Alexandria, Egypt, April 17, 1974, 12:00 am. 

A breezy spring night. The city was quiet, with silver diffuse moonlight covering a hundred-year-old mansion on the Mediterranean sea coast owned by the Abaza family generation after generation. That night the entire house was a block of darkness except for one room with dim lights and heavy cigar smoke. The room was enormous with walls covered in books line after line and many certificates and prizes, all with the same name and title.

The novelist Ramzi Abaza.

Tons of pictures all over the walls of the room with one person in common. One man throughout the years from his late twenties till his mid-sixties; had light blue hooded eyes with an intense yet warm look. Ramzi was sitting on a brown leather carver chair next to an opened balcony door, a cigar half-smoked, and a glass of water on the table next to him.

Shaking his legs roughly as he stared at the door intensely. His eyes shifted from the door to the clock next to it. Before it hit midnight, he stood up and opened a safe embedded behind the massive row of books next to the balcony from the right.

Ramzi opened the heavy door of the safe and it revealed an ancient book with unique symbols on its dark-brown leather cover. He grabbed the book slowly and went back to his chair. He left the book on the table next to him and inhaled the thick smoke of the cigar.

Ramzi looked intimidated, yet his body was moving rather fast, racing the clock before it struck midnight. He flipped the pages until he reached page number six hundred sixty-six. Ramzi took another deep breath and then read it aloud. He looked at the clock and then held the glass. The ground vibrated from below and the lights flickered rapidly.

Beads of sweat covered his forehead as the white-colored door with engraved flowers changed along with the vibrations into a bigger one painted brown with hieroglyphics engraved all over it. The vibration faded away; Ramzi got up, leaving the book on the table, and then went to the door to open it.

On the other side was an unfamiliar room that had its unique vibe. The door opened to a metal railing and stairs. He looked down and saw a middle-aged man sitting on a burgundy couch with a coffee mug between his fingers. He looked at Ramzi and smiled. “Hello old friend, are you ready to pay your dues?” Pulse beating in his ears, blocking out any other sound. Ramzi could not talk. His fear of what would happen to him left him completely paralyzed.

…

Alexandria, Egypt, December 17, 2009.

Deep breaths were taken; annoying thoughts crawled back to her. Captivated, grounded, and trapped in a terrible play. Asking herself every day why she couldn’t just disappear. A daydream where she could leave everything behind and simply vanish. With every day passing, an unreasonable aching feeling crawled into her soul slowly, leading her to lose all sense of reality.

Nadine finds herself dragged into these dreams that feel more real and believable than her own life. For the past eight years, one dream has been to be a regular visitor. She couldn’t recall it fully, yet she vividly remembered how it felt. She sighed and looked at the ceiling, defeated. The daily yearning began. It was towards something, or rather someone she does not know or remember.

Or yet to remember.

A new song played into her ears. Emotional lyrics and a singer’s voice right from heavens; clear and dominant yet soft and heartwarming. She knew every word and memorized every sound in it. The song had a spark within her soul.

It was the starter engine of her weird dream. The beginning of her escape.

She discovered the song seven years ago. The only one ever created by that singer’s angelic voice. The music industry and fans went insane, wanting to know the identity of its creator yet no luck. Even after seven long years, the identity of the famous unknown singer was still unsolved.

His deep and calming voice always put Nadine on cloud nine. His voice felt familiar and close to her heart. Every time she feels somehow carried away from her body into a magical light one. Feeling her soul floating through the air. Alive and free.

Feels real, too real.

The realism of her feelings got to her, scaring her to the core. She opened her eyes swiftly, confirming what she feared. Floating in the air and right above her body. She blinked and watched herself closely, looking foreign and plastic.

Nadine moved away and reached the floor to stand. Walking toward the mirror, she didn’t see her reflection but a golden halo inside the mirror shined before her. She felt a powerful urge to touch it, gazing at her hand, slowly reaching to touch the halo, and feeling attached to whatever was behind.

A memory, familiar and safe, like taking the first step on a memory lane. The so-called dream always stopped at this moment; with her about to touch the mirror and never knew what was behind. Yet this time was different. It felt real and not a dream anymore.

The golden halo flickered when she touched it and quickly spread all over. She looked back at her body and saw the halo slowly covering and swallowing it whole.

She found herself in a golden, luminous void that slowly transformed into a defined room. It looked familiar and nostalgic. A hypostyle one with a massive golden circle table in the middle and ten golden chairs.

Nadine was standing at the far end of the room, golden wisps flew from above her head toward the chairs, transforming into ten strained men. In the middle of the table were hundreds of papyruses and books. One man stood up and started walking back and forth with his hands over his waist.

He was talking in a low tone that Nadine couldn’t hear from where she was standing. She walked toward them, stood behind one chair, and eyed each one carefully.

They were all wearing long white linen shendyt with golden belts and long-sleeved tunics. Some wore plain silver neck collars and others wore gemstones golden ones. Most of them were bald and with clean-shaved beards. They all shared similar clothes, yet each was weirdly different from the other. They all belonged to the same culture but from different time eras.

Nadine narrowed her eyes while looking at their faces; she could swear on her life at this very moment that she had seen those men before. She knew each one and exactly what they were talking about, yet her mind nor her body let her react or even talk.

“If our calculations are right, we must move fast. We cannot let them take our right to fight,” the standing man said and looked at the rest. The third man from the right looked at him intensely before standing up and walking to stand beside him. He looked different; he had a full chestnut brown beard and hair, and he was wearing more layers of clothes than the rest. Nadine’s eyes widened. She knew this man, she knew his name, yet she didn’t move or speak.

“I evaluated everything; they are everywhere,” — he sighed and eyed the rest of the men who shared the same worrying reaction — “they are in disguise, recruiting weak souls to get to the heart.”

The man sitting in front of Nadine gasped and said, “but… how? The heart doesn’t exist in any reality!”

“I tried everything to prove that they are not, but… if we don’t stop them, we will lose everything. Our only chance is at seven.”

“She is not even born yet! None of the other girls had it! She won’t,” another man said.

“I saw every possibility, and it all led to the massacre,” — he rubbed his temples roughly — “I saw it with my own eyes. It is the girl from the seven.” He sighed and looked at the man next to him. “Did you find him?”

The man looked back and said, “He is seventy-three… but he is mundane.” The other man was about to ask something else, but he didn’t when the man continued his answer, “I don’t think he could do anything.”

He stood up and went to the right to a huge brown door. “We have to get the girl before any of them… we must protect her till we can fight them without risking her life.” The rest nodded their heads, agreeing with him.

A loud noise hit the whole place the moment he opened the door.

Nadine gasped for air. She looked around, still in her room on the bed, and couldn’t call it a dream anymore. She looked at the clock next to her; it didn’t move even a second. She could remember everything this time, but she won’t any longer.

Her mind kept itself safe, erasing anything she remembered, leaving her yearning for something she didn’t know. She blinked several times before sitting up. Like every morning, she was left with emptiness in her heart.

She grabbed her iPod to switch it off before leaving her bed. Her eyes went from the iPod to her left hand. A cicatrix between her thumb and index fingers looked rough, not stitched nor treated. For years, she believed the accident she had when she was eighteen was the reason behind the scar. Her parents told her she survived such a horrible accident with no broken bones or even a bleeding wound.

No one knew how she got this scar. No one cared to ask.

Eight years ago, she was driving on El-Gaish road when suddenly her car flipped multiple times causing her to become heavily disoriented. The only thing she remembered from that day was the world passed up and down in a blur and faint voice screaming her name. She heard the same voice say something else, yet she never recalled what it was.

After she woke up in the hospital, she couldn’t recognize anyone. When the doctors asked her if she remembered anything, nothing was in her mind but her name. The doctors said that her memory loss was because of the accident, and she might not get back.

After one month, she remembered everything except her childhood memories; even the things she remembered were more like feelings from the past, not genuine memories.

Anyone who knew Nadine would mostly envy her. Nadine had a perfect-looking life. She was the youngest member of one of the wealthiest families in the country. She had the money and the power to have anything she wanted yet it wasn’t as luxurious as it sounded. She wasn’t free to decide anything major in her life. She must follow in her family’s footsteps.

She was the only granddaughter of the Abaza family; her family dominated her life in every aspect. It wasn’t bad to have a comfortable life ready for her to live yet feeling captivated was drifting her away and she didn’t know why she kept feeling this way.

She didn’t celebrate her birthday after the accident; she couldn’t even remember if her family ever celebrated that day. Three months ago was her birthday. Her cousin Camellia threw her a party even though it was a hectic day.

Nadine smiled as the memory came vividly to her. She looked over her room while heading to her closet to get ready. There were many pictures of her with Camellia hanging on the walls. Nadine opened her closet and there was a picture on the closet door of their summer trip two years ago in South Korea. She remembered how crazy this trip was. “If I only knew all that crap would happen just one year after this photo,” she said sarcastically and looked away.

After she went to the bathroom to have a quick shower, her phone rang, she looked at it and blew dry her black wavy hair. She had a kind of beauty that women love to hate, with a willowy figure. Light-olive skin tone, heart-shaped face, and almond brown eyes. Long curved eyelashes, and naturally full round light red lips with rounded cupids bow.

Her phone kept ringing. Two names were calling her: Camellia and Adam. She finally answered one of them after taking a deep breath. “Nadine!! Please talk to me.” Adam’s voice strained.

“Don’t call again.” She hung up the phone before Adam could say anything else. Nadine went to her room to wear her heels while holding her phone, blocking Adam’s number. She checked herself over in the mirror one last time. “Will it ever end?” she said and grabbed her bag.