I pounded the mortar and pestle, stirring the mixture onto the blazing fire. The roof was ablaze in an instant! Hamed panicked, and Zakia screamed a scream that shook the house. I ran and smashed the cursed mirror into a hundred pieces to sever the connection. I threw myself from the basement and ran through the fields, the house burning behind me with everything in it.
The End: The Glimmer
The police said it was an electrical short circuit, and Hamed and his mother were dead. I returned home thinking I'd escaped... but today, while brushing my hair, I smiled at myself in the mirror. I saw the glimmer of an eighty-year-old woman in my eyes, and my hands began to wrinkle and the veins in them stood out like Zakia's skin. I laughed loudly... but the sound that came out was a muffled rasp, not my own voice.
The switch has happened... I am now Zakia in Hind's body, and the secret will remain buried in the vault of stories.
