إبراهيم عباس

Ibraheem Abbas

@ibraheem_abbas

Copyright © 2015جميع الحقوق محفوظة

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Copyright © Yatakhayaloon Co Ltd., 2019

King Fahd National Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Abbas ، Ibraheem

Binyameen. / Abbas ، Ibraheem .- Jeddah , 2019

292p ;

1- StoriesI-Title

813 dc 1440/10649

L.D. no. 1440/10649

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Ibraheem Abbas is the creative director of Focus Worldwide Partners, he is the Co-Founder of VisulaizeIT, a novelist and a screen writer, he Co-Founded Yatakhayaloon along with Yasser Bahjatt with the objective of spreading and stimulating the science fiction culture across the Arabian world and to enrich its content and outputs while elevating it in a way that makes it globally competitive.

www.Yatakhayaloon.com

info@yatakhayaloon.com    @yatakhayaloon

(1)
Good by Eyad…
Good by Husam!

T he Stealth Bomber stormed over the red sea escorted by two F-35 Lightning that was only sold to one small country in the Middle East through an exclusive deal with the United States of America in 2016 where America agreed not to sell that aircraft to any other Middle Eastern country for ten years, yet that small country did not adhere to the most important condition of that deal explicitly stating that it was not allowed to make any modifications to the aircraft. The small fleet’s value was not limited to the cost of the aircrafts that surpassed three billion dollars; it carried what was much more important and valuable, it carried two passengers… Husam and Eyad! The Stealth Bomber that usually carried tons of explosives and atomic warheads sufficed this time with two metallic capsules fitted with jet engines on the bottom, and on the top it had a glass dome, it was stuffed with instruments and probes connected the Husam and Eyad’s bodies, the two were in miserable shape, and I literally mean miserable, Husam was drowning in his blood breathing heavily and carefully fearing to exhaust the oxygen he had in that tight capsule. While Eyad was unconscious, as his body had an untold number of broken bones and burned skin… he was dying!

“Mr. Husam… Mr. Eyad.”

That voice came through the speakers inside the capsules in an Arabic language that is clearly affected by another Mid-Eastern language, Husam’s body shivered as he listened with interest while that voice went on in an annoying calmness:

“This is the last stage of our tests, the capsules will launch in thirty seconds toward the depths of the sea, you have enough oxygen for a hundred and twenty seconds, two hundred and forty seconds later your brain cells will start to die. The chances of Husam’s survival are 32.4%, the chances of Eyad’s survival are 7.3% while the chances of both of you surviving is 2.4%”

At that moment Husam did not care about the limited oxygen in the capsule that they had imprisoned him in, shouted in that voice’s language:

“Binyameen!! Stop!!”

Binyameen went on in the same robotic calmness… and in his language this time:

“I really hope that you make it through this level, and if you don’t be assured that it was a real honor working with you two, and that your death will not be in vain... Good bye”

Husam shouted one last desperate shout:

“Binyameeeeeeeeen!”

Not a single cell in his body flinched as he sat with his thin body next to the Stealth Bomber’s pilot watching the screens that surrounded him, he did not bother to fasten his seat built, put on his helmet or oxygen mast, he only had the head set in one of his ears ending with a small microphone, in addition to his dark glasses that he almost never takes off while it makes a low buzzing sound whenever he turned his head, he rolled up his black shirt’s sleeves while leaving the top buttons open revealing a unique black chess knight hanging upside down over his chest. The screens were showing Husam and Eyad’s vital signs, in addition to the feed from high resolution cameras in and out of the capsules. The pilot turned towards him, a twenty something girl appeared on one of the screens, her features show that her DNA was in a struggle between her Caucasian and African genes, her skin rebelled against her darkness, as she retained but a hint of it, her lips where thick, her eyes wide the same color as her raging maroon hair, she wore a full military uniform that did not match her femininity nor her age; and on the contrary to Binyameen Elaina was very nervous when she said, “Awaiting your orders, Mr. Binyameen...”

“The mission is over… we will launch the capsules!”

Her tears froze… as if she was begging him to change his mind; but Binyameen ended all discussion when he said in a commanding more assertive voice:

“Launch them now!”

“Right away… Mr. Binyameen.”

Elaina turned to the central control board, and issued the launch command, the bottom hanger of the plain opened revealing the two capsules in preparation for launch, and the jet engines fixed on the capsules ignited for a moment before it jetted toward the depths of the red sea, carrying with it Husam and Eyad. Only at that moment did Binyameen look away from the screens and raised his dark glasses to wipe off a lonely cold tear before it would flee his eye.

This was but one of a chain of tragic events that occurred during the past few days, I had lived though it moment by moment although I was not part of any of it, but I watched them from here... and my heart was with them there! It is not important for you to know who I am, what I care about now is to take you to the beginning when Eyad and Husam met for the first time five years ago... It was not a coincidence that they me, it was very well calculated fait! Each of them had went through an abnormal experience that changed their lives; Husam miraculously survived a fatal accident perplexing scientists and doctors bringing his life upside down, the barriers between his conscious and subconscious were dissolved completely allowing him full control over them both; even his body cells responded to that change and submitted to his subconscious multiplying its bio activity and its growth and rejuvenating rates exceeded all know human scales. The limited moments where his heart and breath had stopped cutting off oxygen to his brain took him to another world... to Somewhere, where he met... met her... Malak! The nymph that was watching over him all his life as she waited impatiently, she prepared a world just to for him, a world between his and hers, she gathered all his dreams and fantasies, only to tempt his soul to stay and not leave her returning to his mortal body.

Husam learned art and creativity from Leonardo Davinci, music from Ludwig Beethoven, martial arts from Bruce Lee, and battled as movie super hero, ending with a real space war while piloting a giant mech facing off armies from other planets... his fantastic dreams turned into disasters nightmares during the moments his soul parted from his body that felt like days spent between hell and heaven in the company of his luscious Malak.. Someone was insistent on making him return to his world, to kill him Somewhere to force his soul to return to his body, that someone was his father who had died a few years back from cancer and his mother who had died in that same accident that he was in, they needed him to go back even though he was most probably going to be permanently paralyzed or even end up in a coma, but their hope in God’s mercy was greater; and their hearts were bleeding for him and worried for his sister Maram who had no one else left but him. At the end, the succeeded, despite the perfect world that Malak made for Husam, he decided at the end to sacrifice everything and to die Somewhere, to return to his world, to fulfill his parents’ wishes and protect his sister from the clutches of life. But his heart was still suspended Somewhere... with Malak... He now yarns for death only to return to her embrace.

As for Eyad’s experience, it was no less strange than Husam’s although it was totally different; Eyad had never imagined that his crush on his class mate Sawsan would morph into a bloody battle to save her life from sorcerers and warlocks, and from cancer that was consuming her brain. A battle that was about to claim his life more than once, not only that, but his sacrifice was joined by Hawjan’s... the young Jinni who was not yet a hundred years of age. The Jinni who found out that his father Meehal Alfayhee was the boss of the mightiest Jinn who lived south of the red sea and controlled the neighboring Jinn kingdoms, but had turned down his possession when his heart fell for the daughter of Elyaseen the descendant of Alnafar, choosing after that to leave with his wife and his only son Hawjan away from the realms of Marids to live near a human city in the center of the red sea.. Jeddah. Hawjan interacted for the first time with humans when Sawsan’s family move into the same house where he lived with his mother and grandfather, he fell for her, but the sorcerers and the Jinn Marids entrapped Sawsan’s father and took advantage of her brain cancer to give her father the illusion that it was their doing and that her only hope of survival was for him to sacrifice his money and to give offerings to the king of Jinn.

Hawjan and Eyad battled their way, and by their side was Jumara Hawjan’s cousin and wife, and the only other Fayhee that had inherited the power to move between the human and Jinn dimensions, that was the power that king Hayaf was bargaining Hawjan to leave his son in exchange for leaving Sawsan’s family alone, but in the end Hawjan was able to save his son Elyaseen, and slay the tyrannical king Hayaf and reclaim the throne for the Fayhee clan, after that de decided to disappear from Sawsan’s life and with the help of Eyad he convinced her that he was nothing but a figment of her imagination created by her subconscious as a result of her brain tumor. Hawjan along with his wife, son and mother moved away to Alhandabah city at the north end of the red sea, and his connection with the humans was severed save for his contact with Eyad.

Eyad heard of Husam’s condition as it echoed in medical circles as a miracle that challenged all medical norms, when reports stated that his damaged brain and body will leave him but two choices: a complete paralysis or death… the found him morphing into a new person… supernatural! His sudden body mutation after the accident tempted doctors and researchers to study his case, including Eyad who benefited from his father’s connections to transfer to King Fahad Hospital and join the team that was supervising his condition, and in the process became Husam’s close friend who refused to turn into a guinea-pig and checked out of the hospital before completing his treatment to start a new life where he achieved all he had ever dreamt of, and the only wish he had remaining was to die… so he could return to Malak.

Destiny that brought Husam and Eyad together was preparing a surprise much larger than all the adventures that they have been through… its chapters started at dawn on a winter day of the year two thousand and nineteen while Husam was gazing out at the sea as was his custom to watch it as first light reflected across it, he sat in is sports car that barely fit two, he titled his seat backwards and covered his face with the Ittihad club cap that his sister Maram had gifted him, he was keen to always keep it on to hid the accident scars on his forehead and over his right eye, he was watching the water as he listened to a song by Fayrooz flowing out of his iPhone that was wirelessly connected to his car’s sound system mixed in with the rhythm of waves and morning breezes. Fayrooz’s sound slowly dimmed as Siri’s voice whispered:

“Good morning Husam… Sorry for interrupting”

“A call from Eyad right? Answer him”

Fazyrooz’s voice vanished as it was replaced by Eyad’s excited voice dispelled the moment’s calmness:

“For once I wish I call you and find you asleep! Sleep Bro sleep… You can’t keep doing this to yourself!”

Husam smiled as he replied with a yawn without raising his eyes to the screen that showed Eyad sitting in an office that does not belong to this age with its white leathery furniture with strikes of chrome and a glass background overlooking a string of clouds over the waves of the red sea from the 190th floor of the mile tower, the tallest building on the face of the planet:

“I was about to have a snooze before you popped onto my screen!”

“Take a half an hour snooze and then stay awake for a couple of days as usual! Whatever… the gallery date is set, start packing out flight to Paris is next week, I am sending the reservation details for you and Maram now!”

Husam sat up as he said:

“This means we have no time for sleep! I got to prepare for the gallery!”

“Prepare for what? All of your paintings are shipped!”

“Not the most important one…”

“I can’t understand, how can you paint a masterpiece in three hours while you have been working on this painting for five years!”

“I am almost done, will ship it tomorrow”, said Husam as he finished up the call and drove back home… To his villa where he lived with his sister Maram at the far northern end of Jeddah. He opened the door softly so that he would not awaken Maram in this early hour, and headed directly to his den, a round room on the roof top of the villa, all the walls were glass, it was where he setup his new world; his bed on the side turned into a book cabinet since he never really slept in it, but the bed was not the only thing occupied by his books as they scattered all over the room, no two books were related in topic or language.

An assortment of exercising equipment were spread across the room along with a min medical unit next to the bed that measured blood pressure and heart rate, and on the other side a big white piano ate up a decent space of the room along with the other musical instruments, and at the center was a leather lazy boy where he spent most of his time including the short snoozes he took.

A curved interactive screen more than a hundred inches across sat in front of the chair. And a small fridge on the right side of the chair that was always filled with his favorite drinks and chocolates. His den was a mortal version of his suit that Malak had created for him Somewhere.

Husam headed directly towards the oil painting on one side of the room, it was a meter wide and a meter and a half high, it was leaning on the glass wall and covered with a plastic sheet to protect its wet paint from attracting any dust. He removed the sheet from the painting so her smile glowed… a smile that did not belong to this world! it was Malak’s smile…

The same painting that he had painted for her when he was with her Somewhere, her smile as she rested her head on his chest as she gazed into his eyes, and her only tear almost drowning him and anyone who glances at the painting. A tear that summed the oceans of love, grief, longing, parting and hope.

Husam ignored the painting brush as was his custom and dived into the colors with his bare fingers as he added more details… but only to her eyes, a hole year he spent only on her eyes, this painting did not adhere to the standards of art, it was more like an infinitely accurate photograph.

Husam noticed Maram entering the room even though she tried not to make any sound that would break his concentration, he said without turning to face her:

“You did not have to make me pancakes!”

“How did you hear me come in? and how did you smell the pancake all the way from where you are?!”

“Have you not yet got used to your brother’s enhanced copy?”

“May Allah bless you and protect you my superman”

Maram was carrying a plate where disks of hot pancake were stacked as golden maple syrup flowed and on her other hand a huge glass of cold milk, we was struggling to hold on to both of them and not slip from her hands because of their weight, she placed them on a small table next to Husam and dove a fork into the layers of pancake making way for its aroma, she pushed the fork towards Husam’s mouth as she said:

“Open up champ…”

Husam moved to take the fork into his hand that was covered with paint but Maram pulled it away from him in protest:

“Not acceptable! I am going to feed you! You just focus on your work!”

“Maram you are treating me as if I was a five-year-old!”

“You truly reborn five years ago… Whats wrong with me spoiling you? Before you find someone who would take you away from me and spoil you”

“Again with this? I told you I will never think of getting married!”

“But why?! Don’t you want me to enjoy your kids and become an aunt?”

“Maram you know my medical state is not normal, how do you want me to get into a relationship and kids when I do not know what could happen to me?”

Husam gave into Maram’s rapid feeds as she replied to him strictly as if she was his mother, not his younger sister:

“If God had saved you from your accident and the coma, surly his grace he would cure you from some fever and blood pressure! But I know that you are thinking of her”, she said as she gestured with her eyes to the painting… and continued:

“Every time I enter the room I see you talking to the painting as if she can hear you!”

Husam fidgeted as he tried to defuse the subject:

“I can never think of anything before I rest assured that you are going to be ok and see you as a bride!”

“And I can never think of such things now! Husam you came back from your paradise for me… is it too much to ask that I spoil you a bit?!”

Maram as usual won the argument, and Husam surrendered to her feeding as he continued his final touches on Malak’s eyes.

It was past 10 at night when Eyad arrived home back from his office. Managing his father’s business in addition to working in his own clinic and patients eats up his entire day, from the first hours of the day sometimes up to midnight. His daughter Jumanah was resisting her urge to sleep to enjoy her father’s hug jumped up and down the moment she heard the door opening, he dropped his bag and received her arms wide open as she ran towards him screaming fondly:

“Daddy… hand me your ear… I must bite you!”

“Why Jumanah?”

She answered him as she did a serious pose and voice while waving her finger in his face and frowning as she crossed her eyes:

“Because I told you to stop working late… and he who do not listen to his daughter… his daughter must bite him! Understood?”

“Would you forgive me if I told you I had a surprise for you would?”

Sawsan joined their fond moment as she moved closer and said:

“Daddy is tiered Jumanah, give him a kiss and go up to your bed… Eyad darling should I prepare something for you to eat?”

Jumanah ignored her jumping around with excitement and joy saying:

“What is the surprise Daddy? What is the surprise?”

“We are going to Paris! And uncle Husam and aunt Maram will come with us”

Her joy overwhelmed her forgetting her father’s open arms as she ran dancing towards her room shouting:

“Paris?! We are going to Euro Disney?! I must tell Elyaseen so he would come with us!”

Sawsan looked into Eyad’s eyes and said:

“Eyad… when will you tell me everything?”

He answered with a made-up baffle:

“I don’t understand… Tell you what?”

“Eyad I opened my old laptop today, and found the emails sent from the notes app on my iPad during collage… I found all of the chats between me and Hawjan and I read them…”

“Sawsan… Sawsan please there is no point of discussing this again…”

“Eyad I am not crazy; these chats have very detailed information about the Jinn world and parallel dimensions that I could not have made up because of schizophrenia! Some of this information was actually discovered years after my story with Hawjan! There is no way this was all schizophrenia!”

“Sawsan what happened to you was not an easy thing, we all know that the human brain holds many secrets that are yet to be discovered… did you forget what Dr. Emad Zaki said?”

He anxiety increased and she cut him off:

“Again you mention Dr. Emad Zaki? Today I found his number on my old laptop saved under your name Dr. EZ! Can you explain that? Dr. Emad Zaki or Dr. Eyad Zaydi?! Explain to me who is Elyaseen that Jumanah keeps talking to?”

“Sawsan you know kids have imaginary friends and…”

She cut him off again even more frustrated:

“Jumanah has an imaginary friend, I have an imaginary Jinni, you have an imaginary cousin named Jumanah… What in our life is not imaginary?!”

She looked away from him to hide a tear slipping from her eye as she said:

“I feel like I am living a huge lie… everything around me is a perfect illusion hiding disasters that I had forgotten after my surgery and you are afraid that I would know them with you even feeling my pain… I can’t take this anymore Eyad!”

He wiped her tear and held her from her waist and looked into her eyes as he said:

“Trust me Sawsan I care about nothing in this world more than you and Jumanah’s happiness”

He put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a miniature memory stick and raised it in front of her eyes, he exhaled as he continued:

“Everything is on here, I recorded it with Dr. Emad, I promise I will show it to you once we are back from Paris, but for now please trust me, and on a more important note I beg you get me something to eat before I collapse in front of you”

His words succeeded in drawing a smile over Sawsan’s remaining tears… but they lit all the grief and anxiety in side of him.

The callers voice echoed over the speakers in King Abdulaziz International Airport departure terminal as he made the final call for Saudi Airlines a flight 127 flying to Paris increasing Eyad’s frustration as he had just checked in his luggage, he dragged his bag with one arm and carried Jumanah on the other as he ran towards his gate followed by Sawsan. He met Husam as he was coming out of the business lounge, Jumanah jumped out of her father’s arms towards Maram screaming with joy:

“Aunt Maram… Aunt Maram!”

Maram carried Jumanah as they all rushed towards their gate, Eyad and Sawsan had to swap chairs with Husam and Maram because Jumanah insisted on sitting next to Maram who always played with her as if she was a child in her same age…

The interior lights of the plane turned off, and the first class seats turned into beds as most of the passengers gave into sleep except for Husam who slightly leaned his seat and turned towards the window trying to bid farewell to Jeddah, its sea and sky, he had a feeling crushing his soul… a feeling that this was the last time he would see it… a feeling that their journey that has just started was one way… with no return!

(2)
Binyameen

T he sun was busy mixing the sky’s colors…

Golden, scarlet, ending with maroon…

She was perplexed, trying to complete her painting before she leaves and spills the remnants of her colors behind her.

Husam was watching her, learning from her, sitting on the edge of the stone path where small weeds and flowers peaked up with stubborn curiosity as it watched Husam and whispered amongst themselves with their scents.

He leaned his body backwards on his palms and swung his feet to tickle the river’s water… and smiled. He smiled when he felt her coming, she sat next to him quietly and leaned her head over his shoulder, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and her bare feet joined the waving dance with his. Moments passed without either of them uttering a word until she said in a voice choked by longing as she picked up his hand and embraced it between her cheek and her hand:

“You were away for much too long Husam… three days without asking about me?”

She continued as she kissed his fingertips:

“Don’t do this to me… every time I wait is longer than the previous wait!”

He picked up her hands in his and brought them closer to his lips as he whispered:

“I wish I had stayed with you and never came back to my life!”

His gaze drifted out to the star filled sky as he continued:

“All of those stars and worlds separate us? Ninety billion light years just to get to you!”

Her sorrow choked on her as she realized how far apart, they were and said:

“Ninety billion light years barely takes you to the edges of this universe! Can you imagine the distance in the second universe? And the third, the fourth, to infinity?”

The thought struck him hard, his mind could not Imagin that all the cosmic distances and enormous galaxies in this universe are but an intangible speck in a roaring sea of entangled unending universes.

His paused his paralysis into a tear as he dived into the depths of her eyes never reaching its bottom, she caught it on her fingertips as she tried to ease his pain… and hers:

“Husam… If the soul yarns for another… it overcomes time and distance!”

His face gradually vanished, she tried to hold him in her arms but he disappeared completely and only his tear remained on her finger tips… She buried her face in her hands as she collapsed in silent burning tears…

“Husam?! Did you wake up?” whispered Maram as she noticed the tear flowing down her brother’s cheek as he awoke from his nap that did not last more than ten minutes, Husam sat up in as energy flowed through his body as if he had slept for tens of hours.

“Come on lazy boy! You sleep too much dude” Said Eyad as he picked up the bags from the plane’s overhead compartments, and the all headed towards the arrival’s gate at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

*****

Jumana’s excited steps echoed on the marble cladded walls and floor of the Marriott Champs Elysees Hotel forgetting her mother’s repeated instructions to be calm and quite, she ran towards the piano that rested underneath the glass dome at the center of the hotel while the female instinct took over Sawsan and Maram as the dived into the luxurious boutiques scattered around the hotel leaving the mundane tasks to Eyad and Husam who stood in front of the receptionist to complete their check in process… and the music started.

A waterfall flowed out of the piano controlled by Jumana, it started with shy drops but her little fingers quickly threw away their innocence and grew tens of fingers all with seizure as they danced over the piano keys to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. The music mesmerized everyone who heard it, and that turned into a shock when they turned to see the kid standing in front of the piano keys and devouring them with no mercy! As soon as the music stopped innocence returned to her face as her serious grin slipped away.

She opened her eyes to see the crowds around her looking at her with astonishment Jumana jumped as the silence exploded suddenly with excited clapping, and they started asking her about her name and her talent and she answered them in Frensh with an Arabian accent that she learned from her half Frensh grandmother Manal Al-Aqeel who spends most of her days with her husband Mr. Mansour Alzaydi on the beaches of Nice. Eyad and Husam cut through the crowds and Jumana rushed towards them and held on to Husam’s hand pulling him by his thumb as she said:

“This is Uncle Husam, he taught me the piano, uncle Husam play the Angel music… Please PLEASE!”

Eyad who got used to Jumana’s outrageous scenes wherever she was, carried her in his arm and whispered to her:

“Jumana it is late, you must sleep early so that we can take you with us tomorrow”

She surrendered as usual with terms as she shook her pointer finger firmly in front of her now widened round eyes and said firmly as she stated her terms:

“OK, I will sleep early with a condition! You buy me the entire set of my little ponies! Understood?!”

As usual, Eyad gave in to his daughter’s fondness, taking her to the room to handle the rituals of sleep: pajama, dinner and a story; while Sawsan was still with Maram on their shopping spree at the Champs Elysees, the heart of Frensh brands, that ended by force when the boutiques shut their gates, so the tow Saudi ladies dragged their fancy bags to one of the antique cafés to drink their shopping battle toast.

“Although we now find all the brands in our malls, and those we can’t find in the mall we can buy online, but nothing beats buying it fresh from its country!”

Said Maram as she picked up her hot cup of coffee to warm her fingers a bit before the cold breeze stole its hot steam; she took a sip as she listened to Sawsan:

“We must go to China if we want to buy it fresh from its country. All major brands are now made there; But who cares, as long as we bought them from the Champs Elysees!”

Sawsan’s joke went cold as she wandered off, only to come back at Maram’s shouting:

“Sawsan? Sawsan! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!”

“As if I do not know you, you haven’t been yourself for some time now! Did Eyad upset you? Come on tell me, there is nothing better than bashing men!”

“Eyad can never upset me, he’s over protective”

“How romantic”

“On the contrary, that is exactly my issue with him! He is so protective I am sure he is hiding so many things from me”

“If what he is hiding is of no consequence, why bother know it?”

Sawsan exhaled a deep breath that was even hotter than the smoke coming out of her coffee as she said:

“Maram you have never felt this way, a part of my life was amputated from my life, and Eyad is the only one who knows the details and is hiding them from me!”

“Are we going to talk about Jinn again? Weren’t you cured from your schizophrenia?”

“Let me show you something and you tell me” said Sawsan as she pulled out her phone and opened her email account where she had sent all her chat history with Hawjan and handed it to Maram to read… a few moment passed, the coffee froze in Maram’s hand, eyes wide she looked up to Sawsan as she released her tears :

“Hawjan… Impossible!”

She looked around her perplexed in fear as if she was checking to make sure there were no Efreets around, and moved close as she whispered to Sawsan:

“I can’t believe that all of these discussions and information were mere schizophrenia! You must have been talking to a real Jinni! You must show those files to your psychologist; he must have a logical explanation!”

“And that is my second issue! I am sure that Dr. Emad Zaki is in on it with Eyad. I think he is not a real doctor; can you imagine that his mobile number is the same number Eyad used to use when we were in collage, how can you explain that?”

“Unbelievable!”

“Additionally I am sure he came with his cousin Jumana when he proposed, I remember her and I am sure I saw her just as I can see you now, every time I ask him about her he avoids that answer… and when I ask him why he insisted to name our daughter Jumana he says he likes the name!”

Sawsan paused for a moment and continued as her stress increased:

“Imagin Jumanah is convinced she has a friend called Elyaseen? She talks to him, plays with him, as if he is living with us… She is driving me crazy! And Eyad tells me all kids have imaginary friends”

“Sawsan, you must confront Eyad!”

“I tried several times, but as I said he always avoids the subject, and I don’t want to push too hard that I upset him… A few days ago, he showed me a USB he claims to have recorded all our details that I have to know, and promised to show it to me once we are back home”

Maram used her female scheming cells in her brain then asked Sawsan:

“So you will wait in suspense until we return?! Do you have Dr. Emad’s number?”

“Even if I call Dr. Emad Zaki, I know all of his responses, he will try to convince me with the same old record of schizophrenia and the wonders of the human mind!”

“And who said you should ask him? Confront him from the get-go… Tell him that Eyad told you everything!”

A brilliant and simple plan… Sawsan hesitated for a moment before picking up her phone and scroll through the contact list with shaking finger tips searching for Dr. EZ, then she tried to retreat:

“No, No, this is not a good time to call!”

Maram plucked the phone from Sawsan’s hand and pressed the call button to end Sawsan’s hesitation and said:

“IT is 8 here, so it is still 10 back home… tonight you are not going to bed before knowing everything!”

She put the phone on Sawsan’s ear whose heart beats shook her entire existence when she heard the ring tone, the shaking stopped when the tone ended with no answer.

“He did not answer… Told you it was a bad time to call!”

Maram plucked the phone again and started texting…

“Maram what are you doing?!”

Maram returned the phone to Sawsan after confirming the text was sent to Dr. Emad, Sawsan opened the message and gasped as she read it:

“Eyad shoed me the movie! You must call me urgently, and you will regret it if you try to let Eyad know that I had talked to you”

*****

The Georges Pompidou Centre’s hall at the center of Paris was filled with modern art lovers, greeting them was the “Complete Smile” painting that presented a completed Mona Lisa painting that Leonardo Da Vinci never completed in his life, but had completed it Somewhere right before Hussam’s eyes who had memorized the placement of every atom on it to reproduce it with every detail in a way that is hard to believe was painted by a human without ever being edited by a computer.

Other smaller gatherings surrounded each of Husam’s other paintings that scattered around the exhibition, paintings that were more like live photographs that summarized the time he spent Somewhere, the universe that Malak had built for him. At the center of the main hall was the largest gathering in front of the painting “Malak”; the angelic look; the smile that overwhelms everyone who see it; the tear that is about to flow over the paining exceeding all reality, and the beauty that went beyond all dreams. In front of the painting sat Husam on a high chair surrounded with three other paintings, he was painting all of them at the same time, adding some details to one of them with a brush stroke then leaves it to dry for a moment as he dips his fingers in paint to add a touch to another, then turns to the third to autograph it and remove it from its place to replace it with a new painting. He was painting continuously without even thinking, as if he was a high-speed high-resolution printer, and the audience around him are stunned with what their eyes see, and their minds can hardly believe.

Jumana was able to cut through the crowds with her small body and announced excitingly:

“Wow uncle Husam I love this painting so much! I will take it to hang in my room, but why are the roses white? Don’t you know I love purple?”

She dipped her small fingers in the purple paint and started to imitate Husam’s movements as she painted her roses purple without any one objecting to her actions as she continued while focused on painting:

“Uncle Husam I want you to paint another one identical to this so I can give it to Elyaseen but paint the roses red and blue!”

Sawsan looked at Maram hinting to what they talked about, then pulled Jumana from her arm as she said:

“Come on Jumana uncle Husam is busy don’t bother him! Look what you have done to your hands, we must wash them at once!”

Eyad was in a black suit that made his look like a star walking down the red carpet as he escorted the reporters around the exhibit answering their questions, flowing seamlessly between his first, second and their language: Arabic, Frensh and English. He guided them towards Husam while saying:

“And this is our champ Husam! The man who snatched from death a new life! Proving that a superman is no meth at all!”

A reporter from a Frensh channel stormed towards Husam who had stopped painting and came down from his chair:

“Monsieur Husam, what would you like to say in this occasion for your first exhibition at the Georges Pompidou Centre where your paintings are presented at the same place where the works of the likes of Picasso, Dalí, Hergé have been showcased?”

Husam was caught off guard as he got paint all over her microphone when he grabbed it from her to say:

“Ahh… I would like to say… Thank you… Thank you very much”

His answer was so succinct, and so frustrating to the curiosity of the reporters that they preferred to turn all their questions to Eyad who turned to Husam and whispered to him furiously:

“Ahh… Merci… Merci beaucoup…! This is all you can come up with?! I will show you Husam!”

Husam returned to his painting, and Eyad to his reporters, and neither of them knew what was going on at that same moment at some other place… and some other universe.

*****

Al-Hindabah is a civilized city north of the Arabian Peninsula, half of it is over the Aqaba gulf in front of Sharm El-Shaikh, and the other half is at sea and the surrounding islands mainly Tiran and Sanafir Islands. It was founded after a battle that took place three hundred and fifty years ago between the Madain of Jinn clans “Madain Saleh[1]” and the clans migrating from the south; more than a million Jinn were slaughtered and ended with the people revolting against the families that ruled them and spilled their blood just to maintain their influence and authority over them; and a rights agreement was signed insuring a peaceful fruitful life for all Jinn regardless of race, culture or beliefs. The human expanding cities forced more Jinn to migrate from the south and east (Saudi Arabia), north (Palestine) and west (Egypt) to settle in Hindabah since it is still beyond human reach. The only thing that would cut through the silence of that area was the vibration of a cell phone hidden in a small compartment under the mosque’s rostrum where the amplifier is usually located. The phone vibrated without a sound then sat still for several hours, until the compartment’s door was opened, and the phone flew in the air and disconnected from its charger and vanished.

On the outskirts of Tiran island in Hindabah’s suburbs far from its hustle center there was a humble house that directly over looks the beach, a quite atmosphere usually surrounded it, unless Elyaseen’s rowdy behavior ignited his mother’s temper, forcing Jumara to shout like a crazy person:

“Elyaseen! How many times did I tell you not to go to Jeddah alone?! I swear to God I will tell your father!”

At that moment the house’s door opens and Hawjan appears exhausted from work, Elyaseen stormed towards into his father’s arms, as Jumara continued scolding him:

“Hawjan! you have to deal with Elyaseen! This is the second time he goes to Jeddah alone!”

Hawjan sat on his knees as he looked into Elyaseen’s eyes as he addressed him like an adult:

“Elyaseen… Did I not tell you not to go to Jeddah without me? The road is not safe, the Hawam Jinn can hurt you!”

“I am Elyaseen Al-Fayhee! If the Hawam Jinn came near me I would burn them!”

“You are Elyaseen Al-Arrogant! And your arrogance is a weakness not a strength… Tell me how would protect your mother while I am at work? I feel safe that you are here to protect her!”

He was getting through to his son, so he added:

“You know what, tomorrow is Friday, let us go to Jeddah together”

“I went today and did not find anyone home, Jumana had told me that they were traveling to her grandparents”

“Fine then, if you behave, I would take you to them!”

Elyaseen jumped in joy, and Jumara came closer when she noticed the mobile phone in Hawjan’s hand, her face tensed:

“Hawjan, why did you bring the mobile? Eyad called you?”

“I did get a call… but not from Eyad…”

He handed her the phone as he said that to show her the message that he received on his phone, a message that flamed her worry, and her jealousy exploded… a message from Sawsan!

*****

Jumana is a joyful kid, she lives her life with the same principles most kids of her age follow: life is but a big game! Her jumps almost never stop, so do her questions and the havoc she causes around her, but she knows how to utilize her seemingly innocence to practice her rowdiness without anyone daring to object. She was moving about the edges of the planting pots at that quite corner of the Georges Pompidou center where Sawsan and Maram had escaped the bustle and sat to enjoy a cup of coffee.

Jumana jumped from one pot edge to another and slammed into a tall young man in a black shirt, his sleeves were rolled up and he did not bother to close the top buttons revealing the strange neckless he was wearing, a red leather rope carrying a scratched emblazoned chess knight upside down… he had dark reflecting glasses that totally hid his eyes. He kneeled in front of her and stretched out his arm that was knotted behind his back to hand Jumana a small box and ask her:

“Jumana… right?!”

The gift dazzled Jumana’s eyes that reflected on the young man’s glasses, she unwrapped it without replying and her eyes pooped out when she saw the golden bracelet set with miniature colored horses from her favorite cartoon: My little Pony.

Sawsan came rushing and squeezed her fingers over Jumara’s arm as her scolding words came out between her shut teeth:

“Jumana, what do we say when someone gives us a gift?!”

Jumana toke a quick glance at the tall young man and gave a Disney princess’ kneeling gesture as she said:

“Merci beaucoup monsieur”

Then ran away jumping in joy with her new bracelet, leaving Sawsan at this awkward situation with this young man who started talking in a perfect traditional Arabic language:

“You must be Mrs. Sawsan, are you not?!”

She gestured positively with her head as she replied:

“Jumana is a rowdy child… please forgive us Mr…”

“Binyameen… My name in Binyameen[2]”

“Pleasure to meet you Mr. Binyameen”

“I was looking for Mr. Eyad, I have an appointment with him”

She escorted him to Eyad who was still busy with Husam and the reporters before Sawsan interrupted him:

“Eyad, this gentleman was asking about you…”

The young man stepped forward to enthusiastically shake Eyad’s hand as he said:

“Mr. Eyad, it is an honor to finally meet you in person after all of our emails”

“Mr. Binyameen, Happy to meet you!”

Eyad was taken back by Binyameen speaking in perfect traditional Arabic although all the email correspondents between them was in English, he was unable to hide his surprise as he said:

“I did not know you spoke Arabic as well!”

He smiled as he replied:

“Why the surprise? My name? my name is an Arabic name: Bin… Yameen… Son of the Righteous!”

Husam approached them to great Binyameen:

“Binyameen, the brother of Prophet Josef!”

Binyameen ignored the colors staining Husam’s hands and extended he palms to shake his hand with enthusiasm as he replied stressing on his words:

“Binyameen son of the Prophet Israel!”

The three of them moved to the small meeting room and Eyad jumped right into the subject:

“Choosing Georges Pompidou center was the right choice! The success the exhibit had prepared us for the next step”

Binyameen followed up:

“The Hollywood step”

Eyad continued with excitement:

“It must be a huge production; we must work with the best directors!”

Binyameen did not give him a chance to finish his sentence to announce his surprise:

“The director is awaiting our call!”

He setup his phone over the small table in front of them; and started a video call, seconds later the image of a blond man in his late forties with clear excitement all over his face expression:

“Mr Christopher, allow me to introduce Mr. Husam and Mr. Eyad whom I spoke to you off”

This was a shocking surprise for both Husam and Eyad, to see Christopher Nolan in the flesh, Eyad sat up straight as he spoke:

“We never imagined that we would get the honor of having a direct call with you Mr. Christopher!”

Christopher cut him of with his American slang spiced with a bit of British:

“The pleasure is all mine, I received pictures of some of the paintings done by Mr. Husam, honestly to this moment I can comprehend the technique used. I can imagine someone who can breathe life into his paintings, but what confuses me is the infinite details, the more I zoom in the more amazing details I see!”

Eyad was used to answering this kind of questions from reporters:

“He completed some of those paintings in less than three hours!”

Binyameen jumped in:

“Mr. Christopher, you have spent 15 years working on your movies that had revolutionized the movie industry, Inception, the Batman trilogy, Superman, Interstellar… here we have a story that combines all of your movies”

Curiosity gave thickness to the pause, before Binyameen continued:

“Husam was in another world, another dimension, designed for him by a nymph”

“Like the engineered realistic dreams in Inception…” Said Christopher.

“This was no virtual world Mr. Christopher, it was real, much more real than the world we live in now, so real that my life here is foggy in comparison to my time I lived Somewhere”

Binyameen continued his speech:

“When Husam was in that world, he lived through a battle with the Joker after mastering all of the skills he needed to face him”

“Yes… I saw the set of paintings that captured the details of that battle… Truly stunning!”

“Husam met with Leonardo Davinci, Beethoven, Bruce Lee, and mastered the skills of each of them, in addition to becoming a living puzzling medical phenomenon after waking from his coma, a general mutation that changed all of his vital functions and doubled the rate of regeneration of his body cells, in short he awoken as a real superman!”

Christopher’s interest was growing with every word, in front of his was a chance to make a film that would crown his movie legend, a movie ready with all its details and events and most importantly its super hero. An opportunity of this magnitude could never come again:

“When can we meet?”

Binyameen replied:

“When can you setup a meeting with Warner?”

“Any time! We can meet with them today if you want”

“Great, then setup the meeting in ten hours” Said Binyameen as he ended the video call.

“WE must start preparing for Warner’s call, we don’t have enough time!” Said Eyad.

“Did you think you would close a multimillion-dollar deal over a video call?!”

“What do you mean?”

Husam understood what Binyameen was hinting to and said calmly:

“I do not have a US VISA”

“Don’t worry my men will take care of everything, we must head out now!”

Said Binyameen and Eyad exploded nervously:

“You mean to fly to California? Are you serious?”

“I do not know how to joke my friend; we will meet them in New York”

“I thought I was the boldest craziest man on earth… I guess it is competition then”

Binyameen smiled for the first time since he met them:

“This will not be a fair fight at all! In any case my private plain is ready, we will head out immediately. You must inform Sawsan, Maram and the Exhibit’s management that you will be gone for 24 hours!”

*****

Sawsan did not sleep since the moment Maram sent that SMS to Dr. Emad Zaki, her phone never left her palm, she jumps with every call or message as she awaited his reply. She was leaning oh her hand as she watched the cars and road as she headed by to the hotel with Maram… and her heart jumped. It jumped when her phone rang, and she calmed down when she realized that it was Eyad calling her:

“Sawsan! Remember what I told you when we were watching Batman, Inception and Interstellar?”

“Eyad? Did you finish your meeting?”

“You did not answer me… what do I always tell you in the movies?” he said with excitement.

“You tell me you wish you can attend a shooting with that director”

“His name is Christopher Nolan… not that director! Anyway, we must fly to him now, prepare my suit and passport the moment you arrive at the hotel, I will pass to pick them up and head to the airport!”

“Are you serious? You are going to the airport?”

“Our meeting with Warner Brothers is in New York in ten hours! We are flying on Binyameen’s private jet, don’t worry we will finish the meeting and come back in the same day”

“You speak as if you are going to pick a cup of coffee and back! I will not let you go alone; we are coming with you!”

“Sawsan! How can I take you with me in such a hectic trip? Stay at the hotel with Maram and Jumana, go out and have fun, and tomorrow you I will be back”

“May God protect you and help you achieve all your dreams”

“My life long dream was achieved when you agreed to marry me Sawsan, since then I have been living my dreams one by one! Got to call the exhibit”

Her cheeks that never get bored of his flattery turned pinkish as she said:

“Ok by you charmer”

Her cheeks turned red and her body shivered with her heart beats when the phone rang again, but this time the call was from Dr. Emad Zaki… Or more accurately Hawjan!

(3)
An Eye for an Eye

H umane… What is humane?

Humane is a set of emotions, reactions and values that you humans attribute to yourselves, simply because you don’t directly interact with other beings that share those same reactions. You attribute them only to humans out of vanity and shortcomings of understanding the universes around you.

Yes, I am not from your universe, but I certain that I carry those emotions that you believe no one else shares them with your race, those emotions are the result of the natural instinctive tendencies that flow out of the spirit, regardless of universe or body where that spirit was resurrected… it is a whiff of light… some ascend… and others who fall far away to the pits of his materialistic obsessions.

Let us agree then to replace the word “humane” with the word “spiritual” as its generality engulfs all universes including yours and the Jinn’s… as well as mine.

That spiritual tendency is what made Sawsan’s heart shiver so violently calling back the blood from her body to trap into its compartments despite its violent beat, when she looked at the call coming in from Dr.EZ she almost ignored it for moment had it not been her only hope of knowing wither or not a Jinni had really sacrificed his life to save hers, or was all of that merely a scenario that her subconscious used for her to escape her reality. She answered the call but failed in uttering any words, her hear beats infected his, and her silence knocked his tongue, moments passed like ages, only her sobbing interrupted that silence… until he ended it with her shivering question:

“Sawsan… How are you?”

“Hawjan… How dare you…!”

He was shocked by her immediate confrontation, he did not expect that her hears would make him out so easily, words of denying could not flow as she exploded, the fact that he was a being from another world made no difference to her, hear heart wash shouting directly into his:

“Why Hawjan? Why? Seven years not knowing wither you were dead or alive… seven years not knowing wither you were real or an illusion… Why Hawjan?”

She gave him no room to elude her od deny, he gave in to her breakdown as she continued in a quivering chocked voice:

“Don’t you dare try to convince me that it was for my own good! You burned my heart to save my mind? Imagin if it was I who suddenly disappeared and for seven year you knew nothing about me?!”

He breakdown continued with her sobbing, and Hawjan did not dare to utter anything but one sentence:

“Sawsan… what hotel are you staying in?”

His question pulled her out of her sobbing as she replied in shock:

“Marriott Champs Elysees. Why?”

“I am on my way”

The call ended, but the violent shock that swiped over Sawsan;s hear did not.

*****

A self-driving Bentley Mulsanne pitch-black both from the outside and in approached the Marriott’s entrance, Eyad and Husam jumped out of the car before it even stopped, and one can hear Binyameen’s voice from inside:

“You have three minuets”

Sawsan was waiting for Eyad with his bag and passport, he came into the room and grabbed them as he was taking his breath:

“Sawsan I must be in the plain in half an hour, take care of your self and Jumana my love”

He kissed his two girls and headed out without noticing the stressed look that had filled Sawsan’s soul.

“Two minutes and fourteen seconds”

Said Binyameen as the self-driving Bentley toke off, Eyad responded in confidence:

“I guess you owe us forty-six seconds then!”

“Had I given you two minutes you would have been done in one and a half, people program them selves according to the ceiling of their ambitions! In any case collect every second as you will need them badly later!”

The Bentley’s wheels ripped Paris’s streets as it raced through them in speeds that were unfamiliar to them and not one cop dared to intercept it because of its special plates that give its occupants an immunity that only the Frensh president and a hand full of diplomats can ever attain. It automatically stopped next to the check point, the officer was taken back for a moment when the rear window opened, and he noticed that no one was driving the car since self-driving cars were still not so common… But Binyameen’s diplomatic passport cut his shock short and changed it into a formal greeting as he allowed them to pass. The Bentley turned into the road leading to the private planes’ runway and stopped in front of one where Elyana a girl that blended beauty from both her African and European lineage while her businesswoman outfit gave her back some of her femininity that is usually hidden behind military uniforms.

*****

They say sleep is king…

But its reign vanishes when met with kids’ rowdiness and adults’ worry… for that reason it had surrendered this night to Jumana and Sawsan. Sawsan who had never neglected Jumana’s sleep time, sat absent minded on the bed’s edge after Eyad left, while Jumana kept jumping around her in disbelief that her mother had not ordered her to bed, in fact she was surprised when her mother hugged her while still absent minded and kissed her on her forehead, she carried her as if afraid someone was going to snatch her from her arms, and went down to the hotel lobby.

She sat on a chair facing the hotel entrance where her eyes froze as she totally disconnected from the rest of the world while Jumana continued playing with alone and enjoying the midnight moments that she had never lived through in her life.

Sawsan’s brain cells were digging through her memories with Hawjan, and stopped at the last discussion between them, she remembered every letter, she remembered that night when she was avidly watching YouTube videos, specifically the one where a prominent scientist talks in detail about the theory of the eleven intertwined dimensions, she did not know that Hawjan was watching beside her, and the amazement, as he realized that everything he was saying applied exactly and logically to what was happening to them in the Jinn and Human dimensions. Hawjan was sitting on Sawsan’s bed, and she awoken him from his drift when she shouted:

“Hawjan? Hawjan are you there?!”

She was able to feel him when he was in the room, the bond that connected their souls did not care about the dimensions that separated Humans and jinn, Sawsan opened the editor on her iPad as she uttered that question and brought her fingers near the keyboard, Hawjan laid his hand atop of hers and answered in typing:

“The stuff this guy is saying explain everything!”

“I could not make head of tails!”

“I had always wondered why influence flowed between our universes in one direction only?! And why everything from your material world affects our world but the oppose was not true?”

“OK Mr. Stephen Hawking can you please explain it to me in layman terms?”

“Tell me Sawsan, what do you now see in your room?”

“I can see everything! The bed, cupboards, desk, window, flowers, sky, clouds…”

“Is that all you see?”

“And I can see a cute Jinni sitting beside me!”

“Oh really! No honestly… look to your left on the bed, did you notice anything?”

Sawsan was looking directly at him but she can see right through him, so did her hands when she felt the bed next to her… she started patting his softly as she said:

“So, you are here now? Am I slamming into you now?”

“Your hand and fingers passed through my face, I felt them as a breeze of compressed air, I saw your veins and blood as your hand passed through my eye!”

“How exciting… tell me; what did you understand from the video?”

“I am now passing my hand over your face… It feels like cotton, but my hand can’t pass through the iPad, it feels solid, we can pass through gas, liquids and semi solids of your world, but the higher the object’s density the harder it is for us to pass through!”

“So, if I closed the door you can’t get out?”

“I told you I was trapped in your room several times!”

Sawsan rushed to the door and closed it then closed the window and jumped back on the bed saying in childish gaily:

“Show me how you will escape now Mr. Efreet!”

“Had I been an Efreet I could have touched you and you touch me! Efreets can materialize in your world!”

“ohh really? You mean that if you were an Efreet you can pick me up and take me to the jinn world?”

“I wish!”

“Really Hawjan?”

Her tone sent a shiver down his spine, I felt that he had taken it a bit too far, he felt that she truly wanted to escape with him even if that meant leaving her world and living amongst Efreets! So he tried to change the subject:

“But things do not work the other way around, objects, matter, light and sound in your world affect ours, but nothing in ours reach yours, because of its high frequency! Jinn for example are terrified of interacting with humans, so many jinn have been injured or even died amongst you, that is why we always avoid your cities even if that forced us… to fly over you!”

“Hawjan, you can fly?!”

“Gravity has a much weaker affect over us… my uncles used to fly all the way to Fajaj”

“In Arabic please!”

“Fajaj is a term we use to describe a specific point on the edges of the atmosphere, there are specific pools around earth at about a hundred kilometers altitude, where magnetic lines cross opening portals to higher dementias”

“But why did your uncles fly to fajaj and those portals?”

“Profit, dealing with witches is the easiest way for profit, especially for jinn who possess abilities like my uncles, despite all of its risks… such magnetic fields can swallow a jinni and entrap him in those higher dimensions… one of my uncles vanished in a fajaj, he was working for a witch in Ethiopia”

Hawjan noticed terror lines cracking through her face, so he quickly amended the situation:

“Sawsan, my father was a devilish marid, but had since repented when he fell in love with my mother and decided to leave his family and took us to live far away from them”

“Your father had the ability to affect our world?”

“We are from the Fayhee family… descendants of the jinn who had server king Solomon, most of those blood lines mixed with the rest of the jinn population and lost their abilities over time, very few still had them… of those was my father may God rest his soul”

“What about you Hawjan? Did you not inherit such powers?”

“I don’t think so”

“You mean there is no hope that I can ever see you or touch you?”

“I don’t know Sawsan… The only way we can do that is if I…”

“If you what Hawjan?”

“I must serve the marids and go to the damned”

“The damned?!”

“The king of devils!”

“Oh no… heaven forbid!”

“The damned is not as you picture him… The Damned is a head of several alliances of marids and devils around the world, trust me he is just like any dictator in your world, in fact as far as you are concerned, they are way more dangerous and harmful the he is! In reality the damned and his devils can’t really harm any human, unless that human allowed them to meddle in his life…”

“So Lucifer and his kingdoms of devils can’t do anything to me?”

“Of course, they can’t, if Lucifer and his devils can harm humans directly they would have spared nothing! Jinn population is almost ten times that of humans, most of them part of the devils’ kingdoms, yet you never heard of a human beaten by a gang of devils or even killed! On the contrary jinn fear you way more than you fear them, because your danger and affect on them is real”

“I heard that he is at the Bermuda triangle, is that true?”

“What is the Bermuda triangle?”

“A place at sea near America”

“I do recall that when I visited him with my father and uncles, we crossed the ocean”

“You visited him?”

“I went once with my father before things between him and my uncles got tens… I was still a teenager in my thirties”

“That explains why all those planes and ships go missing there!”

“The only way for them to affect your material world is by opening a gateway between the two worlds, but they can only open it for a limited time and for specific purposes to avoid attention, to this moment they are trying to open a stable gateway that can allow normal jinn to pass to your world easily, they succeeded in moving ships and planes but most jinn and humans who had tried to pass between the two worlds died within seconds, only king Solomon was able to keep the gateways between the two worlds open; and ever since his death most of the books and science detailing the process vanished, limiting the movement between our worlds to marids and Efreets and a very few humans who did not die in that process”

“If I were to come to your world I would die?”

“Don’t say that Sawsan!”

“You fear for my safety?”

“Sure I do!”

“How much?”

“To the extent that I wish I was the one with cancer instead of you… and if I could I would sacrifice myself to save you”

“Don’t say that my love”

She said it spontaneously and instinctively… they both became to shy to talk… until she said:

“Hawjan…”

“Yes Sawsan…”

“Hawjan, do you love me?”

This specific question is like a bullet if asked by a girl, it must hit an answer within fractions of a second, before the silence slams into her heart and shatters it… but she had truly reined him… so she continued in an effort to gather her shattered pride:

“How could you love someone from our lower dimension… and her age is barely a quarter of yours and…”

“I love you!”

Red blood rushed to her cheeks covering their pink hue, and she twisted a curl of hair between her pointer and thumb as she bit the edge of her lips as she did whenever she was shy, that shyness exploded when Hawjan repeated:

“I love you… I love you… I love you Sawsan! I swear to God I love you!”

“Enough Hawjan! You will bark my iPad!”

“By the way, I utter every word I type on the iPad… but you can never hear me event if I shouted”

“You are so lucky, you can hear me and hear yourself, I only hear me talking to myself like a crazy person!”

“Oh sure, spending an hour chatting with a jinni makes you seem very sane!”

“Are you mocking me?! I will show you!”

As she said that she pulled one of her pillows and started waving it in the air and slamming it on the bed where he sat, actually where he was sitting as he floated above the bed to watch her and enjoy her innocent laughter…

“Sawsan… Sawsan? Sawsan!”

Maram shook Sawsan’s shoulders to force her out of her daydream, Sawsan responded with an empty look as Maram continued:

“Do you want to drive me mad? I was worried about you! I called your cell phone, your room tens of times and no one answered, and when I gave up, I came down hoping to find you here”

Sawsan did not utter a word, as she was not in our world, Maram sat next to her and tried to calm her tension:

“Sawsan, what is worrying you? Because you are about to meet Hawjan? Aren’t you supposed to be happy? Finally, you will overcome the confusion of all those years and know everything!”

Sawsan responded from the depth of her absence while they both kept their eyes focused on the Hotel’s entrance:

“I wish I never listened to you Maram! I can’t hold it together… my heart is about to stop!”

“Don’t be so dramatic, I am the one who should be terrified! You are used to jinn, but I will meet a jinni for the first time today… As much as I am excited, I am terrified to death! Between you and I, I am starting to wish that everything you said was actually an illusion, and that I to am schizophrenic imagining that I am about to drink coffee with a jinni in the Marriot’s lobby!”

Movement at the hotel’s lobby was minimal at this late hour, only the security guard and receptionists and a few tenants returning from their late nights in Paris. And suddenly time stopped… stopped in respect for the moment of souls meeting, forcing science over everything, even breaths and whispers.

The escalator connecting the entrance to the lobby escorted that moment, as a man in the late thirties appeared, he had the handsomeness of the Mediterranean with his bronzesh features, sharp edges, tight muscles and extended height; in his arms was a beauty in her twenties, one look at her would send all Hispanic ladies into a state of permanent despair.

They were dressed in outfits that impressed everyone in the lobby, as if the sultan of Frensh couture Christian Dior and his Oran assistant Yves Saint Laurent had risen from their slumber just to tailor that elegant black suit and the dark red velvet dress. Sawsan felt her heart totally paralyzed, and her shock was elevated when a boy appeared behind them and ran towards them yelling:

“Jumana! Shalamlik Jumana Shalamlik!”

Jumana turned and ran towards him answering his Syriac Fayhee greeting:

“Shalamlik Elyaseen! Shalamlik!”

Paralysis spread to Sawsan’s entire body, she tried to stand… leaned on the edge of her seat… but the numbness stole her balance and she almost fell before Maram rushed to support her as she observed that man and his wife as they walked towards them.

*****

Despite Eyad’s lavish lifestyle and Husam spending a few days in heaven, they were utterly impressed by the private jet, only the windows reminded them that they were in a plane not a VIP reception hall in some presidential palace. Comfortable gigantic moving leather seats for each of them, set in a crescent shape around a meeting table and a screen that covered most of the wall separating them from the cockpit, the first few hours passed quickly in intense discussions regarding how they can best take advantage of this amazing cinematic opportunity, Eyad was the most excited:

“A billion dollars! I expect the box office sales would exceed a billion dollars!”

Binyameen smiled as he said:

“A billion dollars? Only? Is that the ceiling of your ambition?!”

“If we are talking about my personal ambitions, I don’t think any thing short of shattering all box office sales in history would satisfy it!”

Binyameen had a mocking smile on his face as he pulled out a hundred dollar bill and started a stare contest with Benjamin Franklin’s image that reflected on his dark glasses… suddenly Binyameen ripped Benjamin’s face in half as he shredded the bill into small pieces his smile got wider and turned into a slight laughed while he piled it in his palm then blew causing a monetary storm in everyone’s faces. He cut through their astonishment with a mocking statement:

“The Dollar… is that all you care about…”

Eyad responded in objection:

“Who does not care about the Dollar? Idealism has no place outside books and myths, but reality only acknowledges the banknote my friend!”

“I have shredded a paper! Just a piece of paper, worthless save for Benjamin Franklin’s picture, the inventor, musician, writer and diplomat, how did the world reword his brilliance? By putting his picture on the worst crime in human history!”

Hussam finally calmly intervened:

“Do you want to convince us that you did not call us to close a large material contract?”

“Elyana… fetch me my checkbook please”

Elyana jumped on her feat and fetched the checkbook and a pen from Binyameen’s bag and handed them to him, he wrote a number on the check and handed it over to Husam:

“Here you go, a check for a billion dollars… write anyone’s name on it”

Husam grabbed the check and shredded it the same way Binyameen shredded the bill:

“I would like to let you know that I am the most asceticism person on earth!”

“The least I would expect from someone who had visited heaven is to shred everything in this life and throw its pieces up in the air”

Eyad objectionably commented on their discussion:

“I do hope that you understand that I am not the materialistic amongst you, my father is a billionaire, and money means nothing more to me than it does to you, but it is the love of challenge and achievement! And what do you mean by the worst crime in human history?! And what exactly is it that you want from us?!”

Binyameen pulled a gold coin from his pocket and started toying with it as he said:

“OK… I guess it is time to discuss our real project!”

Husam and Eyad gazed upon that strange coin, etched on it were wings surrounding earth and the number one and on its circumference were the words (GLOBAL POUND), Binyameen went on:

“We my friends are living in an intricate illusion, a devilish plot that started a thousand years ago, and spread secretly amongst humans till it controlled the world we live in”

Eyad stopped him in a mocking tone:

“I think you are obsessed with global conspiracy theories, the Freemasons and the Illuminati and …”

Husam who appeared much more interested in what Binyameen was saying intervened:

“Eyad I think what he is saying is way passed the theories you mentioned”

Binyameen continued as if he did not hear any of what they said:

“Mr. Eyad, can you tell me what your father’s billions mean? They are but numbers you entrust to banks, aren’t they? You trust the numbers the banks show you and the exchange rates, what if the dollar price went down, or the Riyal or and currency your wealth is accumulated in, say by half, or tenth or zero… what would remain of that wealth? Why did the civilizations of earth who had never stopped fighting each other all agree on one thing: The global financial system? And who owns that system? Who controls all the global banks? Who can bring your father’s wealth down to zero with a press of a button?”

“The Knights Templar”

Said Husam as he gazed out of the window, Eyad responded:

“Even you believe in conspiracy theories? Listen, I have watched and read a decent amount of movies and books, and know Dan Brown’s novels by heart, I can’t deny that it mentions some facts but it goes out of its way and exaggerate to connect those facts in a way that shows the world as a toy in the hands of a gang that controls everything”

Binyameen went on:

“It is true that they did start as a gang, appointed by the crusaders a thousand years ago as protectors of mount Zion and the temple of Solomon, but they had dug up the land and excavated Solomon’s most valuable treasure: what remained of the manuscripts! And when Saladin controlled the holly land they returned to Europe and used the knowledge they found to tighten their grip on its financial resources, allowing them to influence both religious and political authorities… They established then the new financial order where they substituted the real value of money with credit… “Trust” was given by their well and control of ledgers and numbers. It is a simple equation really: Control the currency and you control everything!”

Eyad responded to Binyameen’s statement:

“But the Knights Templar were defeated and burned in Europe until they were gone…”

“After the attempts to exterminate them in Europe, those who remained of the Templar fled to Scotland, reorganized, learned from their mistakes and rebranded themselves: The Freemasons, from there the spread and toke control of the world’s banks, governments, educational, media and religious institutes!”

Binyameen raised the coin he was toying with to his eyes and said:

“And today they control the real money! Eighty percent of the gold on earth is controlled by masonic organizations, and they are about to destroy all currencies via economical crises and wars they engineer to force the world to yield to their new world order and their currency (The Global Pound) allow me to introduce to you a real currency”

As he said that he tossed the coin flipping in the air until Husam caught it and say:

“And what do we have to do with all of that?”

Binyameen’s response was abrupt and surprising, as his fest flew like a bomb shell towards Husam’s face, slamming into his cheek throwing Husam violently into his seat, Binyameen’s face cam close to Husam’s face and said as he examined the bruise near his eye:

“Come on Husam… An eye from an eye… take your revenge… show me your superpowers

Husam smiled as he felt the bruise, Binyameen kept his eyes on it watching with astonishment as it turned from blue to red to pink and vanish quickly… Husam said calmly with a smile on his face:

“What eye are you referring to my friend?”

This time the response came from Eyad, but in a crescent kick that landed on Binyameen’s face throwing his dark glasses into the air before his hand reaches out and grabs it in speed; and Eyad triumphantly followed up:

“Right on! An eye for an eye, but you must defeat the student before you can challenge the master! Husam taught me martial arts as he had learned them from Bruce Lee personally”

The triumphant moment that had overwhelmed Eyad vanished suddenly when he noticed what the dark glasses Binyameen was wearing had been hiding, Binyameen slowly turned towards him as he placed his glasses over his nose, and for a second his eyes were visible, in fact they were not eyes, despite the normal appearance of the first but it was lacking the glimmer of life, it was an acrylic prosthetic eye, but the other was something else completely!

*****

A child’s heart is naturally inoculated against stress. Their innocence distracts them from the world around them, even if the hearts of those around them was in dire stress and agitation. Jumana and Elyaseen were cheerfully playing, while Hawjan, Sawsan, Jumara and Maram’s hearts almost stopped! Jumara who had loved her husband so dearly that she almost her life as well as her child’s for the human he was madly in love with, is now face to face with her; and regardless of the universe the female is still a female, hear jealousy would ignite for no reason, and when it does nothing in this would could take out that fire. But Jumara broke that rule, something inside of her changed when she saw Sawsan, turning her jealousy fires into rivers of tears, she hugged her and started sobbing, then Sawsan and Maram joined her with tears. As for Hawjan who was the most worried about this meeting, he just froze observing this situation unfold. Jumara came down to her knees in front of Jumana, looked her in the eye, kissed her forehead and held her tight in her arms as if she was her own daughter. As for Maram, will she forgot that she was seeing jinn with her own eyes for the first time and tried to calm everyone’s emotions:

“How about we all sit and take a deep breath, you must be exhausted from the trip”

Jumara looked at her as she tried to hide what remained of her tears with a smile while she said:

“You must be Husam’s sister, am I correct?”

“You also know Husam?!”

Hawjan replied after they had all been seated:

“Eyad and Husam are my best friends, we meetup once or twice a week”

Sawsan cut him off in a voice that carried sorry and scolding:

“Hawjan, how are you?”

Hawjan who had wished Jumara never lived this moment, replied calmly:

“Praise God, as you can see, we are all well…”

“How is your mother? How is your grandfather?”

“My grandfather died, and my mother died three years later, the same year your father died… my God bless their souls”

“My deepest condolences Hawjan…”

“And to you…”

Jumara, who’s jealousy started to awaken, said:

“Hawjan, Elyaseen and I only have each other ever since grandfather, mother and my brother Xanam died”

“Xanam?!”

Asked Sawsan as she probed her memory trying to remember that familiar name, then Jumara realized after it was too late that she should not have mentioned Xanam who was the source of many of the disasters that fell upon her family. Sawsan repeated the question to show that she remembers Xanam well:

“You are Xanam’s sister?!”

Hawjan intervened:

“Xanam was deceived, and he lost his life trying to save Jumara and my son Elyaseen”

Maram again tried to lighten the mood:

“So Eyad and Husam’s Tuesdays and Thursdays are spent with you? Where do you go? What do you do?”

Hawjan turned to face her as he smiled:

“We have been practicing for five years now”

“Practicing what?”

“Practicing materializing and possessing… I learned many things from Husam and Eyad”

“My brother Husam was possessed by jinn?”

“Never in my life had I seen someone with a purple aura as strong as Husam’s, the only person who still has full control of his consciousness even when I possess him”

Sawsan asked after forgetting all her stress, sorrow and reproach:

“But you told me that the only way you can materialize in our world was if you…”

“If I sold my soul to the damned and became a Marid?”

He looked at Jumara and gently held her hand as he said:

“God bless Jumara, she was the one who taught me how to use my powers”

Jumara’s cheeks turned red and her female ego nurtured:

“I learned how to materialize when I was a child, after that I materialized in many shapes, I even materialized as Jumana, Eyad’s cousin…”

Sawsan gasped:

“So you are Jumana?! I should have guessed!”

Hawjan replied:

“Jumana risked her life for yours more than once, she materialized in your form to stop the wizard that was trying to scam your father my God bless his soul… abd the wizard almost slit her throat”

Tear escaped Sawsan’s eyes again when she realized the sacrifices this jinni had made for her:

“So that is why Eyad insisted on naming our daughter Jumana! I don’t know how to thank you Jumara, without you my life would have been lost, and I would have never married Eyad!”

Jumara’s angelic face blushed, and she leaned on her husband’s shoulder:

“Thank Hawjan not me…”

Then to shake of her blush she went on:

“Hawjan and I have the ability to move between your world and ours, but our powers need practice to master, it is much harder that you imagine, but with practice it gets easier, but staying in your world is very exhausting, everything is heavy, we feel like we are suffocating all the time, and we can only maintain our bodies here for a limited time”

Sawsan observed Elyaseen who was busy playing with Jumana and said:

“What about Elyaseen? He does not seem tired”

Jumara replied with a smile:

“We had materialized about an hour ago, we can maintain this for about an hour may be two more… but what is strange is that Elyaseen despite his age can easily materialize and never seems to get tiered on it”

Hawjan added:

“Elyaseen inherited all of the Fayhee’s powers, I moved far away from all the devilish kingdoms in fear that they would want him!”

Maram got really excited at the same time she was getting pretty terrified of the thought that jinn can actually materialize, and asked curiously:

“And can we go to your universe as you come to ours? Did you try that with Eyad and Husam?”

“We did… but they were all very terrifying experiences”

Sawsan’s memories started to bleed out again, she looked to the floor and said:

“All of those years, you and Eyad hid this from me! I will never forgive either of you!”

“What you went through was not an easy thing Sawsan, any anxiety could have risked your life, we had to be sure that you are cured before ewe let you know everything! Eyad toke me to a director he knew in Dubai to record me as I told the store you saw in that video”

She exchanged a cunning smile with Maram who’s plot worked on Hawjan and said:

“I did not see the movie, Maram was the one sent you that message from my phone, in any case Eyad promised me to show it to me when we get back”

Jealousy stated to eat at Jumara, so she decided to end this chat about Hawjan and Sawsan, and said as she gazed at Hawjan:

“That is ok, I guess we all need to watch that movie when we go back! By the way, where are Eyad and Husam?”

“They just got a chance to sell a movie at Hollywood; so they flied out to New York and will be back tomorrow”

Hawjan pulled out the phone that Eyad gave him, he looked surprised when he looked at the location app that linked his mobile with Eyad and Husam’s phones, his surprise echoed in his voice as she said:

“Really? They are going to America? Strange!”

Jumara was tensing up, not because of her jealousy of Sawsan, but because of the security guard who had been glassing at her every now and then and making calls on his cell phone while his face showed clear stress, her instincts told her that danger was lurking, she threw a worried look at Jumana and Elyaseen where she had started playing the piano and he was learning and joining her in playing, Jumara turned to Hawjan and whispered:

“Hawjan, look at that guard, look at his aura, see that receptionist who is talking to him, my heart tells me something is not right”

Sawsan’s instincts joined in as she said worried:

“Jumara, what is wrong?”

“That guard was watching us and making calls, him and the girl he is with are very agitated as if something is about to happen!”

Sawsan’s worry grew, and then everyone got worried when the guard and the girl rushed out of the hotel, Jumara shouted:

“See? Told you something was not right!”

And as she finished her sentence a middle eastern looking young man wearing a leather vest barged into the hotel holding a device with a button at its end yelling:

“Allaho Akbar… By God I have been blessed!”

And he pressed the button…

And the explosion echoed!

*****

Two seconds exposed what Binyameen’s dark glasses were hiding, two seconds shattered Eyad’s enthusiasm when he saw Binyameen’s prosthetic eye, and that thing that rested in his other eye socket. That socket was stuffed with complex intricate combination of motors and gears hidden behind a crystal dome with a central lens and two other side lenses. Binyameen put back his glasses to hid all of that, and rushed to his feet saying:

“it seems that Eyad’s intuition is much faster than your own Mr. Eyad! I was not surprised that he noticed that I was blind from our first meeting”

Eyad felt guilty when he realized that his kick had slammed into a blind man, but Binyameen refused that gilt and started throwing punches at Eyad while shouting:

“You will really feel sorry if you ever look at me that way again! I have lost my eyes, but my sight is sharper that yours could ever be!”

While he said those words Eyad was trying to face those punches as some of them managed to dive in between his ribs and others colored his cheeks, those punches convinced Eyad that Binyameen was an opponent that you don’t want to undermine despite his single bionic eye, so he toke a fighting stance and a fierce Kong Fu battel stormed between them, its casualties were the large screen and most of the cups and plates that were on the table, but Binyameen was by far winning. Husam interrupted that battle with a calm statement:

“So that is why we are heading towards Solomon’s temple!”

Binyameen answered him as he caught his breath and fixed his shirt:

“I never doubted that you will discover this from the start of this flight”

Eyad looked out the window:

“What? We are rally going towards dawn… We are heading east!”

“We are heading towards Israel… Consider it your second home”

Said Binyameen as he headed towards the cockpit, the pilot jumped out of his seat giving way to Binyameen who entered a command to the plane’s systems using his own code, a command that no one can overturn: a free fall that will start in 60 second. Then he continued calmly:

“Gentlemen our flight ends here, the plane will free fall in fifty-three second!”

Elyana jumped towards the cabinet that held the parachutes and put one on while handing a second to the pilot, Binyameen the remaining three parachutes and threw one of Eyad then put on one, as soon as the pressure inside it dropped Elyana opened the plane’s door, then Binyameen gave his final formal decisive statement:

“Mr. Eyad, Mr. Husam, welcome to your first test, we are now entering the costal lines of Israel, your task is to stay alive!”

Elyana jumped out of the plane followed by the pilot, then Binyameen stopped at the exit holding the remaining parachute and continued in the same decisive tone:

“Oh, I forget to mention, you must survive with one parachute only!”

As he said that he tossed the remaining parachute out the door and threw himself after it at the same moment that plane started its free fall towards land with Eyad and Husam still on board with one parachute!

(4)
Here… or Somewhere?

P eace of mind…

Tranquility…

Unjustified happiness…

A little bit of confusion…

This is the mixture of feelings that everyone feels when they come to Somewhere.

Her limp body was carried by the calm waves, her shut eye lashes were tickled by the shy breeze, pushing her gently towards the beach, leaving the comfort of the waves to the comfort of the soft sand. She slowly opened her eyes while maintain her smile; she saw me standing in front of her, smiling back at her. I spread out my arms to help her up, her smile widened, I knew she was going to recognize me! Water drops slid down her whit silk dress as our steps started chatting with beach’s sand and we continued its dialog… my yarning forced me to ask:

“Maram, how is Husam?”

“You are Malak, right? I recognized you from Husam’s paintings!”

Although I watch over him every moment of the day, almost to the point of counting his breaths, but I am still a female; that melts longing for my love and from my love’s longing for me every time I see him, Ever time I hear his name… And Maram is also a female, she knew what was boiling in my heart, so she comforted me:

“Malak… Husam lives with us in body only, but his mind, heat and soul live he… with you”

“I truly miss Husam!”

“Lucky him”

“Lucky me”

“You have no idea how happy I am for him; the greatest blessing God sends to someone is a guardian angel”

“God sending you an angel is a blessing… but bless is you being the angel living your entire life for one person who holds you and year heart, and lives in your soul”

Maram suddenly realized something:

“Malak, what brings me here? Did I die?!”

Her memory was confused and foggy, but she asked calmly, death had no fear in her tone after she was dipped in the calmness of this place.

“No Maram… you did not die… Yet”

Maram did not remember the suicide bombing that happened in the Marriott Champs Elysees Hotel, where her body was thrown towards the marble wall slamming her head and start to bleed. She forgot all of that, and looked around her… the waves, birds, gardens, and Husam’s city towers in the horizon; she filled her lungs with the cold breeze sainted with flowers and then exhaled slowly as she said:

“I can see why Husam is attached to this place, and you…”

“Husam left everything and went back for you Maram… and now you too must go back to him. I entrust Husam to you, you are his angel in life, and I am his angel here…”

She did not hear the last of my words as she vanished from in front of me… exactly as Husam vanished from my arms.

*****

Survival…

One word that summarizes your existence! One word that separates your life in this decaying world, from your next life in the eternal world; it summarizes all of your worries, dreams and instincts. Every desire built into your bodies and souls is but a manifestation of this singular instinct… all the desires that you lust over: money, fame, power, children, romantic relations… all of them but mere tools in your eternal struggle to survive… survival makes you hold on to life even when you are giving up your last breaths.

But… There is another kind of survival, survival for those who deserve it… there is no comparison between the struggle to stay alive, and the fight to stay with who you love… and for those you love. This kind of survival is stronger and deeper than the instinctive survival drive that humans share with all living things. This kind defies the laws of the universe… and create miracles!

The explosion shook the Marriott’s lobby and its shattered the silence of the Champs Elysees in these early hours of dawn, nails and pointed metal balls flew out of the explosive vest in every direction at speeds exceeding eight thousand meters per second as the C-4 particle exploded… in other words the shrapnel only needed a fraction of a second to cut through Elyaseen and Jumana’s  bodies who were playing the piano in the middle of the hall. But Elyaseen was faster!

Despite his small body that could hardly be seen from behind the piano, he release his thundering shout and pushed the piano with one hand as if throwing a toy he did not like, and his other arm wrapped around Jumana… half a ton of maple wood flipped and slid towards the bomber creating a protective wall that only lasted for an instant before shattering under the pressure of the explosion adding its debris to the killer shrapnel heading towards Jumana and Elyaseen… but it was too late. In the fraction of the second following Elyaseen’s shout both his body and Jumara’s were no were to be found!

The explosion pushed Sawsan and Maram’s bodies while Hawjan and Jumara instinctively returned to the jinn dimension, softening the blow on their bodies, while the leather seats absorbed Sawsan’s impact, Maram however was the least fortunate of them all, she slammed into the wall cutting her head and fell into her own blood; the electricity went out and darkness engulfed everything save for some spots where small fires started. Jumara was screaming hysterically as she searched for Elyaseen amongst the tenants who piled frantically at the doorway trying to save their skin, her heart was torn as she searched both universes; Hawjan almost pursued her had it not been for the solders in heat resistant black suits storming the lobby, wearing masks with scopes allowing them to see through the smoke and darkness that engulfed the place; they ascended from lobby’s glass dome dangling on ropes with hooks and moved towards their specific targets: Sawsan and Maram.

There were five solders, each carrying a leather bag on his shoulder, the spread around the lobby to specific locations and emptied the bags. Five bodies… two men, two ladies and a child. That was what was in those bags, five bodies to elude investigators to think that they were Eyad, Husam, Sawsan, Maram and Jumana.

They placed the bodies in perfectly calculated possessions, and one of them went to Maram to inspect her and properly ID her before he carried her on his shoulder and run towards a hook that he attached to his belt and ascend back to where he came from. Hawjan did not comprehend what was going on, but he did know that those masked men were not here to save them. Although he had exhausted his energy by materializing in the human world for several hours, he summoned up his strength and rushed behind the man carrying Maram, he materialized for a moment and threw his fest towards the mans scope and with his other hand detached the mans hook from his belt, he then caught Maram’s falling body bringing her down softly onto one of the chairs while the marble floor slammed into the falling solder who fell more than ten meters. The solders panicked for a few seconds then went back to finishing their mission.

Another approached Sawsan who started to regain her consciousness and coughed because of the smoke, but before he reached her, Hawjan grabbed on to his nick and removed his protective mask, the solder fell in panic and the others realized they were facing an unseen adversary, the solders rushed to carry their fallen comrades and fled through the same way they came in before the Frensh emergency forces arrived.

Hawjan came close to Sawsan and whispered in here ear:

“Sawsan… Sawsan! Stay awake… I must possess you!”

*****

A free fall is simply stopping the jets turning a plane from a flying machine into a chunk of metal heading at top speeds towards land. The plane suddenly changed direction and started its journey in a sharp angel, Eyad lost his balance and momentum pushed him towards the end of the plane had it not been for Husam’s grip that reached out to catch him after he had put on the parachute, Husam was holding on to the edge of the door opening with one arm and pulling Eyad with the other. His muscles and arm nerves almost ripped as he pulled Eyad in clear defiance of the laws of gravity, momentum and acceleration… and he made it! Eyad held onto the edge of the doorway and used all of his strength to push himself through it while the altitude counter on the plane was dropping frantically from ten thousand feet… to five thousand feet… to one thousand feet… Husam made his choice, he will get Eyad back to Sawsan and Jumana, and he will get back here… to me.

Husam’s fingers let go of the doorway’s edge so that he would free fall with the plane forcing Eyad to save his own life, but Eyad refused Husam decision, although he might have to pay his own life as a price for that refusal! But he held on to Husam with all his might before he got away into the plane, and opened the parachute and it pulled them back with so much force that it pulled both of them out while ripping some of Eyad’s arm muscles who refused to let go of Husam… But… the parachute opened when they were merely two hundred feet above see level, such height was not enough for the parachute to soften the fall of one person… let alone two.

As the plane crashed on the rocks of the coastal line on Haifa, the waves slammed into Eyad and Husam to soften the fall and increase the chances of their survival… so slightly.

*****

Souls know each other, the get familiar, and close to one another in its higher dimension, ignoring all the constraints enforced upon them by the materialistic universes… and the bond between Sawsan and Hawjan’s souls allowed her to respond to him easily despite her fatigue, fear and anxiety, she was slowly slipping away as a result of all the smoke she inhaled, yet she understood what Hawjan was asking of her and nodded in approval, a few seconds later Hawjan was in control of her body and she jumped up on her feet as if she had suddenly regained her health, she carried Maram easily in her arms and rushed out behind those who were fleeing the hotel, they did not need the siren that started when the fire did, fore the explosion was enough to wake them all and spread fear in everyone’s hearts, security forces and medical personal scattered everywhere, Hawjan pushed Sawsan’s body as she carried Maram towards the paramedics who toke her to an ambulance and tried to stop Sawsan to check her, but Hawjan was so worried for Elyaseen and Jumana, he looks around through Sawsan’s eyes in the material world and through his in the jinn world… until he glanced Jumana sitting on the still of an old building across the street and next to her was Jumara hugging Elyaseen.

He crossed the street quickly and carried Jumana and called out to Jumara who was in the jinn dimension to carry Elyaseen and follow him, then he head towards the nearest ambulance and let go of Sawsan’s body, she collapsed in front of the paramedics who hurried towards her and carried her with Jumana and raced towards the hospital without noticing that there was a jinni along with his wife and child accompanying them.

“Hawjan, what happened?!”

Whispered Jumara as she held Elyaseen tight, as if the paramedics who sat next to them could actually hear voices from the jinn dimension; Hawjan responded:

“I do not know, what is important is that we were blessed by God and that we are all still alive”

“What religion or what denomination asks one to blow himself up and kill innocent people?!”

“Rotten politics!”

“Huh!”

“Rotten politics is the only religion that could convince someone that God promised criminals and atrocious tugs with paradise and rivers of wine”

He pat Elyaseen’s head who had slept innocently in his mother’s arms and went on:

“My heart almost stopped in fear for his life, I can’t believe how a child of his age was able to move this fast to another dimension and take along a human!”

He looked at Jumana who had leaned her head on the paramedic’s shoulder sitting next to her and then turned to Jumara:

“Look at your body, all the bruises, look at my nick and hands and how they are bleeding, all of this happened to us even though we were in the jinn dimension!”

She checked Jumana and Elyaseen and shared his astonishment:

“Elyaseen and Jumana did not get affected at all!”

Her arms held tighter onto Elyaseen, and almost did not hear Hawjan as he said:

“Our son carries all of our ancestors’ powers, he can move humans to the jinn dimension without affecting their bodies!”

*****

Binyameen’s arms was digging through the pool’s water for two hours straight propelling his thin muscular body like a torpedo oscillating between the two ends. The oval pool occupied most of his office that only had a single black leather seat next to a small glass table where his glasses rested next to a black chess knight adorned with engravings that blended the art forms from several civilizations from European history wrapped from its base with a leather thread. Elyana softly knocked the door and Binyameen shouted in clear annoyance:

“Come in Elyana”

Elyana quietly came in and placed the towel she was carrying on the chair:

“Mr. Binyameen, the meeting will start in five minutes”

“Damn it!”

Binyameen gracefully jumped out of the pool ignoring the metal ladder on its edge, and placed the towel on his shoulder and used part of it to wipe the drops off of his bionic eye’s lens before picking up his glasses and hanged the chess knight around his neck and moved towards the door, Elyana yelled:

“Mr. Binyameen, I have prepared the appropriate suit for the meeting”

“This towel is more than appropriate!”

She followed him without objection, he exited his office that was located at the secrete “Future Israel” unit that was established by the joint efforts of the Israeli Armed Forces, Israeli Security Agency “Shabak”, Israeli Intelligence Agency “Mossad” and The Congregation Beth Israel some time by the end of 2012, its secrete location housed a number of units hidden beneath lake Tiberias and in the heart of Mount Arbel that over looked it. What brought members of Future Israel together was fanatic Right-wing extremism coated in the media with some peace and democratic slogans. All of them, aside for Binyameen, served in the Israeli Armed Forces before there were assigned prestigious and sensitive positions at the Knesset and Israeli ministries. Binyameen sat in a capsule that rocketed through a tunnel impaling the mountain towards the central unit while Elyana was setting next to him torn with anxiety:

“Mr. Binyameen, you are killing yourself! You did not sleep since we started this mission”

“Did you?”

“Only a few hours passed since we got back to Israel, you should have…”

He cut her off with such shattering decisiveness:

“Elyana… please stop playing my mother’s role, tell me who will be attending the meeting?”

She collected herself and answered in a formal tone:

“Yuval, Nafttali, Danny and Rabbi Eliyahu”

Binyameen cut her off:

“A choir of thugs… what about Tzipi?”

“Tzipi will head the meeting, she is pissed, really pissed”

Elyana ignored formality and held his hand begging:

“Binyameen… Please… Don’t be reckless!”

“As you wish”

Although he was curtly, she still smiled happily, but her smile vanished when he continued mockingly:

“Mother!”

Binyameen entered the meeting room barefooted and the pool’s remaining water stamped his footsteps on the black marble floor, he sat in his chair around the hexagonal table without greeting any of those around it, he raised his feet on top of the table and said as he wiped his ear with hit towel and rubbed his toes together in everyone’s face:

“Sorry for the delay gentlemen, as you can see, I had to come back from France swimming”

“I hope you have brought with you what would justify wasting fifty million shekels in just two days!”

Said Yuval, who was a veteran that had headed several Israeli ministries, in a calm tone that could barely hide his anger, Binyameen replied mockingly:

“I had sent you a detailed report, did you not read it?!”

Danny, who held several top positions in different Israeli ministries, lost his temper as he shouted:

“All you sent were five words: Plane crashed, no casualties… you call that a report?!”

“Obviously Mr. Danny, my mission was to bring Eyad and Husam, and they are both now receiving care at our medical facility… as for the plane crash, it was part of the mission, I know very well that I had spent sixty two million, two hundred and eighteen thousand, four hundred and twenty one shekels from the project’s budget that will not be depleted until I achieve the required results”

“Huh… Results…!”

Said Danny in frustration, Binyameen responded:

“Yes Mr. Danny results. Did you get any results? You insisted on bringing the two girls and the child despite my warnings, and all you brought back were the bodies of two mercenaries and a media storm on all news channels and global newspapers in addition to embarrassing Israel’s government with the Frensh!”

Danny’s furiosity multiples as he justified:

“Our government was never involved! The entire operation was done under the cover of an Islamic fanatic bomber”

“My dear sir the Frensh government is not so naïve, and the vail of Islamic fanatic groups only works in movies from the nineties! Everyone knows that their leaders are part of your congregations! In any case, you still did not answer me: Did you achieve your heroic objective? Were you able to bring the two girls and the child Mr. Danny?”

Nafttali jumped in to save Danny:

“And you nearly killed tens of lives, but luckily the plane crashed in an uninhabited part of Haifa’s coastline!”

“I know the exact coordinates where the plane had crashed, the probability of someone being there at the moment it crashed was less than tenth of a percent, I would say that was a pretty good chance to take”

Binyameen’s cold and precise auto tone answers were driving everyone crazy… Except for Tzipi who leaned her chin on her palms without commenting.

“True you only risked the lives of two gentiles”

That was Rabbi Eliyahu interrupting the conversation with a serious tone from behind his hat, glasses and thick beard, Binyameen sharply turned to him as he said:

“Humans are humans dear Rabbi! We don’t need your Talmudic myths!”

“Binyameen beware! You are mocking our religious absolutes!”

“You call those myths and erratic raciest abominations that were fabricated by your ancestral Rabies as a result of a prosecution complex during the Babylon enslavement and attributed to their god a religion?! Sorry, but anyone one who believes that the creator of the universe is this racist and heartless is not worthy calling himself human, let alone the God of humanity!”

The Rabbi’s face turned red as he started shouting:

“How dare you?! Do you not know the punishment of those who disrespect a Rabbi?”

“(Whoever disobeys the rabbis deserves death and will be punished by being boiled in hell) Erubin 21b. Do you need me to recite the rest of the scripture that your ancestors made up to set themselves as guardians over humanity under the pretext that they represented the divine on earth?”

Nafttali shouted in defense of his teacher Rabbi Eliyahu:

“You have crossed all limits! Clearly you are an enemy of Judaism and an anti-Semite!”

Binyameen let go of a provocative laugh:

“If Sam saw you, he would have spat on you! Surly I am an enemy of every distasteful teaching! I am the enemy of the repulsive Zionism! It repulses me as do millions of honorable Jews. Tell me what do the Khazars and the Ashkenazi have to do with Sam and the sons of Israel?!”

“Enough!”

Was the first word that Tzipi uttered, it was enough to silence everyone, the meeting room went calm for several moments, only disturbed but the muttering of the Rabbi upset by the enormity of what he had heard from Binyameen.

Tzipi cut through the vail of silence that she had casted and said with clear boredom:

“I have no time for your boyish battles! Binyameen get to the heart of the matter!”

Binyameen signaled Elyana who stood behind him, she moved her fingers over her tablet and an image appeared on the large screen in front of Tzipi and the small screens in front of each of the attendees, an image of Solomon’s Temple, and Binyameen started to explain:

“You know the Temple…”

“My mother’s Temple”

Whispered Danny mockingly, Binyameen ignored him and continued:

“From this Temple three millenniums ago King Solomon ruled the world, he had wielded all the material and scientific resources to unit universes, but greed exploded after his death and his kingdom was lost and the sons of Israel were scattered, and more importantly the most precious treasure of them all was lost… Science”

“Any kid in Israel knows this history”

Said Nafttali in objection, but Yuval who seemed more interested insisted:

“Go on Binyameen, but please be quick”

Binyameen gestured to Elyana to change the image and a barbaric image of Crusaders slaughtering people and their red blood mixed with the red crosses embroidered on their white vests, Binyameen continued:

“And none of the science of the Kingdom of Solomon reappeared until a bunch of crusader mercenaries calling themselves the Templar dug up the ruins and excavated the Zohar and Kabbalah manuscripts, they took it back to Europe after Saladin kicked them out, Rabbis of the Ashkenazi Jews deciphered them and that was the beginning of the catastrophe”

“We are wasting our time listening to this one-eyed abomination”

Said Danny in clear distaste, Binyameen addressed him:

“A brotherly piece of advice, never call me one-eyes, don’t forget this single eyed man is the man who helped Israel lead the world in Quantum Neural Decoding and succeeded in decoding, analyzing, programing and retransmitting neural commands so accurately that it is indistinguishable from the brain, I lost my sight and was able to create a bionic eye… I hope you are as fortunate and can create a bionic brain to use”

Binyameen’s mockery reined Danny’s anger, Tzipi intervened:

“Everyone here made plenty of sacrifice for our nation!”

Binyameen turned to her:

“Sacrifices of the Israeli Army officers who measure their heroics by the amount of blood they spill!”

“They risk their lives so that you and the rest of Israelis live in peace in a community surrounded by terrorists”

“Yes yes, I can never forget the sacrifices of demolishing civilian homes and crushing the terrifying children in both Gaza wars”

She turned away when he mentioned the genocide at Gaza that she personally led under the instructions of Ariel Sharon, Binyameen continued addressing everyone:

“History has proven that blood does not build nations, the age of the bullet has come to an end, we are now in the age of a scientific and technological race, and that is where we are superior!”

“And that is why we tolerate a one-eyed abomination like yourself! Move on and don’t waist our time you son of…”

When Danny uttered his statement, he did not expect that Binyameen can jump over the table and throw a punch at him before he starts his next word:

“This was for calling me one-eyed”

He circled around him and locked his arm around his neck and stuffed his thumb in his mouth and clamped onto his tongue and continued before Danny could even comprehend what was happening:

“And because you even thought to cuss my mother, I will rip out your tongue, it will be less painful if you do not resist”

Binyameen’s nails dug into Danny’s tongue who was throwing his arms backwards in an attempt to grab Binyameen and remove his grip, the rest of them came out of their shock, Yuval and Nafttali rushed to relieve Danny and two security guards came in and were able to pull them apart and restrain the movements of Binyameen and Danny who tried to attach Binyameen with blood flowing from his tongue and mouth while yelling ang growling with a lisp caused by his injured tongue:

“I will kill you! I swear I will kill you with my own two hands and keep your eye as an ash tray you freak… you damned scum”

His cursing went on as he left the meeting room, Binyameen picked up the towel that had dropped off his shoulder to wipe of the blood in disgust.

“I hope that whatever you are about to show us can justify your mischief and is worth this stupid display”

Said Tzipi who did not show any interest in the fight between Binyameen and Danny, Binyameen ignored her and he gestured to Elyana, an image appeared on screen, an eye in the center of a compass and a right-angled ruler:

“The result of the alliance between the Templar and the Rabbis of the Ashkenazi, the shrewdest secret group of all history emerged: the Freemasons who in a short amount of time to set in motions their plans across the planet and utilize the savings of the Jews who are less than two tenths of a percent of the human population”

“This is God’s promise to us”

Said Rabbi Eliyahu, Binyameen responded:

“Plots of war, total domination of global media that was used to deceive and push propaganda that advances Zionist agenda, bribing country presidents and those in power with money and women, taking over the world’s gold, diamonds, financial markets and global trade… the list of filth goes on that can never be part of a divine plan! The Devil himself would be ashamed to claim credit!”

“All to restore the glory of Israel and achieve God’s promise”

Binyameen turned to the Rabbi and answered:

“I forgot that your Talmud convinced you that non-Jews are not humans, and that the ends justify the means”

He gestured to Elyana, and images of wars, struggles, protests and acts of violence flipped on the screen:

“And as you know, the Masonic plots achieved most of its objectives, only two threats remained: Free social media networks that broke through their grip over media, and the leaps in technology that is creating alternatives for the wealth that they control”

Elyana brought a new picture onto the screens… a picture of Eyad and Husam:

“This is the original mission of my team: study supernatural phenomenon and reach scientific explanations for them, then advance it to gain scientific lead for the state of Israel. Five years ago, news about a young Arabian man who came out of a car accident with abnormal abilities after he was near death, we had him under surveillance to study him”

He gestured to Elyana, the imaged turned into a scene showing Husam and Eyad practicing martial arts in the back yard of Mansour Al-Zaydi’s palace:

“As we monitored Husam, we stumbled upon another phenomenon that we no less strange”

The video was not very clear, as satellite surveillance was still at its beginnings. As the watched Husam, they felt as if Bruce Lee has come back to life, Eyad was trying to keep up with his fast moves, Husam finished the fight with a side kick that threw Eyad several meters before he fell on his back, the scene ended when Eyad got back on his feet:

“Did you notice anything?”

As he said it, Elyana rewinder the part where Eyad was getting up, and played it in slow motion, he extended his hand in the air as if someone in front of him helped him up, and he then stood when that unseen person pulled him up, everyone was shocked; Binyameen gestured for Elyana to play a second clip that she had retrieved from the recordings of the cameras attached to the masks of the solders who tried to abduct Sawsan, Maram and Jumana at the Marriot. The clip was very short, it was of the solder carrying Maram when he shouted as he fell to the ground while Maram’s body floated gently to one of the couches as if some invisible carried her. Binyameen commented:

“I have tens of evidence that there is a mystery surrounding Husam and Eyad, and if we know what it is, we would be on the doorsteps of an enormous scientific revolution”

Elyana then played the next clip, a map that shows a blinking dot, Binyameen explained:

“This blinking dot is originating from the tracking device in the bracelet I gave to Jumana, Eyad’s daughter. As you can see, she is in the middle of the Marriot hotel”

The dot disappeared suddenly, then reappeared three seconds somewhere else on the map:

“At the exact moment of the explosion, the child disappeared and the reappeared three seconds later in a spot that was two hundred and fifty meters away!”

Chatter spread in the room before Yuval said:

“Do you have any explanation for all of this?”

“I am not sure, but all the evidence point to the fact that Husam had gained abilities that far surpassed what the media reported, I think that he somehow can be at two place at one time, or that he could move to parallel dimensions”

Reactions varied amongst the audience, from rejection to ridicule, except for Tzipi who’s curiosity was peaking, so Binyameen went on:

“There are clear signals of dealing with other universes and instant teleportation in what was reported about King Solomon, I am sure his books hold many of those sciences and secrets… All the discoveries we have made through the Zohar and Kabbalah are negligible if compared to what we still did not uncover. I think that someone has beat us to more of the science of Solomon’s kingdom and somehow got them to Husam during his coma, my mission is to solve this mystery”

“I am finally intrigued”

Said Tzipi, Binyameen moved his face closer:

“I will do my best to always keep you intrigued madam, fore I am sure that I will die in suspicions circumstances the moment that I lose your interest in me”

“Your artificial eye has been turned off for the entire meeting… why?”

“I doubted anyone else besides you had notice the absence of the sound of my lens’s gears motion, you still have your Mosad intuition; in any case, there were faces that I did not feel like seeing today, but don’t worry, I will always keep my eye open”

As he said that he dropped his glasses to gaze at Tzipi with a died look from an artificial eye that was turned off and an acrylic eye, a gaze that terrified a hear that almost does not know terror, Tzipi said mockingly in an event to try and hide her terror:

“Good, even if you have to blink, don’t blink at the wrong moment, and never blink with both eyes at the same time”

He placed his dark glasses back in their possession as her replied:

“Thank you for the advice, but I don’t need it, I can see without my eyes!”

*****

Mansour Al-Zaydi, Eyad’s father, rushed through the Marmottan hospital’s corridors, he leaned at the ER receptionist:

“I am looking for the casualties from the Marriot hotel, I am looking for my son, his wife and my grandchild”

He ran to where she had pointed before she could start talking, his eyes were digging through each room in the corridor until he notices Sawsan sitting on the inspection bed surrounded by two nurses and Jumana was sleeping on the bed’s edge, the stormed into the room as he asked in panic:

“Where is Eyad?”

“Don’t worry Dad, he flew out”

Mansour hugged Sawsan, and carried Jumana in his arms and started kissing her between her eyes as he took his breath and exhaled with tears:

“Thank God… Thank God… The police had your names amongst the casualties, my heart was about to stop”

“Thank God, he blessed us and sent us a savior”

The two nurses had left the small ER room, the door behind Mr. Mansour slid shut, and his body shivered when he heard a voice behind him:

“I finally get the honor the meet Eyad’s father”

(5)
The Aquarium

F ear is an instinct buried in the fabric of your DNA, it usually arises from the unknown. The unknown terrorizes you, frightens you, terrifies you. But… when the unknown becomes familiar… the fear dissipates. You fear death, because of your ignorance of what lays after it, although it might be the relief from your struggle in life; you fear darkness because you do not know what it hides, although it might be easier and gentler than many of the things you see every day; you fear jinn because you never met nor mingled with them, despite the fact that you know that the had never and will never brutalize you are you brutalize each other.

Mr. Mansur Al-Zaidi went through of those stages in an instant: surprise, scare, astonishment then terror that dissipated with Hawjan’s sentence that held in its tone a truth that convinced him that Hawjan was more than just a friend even though he can hear him without seeing him:

“I am Hawjan, Eyad’s friend, we met once at the wedding, I was materialized as Dr. Emad Zaki”

A shock like this can not be comprehended unless you met a jinni and he had spoken to you directly; Mr. Mansour did not reply, his breaths turned into small consecutive gasps, he looked through that emptiness where the voice was coming from, then his gaze that had never carried so much astonishment moved to Sawsan who smiled to calm him, then towards Jumana who had just awoken and opened her eyes slowly then shouted cheerfully when she noticed her grandfather:

“Grampa, I missed you very very much, where is Gramma? Guess who came”

She jumped in joy as she continued:

“Elyaseen! Elyaseen, where did you go? Come great Grampa Mansour whom I told you about… Where are you Elyaseen?”

Mr. Mansour forgot his lower jaw that was hanging as his eyes popped when the room’s curtain moved and a childish laughter came from behind it, Jumana ran towards the sound and stuck her hand behind the curtain to pull Elyaseen:

“Come on Elyaseen, come on, don’t be shy, Grampa Mansour will play with us and bring us candy… come on!”

Elyaseen came out from behind the curtain holding Jumana’s hand while looking shyly at the floor and stealing quick looks at Mr. Mansour who could not believe what he was seeing, where did this come from? He looked just like any five-year-old kid, he gazed at his white pail skin and coal dark heavy hear that dropped over his eyes and clean stylish clothes… the knock out was when Elyaseen turned and ran towards Jumara who had not materialized in our world as he shouted in a language that Mr. Mansour did not understand, and the kid rose in the air in front of his eyes when his mother carried him in her arms, Hawjan went on to help Mr. Mansour out of his shocked state that precedes fainting:

“This is Jumara… my wife, Mr. Mansour, I do sympathies with the shock you feel, but we need to talk, there are things that you need to know!”

*****

Binyameen ignored the two guards and their machine guns as he passed his palm in front of the fortified door’s lock to read his prints and pores before its gears slammed and the lock moved allowing Binyameen to pass to the medical wing at the heart of the secret base of Future Israel, Eyad jumped from his bed and attacked Binyameen, he did not care about the tube connecting his arm to the IV that fell off of its bar to the rooms floor and rolled behind Eyad as he held Binyameen from his shirt and yelled:

“You almost killed us you damn freak! Did you trick us just so you can lure us to this despicable trap?!”

He landed his fest on Binyameen’s face who stayed calm, blood from the needle in Eyad’s arm splattered on Binyameen’s face when he punched him, he followed with a second punch, and the third almost did the same but Husam’s strict words stopped it:

“Eyad, that is enough!”

Binyameen fixed his glasses and slowly removed Eyad’s grip from his shirt as he said calmly as if nothing happened:

“Thank God for your safety, I am truly impressed!”

“Are we supposed to dance in joy because we managed to impress you after you tried to kill us?!”

Said Eyad as he tried not to attack Binyameen again, then he replied in the calm tone:

“Getting out of that situation with but a few bruises and minor scratches is an achievement worthy of celebration and dancing, man you’ve been given a new life!”

“Where are we? What do you want from us?!”

Said Husam as he pointed at the virtual window that was showing a three-dimensional image of nature:

“You Husam have what I want, simply I need to test and analyze your abilities to figure out its secrets”

“Do you expect us to just cooperate with a maniac such as your self to perform experiments on us?!”

Said Eyad as he contemplated attacking him again, while Binyameen answered:

“First of all, we will only perform experiments on Husam, as far as we are concerned you are but a normal human, a mere addition to these experiments. Secondly and more importantly, I am sorry to inform you that Sawsan, Maram and Jumara’s safety is dependent on your cooperation”

Him mentioning Sawsan and Jumana was the equivalent of detonating a bomb inside Eyad who attacked him again, but Binyameen’s reaction this time was different, he shifted gracefully and pulled out a gun that was hidden in his belt and pointed it towards Eyad’s neck as he pushed him and slammed him to the wall, and before he could comprehend what was going on, he held Eyad’s hand and placed the gun there and dug it into his temple and said:

“I am sick of your boyish spectacle Eyad, go on pull the trigger if you are really serious!”

The shock paralyzed Eyad, Binyameen continued as he pushed his cheek harder onto the gun:

“This is the only chance you will get to kill me, wither kill me now, or stop performing the role of the fool”

“Binyameen, what happened to Maram, Sawsan and Jumana?!”

Asked Husam, Binyameen answered as he retrieved the gun from Eyad’s hand and hid it back in his belt:

“It appears that someone was trying to get to you before I did, the Marriot hotel was the target of a suicide bomber… But rest assured, they are not harmed”

Worry spread through Husam and Eyad’s veins:

“Who is trying to get to us? Who’s behind the operation?” Demanded Eyad.

“Them…” responded Binyameen abruptly.

“Them?! Them who?!”

Husam interrupted him:

“Where are Maram, Sawsan and Jumana now?”

“They are at Marmottan hospital, and they will get to them is we waste any more time”

“And you expect us to trust you again, just like that?!”

“Unfortunately, Eyad, I do not think you have any other choice but to trust me, you only need to believe that what we are doing will save millions of human lives, including Sawsan and Jumana”

“Does humanities future depend on using me as a guinea pig?”

Said Husam, Binyameen responded:

“Had it not been for me, your body now would have been scattered amongst a large number of laboratories around the globe, you have the most expensive blood, I am sure you can imagine what some criminal organizations might be willing to pay for a sample of your blood! The entity I work for do not have a surplus of ethics or patience, all they care about is getting the secret to your abilities, all of them! All I can give you now is a promise to finish those experiments in the fastest possible way”

“You could have just drained my blood and give samples to all your labs!”

“I got all the samples that I need the moment you arrived here, and it did prove my theory, on the physiological level you are less than normal, nothing special about your DNA, and your cells lose their super abilities the moment they leave your body. I am convinced that all of your abilities come from your subconscious that got full control over your body when you were near death”

“So you want to push me to near death so that it would remanifest itself!”

“Finally, we are on the same page”

Eyad cut them off:

“I don’t care about the experiments now, all I care about is the safety of Sawsan, Jumana and Maram, we must call them!”

Binyameen put his hand in his pocket and pulled out two phones and waved them to Eyad and Husam as he said:

“Luckily our team was able to save your sims and phone data and I got a copy of them, please accept this small gift from me”

Husam snatched his new phone abd said:

“I just want to know they are safe”

“Nothing will happen to them”

Said Binyameen as he exhaled in a way that revealed his worry, Eyad’s worry multiplied as he went through the messages and missed call to find several calls from Sawsan and from Dr. EZ.

*****

In the hospital cafeteria around a table with four seats sat the billionaire businessman Mansour Al-Zaydi and his daughter in law Sawsan and a middle eastern man with his gorgeous wife who Hawjan and Jumara designed their bodies as the materialized; the terror of meeting a jinni for the first time melted away the moment they materialized, everything about them seemed human to the point that everyone almost forgot that they were not from our world; Jumana was playing with Elyaseen on the table next to them, while Sawsan and Jumara forget the jealousy war between them as they started chatting about women stuff shocking them of how similar their worlds were, and Mr. Mansour eyebrows remained tens for a while, trying to force his brain to comprehend, until Hawjan started:

“Eyad is a real hero…”

“Eyad lied to me for seven years!”

“We promised each other to keep it a secret between me, Eyad and Husam… this is more dangerous than you can imagen”

“Regardless, he should not have lied to his father and mother for all this time”

“Please understand Mr. Mansour…”

“Just Mansour please, I do not like titles… even if I was older than you my son, age deference does not mean much to me”

Sawsan and Jumara exchanged a smile as they listened to the discussion between Mr. Mansour and Hawjan who said:

“Even if that age difference was almost double?”

“How old are you Hawjan? Twenty-five? Thirty?”

“in a few months I will be ninety-eight”

Awe knotted Mr. Mansour’s tongue, he shook his head as he laughed in disbelief as he shifted his eyes between Hawjan and Jumara who told him:

“Don’t look at me! I am still at my prime age, Hawjan is twenty-three years older than me!”

“In that case Elyaseen is as old as I am?!”

“Elyaseen was born on the same day I performed my operation”

Said Sawsan as she struggled to hold in her tears while Jumara squeezed her hand, Hawjan noticed that so he changed the subject back to its beginning:

“Eyad and I agreed to keep this subject a secret for our safety and yours, if news of a materializing jinni spread, delusionests would use that to trade in people’s ignorance”

“Nocebo and placebo dealers”

Hawjan crossed his eyebrows enquiringly, Mr. Mansour continued:

“Nocebo is to get people ill through delusion, while placebo is to cure people through delusion, in societies where myth and ignorance spread; the delusionests who deal in in people’s ignorance promote the obsessions of phantom symptoms and illnesses, after that they would step up to cure those delusions taking advantage of peoples ignorance and cultural or religious beliefs, naturally such thugs who would use religion to scam people for money would use your story to spread their poison and delusions even further”

“Human and jinn thugs are alike, Sawsan’s father my God have mercy over his soul, was entrapped by such delusionests, imagine a man of his stature would slaughter a black goat in hopes of curing his daughter!”

“Humans lose their mind between hope and despair! I know heads of state and CEOs who would slaughter a black goat and bathe in its blood and organs at their Masonic gatherings to please Lucifer! The same rituals for the same devil! But what do you have to with all of this?!”

“Me, Jumara and Elyaseen are the last of those who carry the Fayhee abilities, we inherited it from our great grandfather Hanaeel, who served King Solomon and his son King Menelik. Because of our ability to materialize, we represent a fortune to those who serve witchcraft and delusions, Elyaseen’s blood was the payment demanded to let Sawsan and her family go, we almost died in our attempt to flee me, Jumara and Elyaseen!”

The discussion between Hawjan and Mr. Mansour was getting more exciting, Sawsan and Jumara joined in sometimes; as for Elyaseen and Jumana, they had slept like little angels each on a chair… until they got to the details about what happened at the Marriot lobby:

“Impossible! Such a criminal act with such an organized gang just to kidnap Sawsan, Jumana and Maram!”

Said Mr. Mansour who could not comprehend that the suicide bombing was actually targeting his daughter in law and his granddaughter, Hawjan hesitantly added:

“And abducting Eyad and Husam…”

Sawsan gasped, as Hawjan continued:

“They are supposed to go to America, but Eyad’s mobile was heading east, and then suddenly vanished, I tried calling him several times to no avail”

Hawjan’s worry resonated with Mr. Mansour:

“I too have tried calling him since yesterday, I hope they are ok! I am afraid that they would attempt to kidnap them again, we must get out of here as soon as Maram is stable”

Mr. Mansour did not know that the second attempt to kidnap them was already in progress… Jumara’s intuition was lit and she jumped to here feet as she looked to the ceiling and focused her hearing then said extremely worried:

“We must get Maram out of here at once!”

*****

On another table, almost two thousand miles away, sat Binyameen with Husam and Eyad in a McDonalds near the coast line of Haifa, they were surrounded by a bunch of boxes that contain, actually that did contain the double quarter pounder cheese burgers that Husam liked, Binyameen could not hide his amusement:

“Would you like me to order your fifth meal?”

Eyad who only had one meal replied:

“Husam needs to constantly charge his cells”

“I hope that those four thousand calories are enough for the next experiment”

Husam said as he chewed on his last fries:

“Do you still insist on hiding the details of the next experiment?”

“You will live experience it your self in less than an hour”

Said Binyameen as he moved his fingers on the table, a normal person could have never noticed it, but Husam understood, (we are being watched) that was what Binyameen wrote on the empty table, Husam changed the subject:

“ok the, could you at least tell us more about yourself?”

“For one full year you have been telling us that you are an investor and film maker, who are you exactly? What plot requires you to engage with us for such a long period of time and involved Christopher Nolan…”

Binyameen cut him off with a wicked smile:

“You mean the 3D interactive copy of Christopher Nolan”

“Impossible! With all the advancement in graphics technology, there is no way a 3D image could fool me!”

“There is no comparison between the technologies that exists, and those that we allow to the general public to see”

“Who do you work for Binyameen? Mosad? Shin Bet?”

Said Eyad furiously, but Husam who realized the discussing such topic was not suitable while being watched, so he cut off Eyad:

“Your bionic eye is also from those technologies not allowed to the public?”

“This is the project I had dedicated my life to: The Neuro-Digital Transceiver”

Binyameen noticed curiosity creeping on their faces, so he went on:

“I lived twenty-nine years blind”

That was a totally surprise to them, he removed his dark glasses, he looked upwards then pressed his fingers on its sides, his pointer finger slipped in between his eye ball and socket, then he pulled it out easily as if it was just a simple contact, in its place there was a dark void that only shoed the reflections of some delicate metal streaks, Binyameen pointed to his eye socket as he said:

“I translated the Electrophysiological signals, the mediator that converts any neural signal accurately to digital and vice versa”

A smile started to form on Binyameen’s face is response to Husam’s awe, he threw his bionic eye to Husam who instinctively caught it and asked as he stared at it:

“What resolution have you achieved in deciphering the signals?”

“Such high resolution that allows me to know that my eye has traveled ninety eight centimeters and four millimeters and turned one full turn and twelve degrees before you caught it… so accurate that I can take an image that is more than one hundred and twenty mega pixels of your staring eye now and save it directly on its memory of several terabytes, or send it directly to my computer or cloud”

Husam almost threw Binyameen’s eye, the thought of holding someone’s eye while he could still see him was enough to send shivers down his spine, while making Eyad yell in astonishment and curiosity while picking up that complicated marble from Husam’s hand to inspect its lens that was constantly moving:

“Your eye communicates wireless with your brain too?”

The lady setting next to them gathered her stuff and pulled her tow son away from this strange sight, Binyameen picked up his bionic eye from Eyad’s hand and pulled a small bottle from his pocket, then sprayed it on the eye and again in the eye socket before her returned it and turned it in its place:

“My eye has technologies that far surpass what you could imagen in any portable device”

“Your eye only?”

Binyameen understood what Husam was implying, such accurate conversion between neural and digital signals means a revolution in cyborg development, it means that the brain can receive signals directly without senses or organs and allows one to control machines that he could connect to though wires or wirelessly…

“Your consciousness Husam, your life, all of your feelings reach your soul through your brain, and your brain is connected to the world through the spinal cord that carries the neural signals and though the arteries that carry oxygen and glucose… in short a wire and two tubes!”

“Are you saying that a human can live with just a brain? Without the need of a body or his organs… impossible! That is a silly hypothesis!”

Binyameen answered Eyad as he put on his dark glasses:

“Just a moment a go you held in your hand the proof of it being a tangible reality, not just a hypothesis! At this moment, we have a chimp that lives at one of our labs for years now without a body, just a brain connected with tubes for blood and a wireless  Electrophysiological decryptor controlling a second unit implanted on the spinal cord of a second monkey, the result is that the monkey without a body for years is convinced that he is living a normal life and is in full control of the body of the other monkey who’s brain went into a coma after we severed its connection to its spinal cord”

An uneasy silence shadowed them for a moment before Husam said:

“So that is your project!”

“That is one of my projects, I am now working on a much more daring project, and hope to complete it with your help… that is why we need to hurry!”

He head towards one of the workers to pickup a bunch of bags, Husam commented:

“I appreciate your interest in my appetite, but I am really full!”

“Those are not for you, there is someone whom I have to see before we start our mission”

He stuffed the bags of burgers with hem in his sports car and headed towards Lev LaLev orphanage house in Haifa. Binyameen refused Husam and Eyad’s help to carry the bags, Elyana greeted them in her military uniform and her serious stance with her hands behind her back, Binyameen entered the place and every one greeted and smiled at him as if he was one of the homes staff, when he opened the door to the play room the children shouted in joy: Binyameen Binyameen… and they surrounded him snatching their happy meals… save for one girl who ran to the corner of the room, she wrapped her arms around her legs and tried to hide her self between the corner and the swing pole. Binyameen move close to her bringing her a happy meal box, she turned her face away when she felt him approaching, she could not see him, he sat next to her and placed the box between them, Amal, the blind nine year old child, felt his movement; she reached out towards the box and pushed it away, then wrapped her arms around her legs again and pushed her self harder into the corner…

“I need someone to challenge me in chess e4”

Said Binyameen to start the virtual chess game that is set completely in Binyameen and Amal’s memory only, a method developed by Binyameen’s mother that relies on imagination and memory where movements are done by mentioning the coordinates of each move… Amal responded with anger that did not relax yet:

“Go and challenge those of sight such as yourself!”

“You want to maintain your previous defeat then… in any case, my eye is turned off”

He succeeded in provoking her, so she moved her pawn:

“e5”

“qf3”

“Naplion, send your queen back! You know this strategy does not work on me; you are letting me win to get on my good side! Where have you been for the past twenty-three days?!”

Binyameen opened the happy meal and pulled out a chicken nugget, Amal did not mind him feeding her…

“I came back from a trip yesterday”

“I will not allow you to travel again!”

Eyad and Husam could not believe that the man sitting next to the blind girl was Binyameen, he had nothing in common with the freak that nearly killed them in cold blood yesterday; Elyana stood next to them, she said to quench some of their curiosity:

“That is Amal, an orphan from Gaza, one of the children that Binyameen’s mother had saved after operation pillar of cloud seven years ago”

“Couldn’t he have visited her later to save what little time we have?!”

Eyad asked, Elyana answered him:

“Amal is the last member of Binyameen’s family”

“What about his mother you just mentioned? Did she pass away?”

She replied sadly and abruptly:

“Killed”

Amal’s anger vanished as she felt her new toy with her nails and finger tips to reconstruct its details in her mind, she grabbed Binyameen’s hand and tapped it with her finger in a code that Binyameen created so that they can speak without anyone listening or understanding them, she tapped with excitement mixed with sorrow on Binyameen’s shoulder:

“If Binyameen stayed away too long again Amal will be very angry”

Binyameen held her palm and tapped it in reply:

“Binyameen will not be too long again, I promise”

Binyameen kissed her between her happy eyes.

“We tried calling Maram and Sawsan, but there are closed!”

Said Husam in a worried tone as they left the orphanage… Eyad added:

“I have no choice; I have to call my father to check on them!”

“Your father is already with them… don’t worry”

Said Binyameen as he increased their speed on their way to the next challenge… that might be the last…

*****

Jumara’s intuition allows her to sense negative and hostile energy from a distance, she did not need to give details, fore anxiety is now the default fallback, Hawjan explained his plan to everyone and they all started executing immediately, it was not a plan per se, it was more like a last hope!

An ambulance followed by two dark armored vehicles stormed the hospital’s entrance, an officer jumped out of the car followed by several solders who terrified the hospital workers:

“We have orders to transfer victims of the Marriot bombing: Sawsan Said, Maram Al-Shareef, Jumana Al-Zaydi”

The perfectly duplicated police badge, the transfer papers, the ambulance, all of those things left no room for doubt that this was most probably an elaborate scam. Within minutes the convoy was moving at top speeds, utilizing the ambulance sirens to rip through Paris’s traffic carrying Sawsan, Jumara and Maram, the traffic vanished, only the three cars remained on this obscure bridge leading to the private airport, the doubled their speed to catch the plane that was going to take them to Eyad and Husam… to Israel.

If you were ever surprised while driving a car by the hand of an invisible person on your neck you would not doubt be hysterically terrified, but the ambulance driver’s reaction was different, his instinct as a professional criminal made him pullout his gun that was on a holster under his ram and without thinking fire two bullets towards the invisible person that had locked his grip on his neck and the driving wheel, Hawjan got a hold of the gun’s barrel forcing the bullet to miss and shift to the ceiling, that was enough warning to other guard sitting at the back of the ambulance where Maram was laying and next to her sat Sawsan who was holding Jumana. The second guard pulled out his gun that he had hidden under his paramedic uniform, he looked through the window between him and the front of the car, he was about to fire a shot, but Jumana attacked and screamed so loudly that numbed everyone for less than a second, then it continued without a audible sound as she pushed the guard’s gun with her hands, the gun vanished along with the guards arm.

Yes, his arm vanished for a fraction of a second, then returned severed to our world as a result of Jumana’s scream, or to be precise Elyaseen who had shapeshifted to look like Jumana; the guard shouted hysterically out of fear and pain, he stormed towards the ambulance backdoor and opened it with his remaining hand, then threw himself to save his skin.

His misfortune that day threw him under the armored vehicle that was tailing them. At the same time Hawjan managed to pickup the gun that fell from the ambulance’s driver and pointed it to his neck, the professional thug’s training never addressed invisible people that ended with flying guns, he contemplated all his options… and took the decision that had the highest chances of survival… and he jumped out of the ambulance, Hawjan slammed the brakes to force it to stop while Jumara who was in the shape of Sawsan held onto Maram’s bed so that it does not fall out of the ambulance.

The remaining thugs disembarked their armored vehicles, and cautiously moved towards the ambulance, preceded by their guns and their pounding hearts that had never been this tense before. They had no idea that they were facing an invisible assailant from another universe, and that was only one of his advantages, but his most important advantage was his ability to move between his universe and theirs at will. Despite all that had happened there was no sign of any driver at the ambulance’s driving wheel, that was half the shock; the other half was when they heard the wheels of one of their armored vehicles as it slammed violently into the other and pushed it until both vehicles fell off of the bridge.

Hawjan who got off of the armored vehicle as it started to fall did not give the baffled thugs looking down at their armored vehicles a chance, her returned to the ambulance and sped away towards the location agreed previously with Mr. Mansour.

*****

Binyameen drove by the shrine of the Báb Alí Shírází that over looked the foot of mount Carmel, before he turned into a side road decorated on both sides with old trees and villas, the car went through the gates of one of them that was only a camouflage hiding a pass way that penetrates it and continues underground.

“A secret base next to the shrine of the Báb, the most famous tourist attraction in Haifa! What madness is this?!”

“On the contrary what cunning! The base is directly underneath the shrine, a location that would never accrue to anyone, and with the blessing and protection of the UNESCO!”

Said Husam in reply to Eyad’s disapproval, Binyameen did not comment while increasing his speed to the point where the lights of that pathway turned into flashes if lines of light, the car finally stopped in front of a huge glass room at the center of a round yard that was stuffed with equipment, Binyameen said abruptly:

“Welcome to the Aquarium…”

Elyana was waiting for them with her worried face, she was followed by a team of four men wearing the same military uniform that she had on.

“Here you will perform the second phase of the experiments”

“After you almost killed us in the first…”

Said Eyad commenting, Binyameen sharply tuned towards him and said:

“Allow me to clarify something for you, you are both abducted and will be disposed of quietly if you do not pass the experiments and prove that you have what is worth keeping you alive… I am the only person who believes you have latent abilities that would only manifest themselves through those experiments, I risked a lot to prove that, and I truly hope that my risk and your lives would not be lost in vain!”

Binyameen’s strict statement was countered with an even stricter statement from Eyad:

“And is there anything that guaranties our safe return home if we do pass your tests?”

“No…”

Said Binyameen silencing the entire room for a few seconds, then he continued:

“But I will do what I can to keep everyone safe”

A situation like this would cause any normal person to panic, but the things that Husam and Eyad have been through set them in a totally different category that loves challenges and never give in to surrender.

The military team went on to perform some tests on them and they ended it with placing metal bracelets around their ankles, now it was time for them to enter the Aquarium, it really felt like a huge fish tank, its glass that seemed transparent from the outside, turned into polished mirrors from the inside, nothing connected them to the outside world save for the cameras and sensors that measured everything, the speakers conveyed Binyameen’s voice to them:

“This phase is life or death… literally, you are required to stay alive”

When Binyameen finished his statement, the only wall in the Aquarium opened, six men heavily armed with non-ballistic weapons, their shouts mixed with Binyameen’s voice who continued through the speakers:

“Everyone in this group has been sentenced to death in first degree crimes, they were promised their freedom if they killed you, you have to terminate them to move on to the next phase… Good luck”

The fight was not fair, despite Husam and Eyad’s courage and intense fighting training, but crowds -usually- beat courage and training… especially with the amount of injures on their bodies that enticed the thugs to attack them even faster. That speed brought down the bear chested rhino with a belly who was swinging a weapon that was something between a sword and an axe, he was the first to reach Husam who greated him with a round kick where his left foot heel took on the task of rendering him unconscious when it knocked him down as it slammed between his ear, jaw and neck, Husam caught his weapon before it touched the ground and threw it to Eyad who had decided to forget all humanitarian impulses and turn into a heartless butcher for his girls.

Binyameen’s eye watched what was going on in the Aquarium through the glass and glimpsing every now and then at their vitals on the screens around him; Elyana approached him and whispered:

“A call from the central office”

“From her?”

“Yes…”

She was clearly worried, as if the mere mention of her sends shivers down her spine, Binyameen nodded and she transferred the call to one of the screens where she appeared… Tzipi Livni… the most powerful woman in the history of Israel following Golda Meir:

“Their decision is unanimous on shutting down the project… and prosecuting you!”

She said without the regular pleasantries and greetings, Binyameen on the other hand was ignoring her to the extent he did not even look at her while watching Husam and Eyad’s fight with what remained of the thugs:

“Should I expect the assassin, or a more elegant approach… a poisoned espresso for example”

“We have no time for your mockery, I have given you my trust Binyameen, the budget and authority that you received is beyond what anyone could have dreamed of! You are the first to use the Aquarium since we stopped our activities there in 2008!”

“You mean ever since military obsession became unfit for anything other than cheap movies and terrorist gangs… I think you yearn for operations that mow innocent lives by mistake!”

“It is was Binyameen! Do you not understand?! Angels would get their wings stained in blood if they come near war!”

“Fresh children’s blood! Only devils are enticed by feasts of politics and battle fields”

“Arabs Binyameen are fighting crocodiles that feed on sectarianism! For every child they lay in our path to cry over, they kill a thousand children by their own hands without a single tear”

“Even if the Arabs annihilate each other, do you find that an acceptable excuse to spill a single drop of an innocent child’s blood? Forget spilling blood, is there anything that justifies the money gobbled by the military budget or the fires of war?”

“We are surrounded by nations that pray to God day and night to eradicate us and freeze our blood in our veins and to shake the ground under our feet, they long to exterminate us and throw our ripped rotting corpses in the Mediterranean, would you want us to invest in rose farms?!”

“They are still occupied with the battels amongst themselves on based on lines drawn by those who died fifteen hundred years ago, and the legality of girls plucking their eyebrows, but when it comes to Israel you find them content with praying alone, luckily Israel it is surrounded by nations that can only master prayer and some cursing! Science is the only weapon worthy of investment, nations who invest in death… do not deserve to live!”

“And for that exact reason we had focused our efforts on scientific and technological advancement, that is why I put my faith in you Binyameen!”

“And that is why you canceled the project!”

“Tell me Binyameen, why did you mention the Temple and teleportation in our meeting? I do not think you only wanted to impress us”

“I am convinced that the secrets of teleportation are somewhere… in some book… and that it is related to the scientific heritage of Solomon’s Kingdom”

“Are you so desperate that you are now looking for scientific discovery in midst of religious texts?”

This one of the few times Tzipi has ever mocked someone… Binyameen ignored her and continued reciting a verse from the Quran then repeated it in Hebrew:

“An Efreet from among the jinn said, I will bring it to you before you rise from your place, and indeed, I am for this task strong and trustworthy… Said one who had knowledge from the book, I will bring it to you before your glance returns to you”[3]

“What is that?!”[4]

“This is a Quranic verse”

She replied in shock:

“You converted to Islam then!”

“What I believe in is out of limits, I will not allow anyone to question it! But I do memories several holly books”

“And what did you conclude from the holly books?”

“The mysteries of King Solomon’s story is scattered between the Torah, Quran and the Kebra Nagast… I concluded that a scientist in Solomon’s Kingdom had knowledge that we did not discover yet, one of which was teleportation, I suspect he was Hiram Abiff… the godfather of the Freemasons!”

“Mentioning the Temple and teleportation in front of Danny was utterly stupid… you know very well his stature amongst the Freemasons!”

“I know very well his stature amongst all secret organizations, and was hoping he would pass on the message to his masters”

“His masters have been dreaming of cracking the secrets of the Temple and the Ark of the Covenant for centuries, do you think they will allow you to get to it before they do?!”

“Clearly all of their efforts have not been fretful!”

“In any case, we have a leadership meeting tomorrow at eight, in less than thirty hours… I hope you get some results by then, and if you did not… please watch your back… I won’t be able to protect you”

The bomb Tzipi dropped created more stress in the room than the stress in the Aquarium, with a slight difference: the amount of spilled blood. Four thugs lay between a coma or died, Eyad was desperately trying to stand by leaning on the axe that was covered in blood; as for Husam, will he was gasping for air and his heart rate was beyond all human levels, wondering if he could last long enough to finish of the remain two thugs.

Binyameen on the other hand was forced to finish the experiments no matter the cost, he turned to Elyana and said grudgingly:

“Double the gravity”

“But…!”

He ignored her and reached out to a dial on the control board in front of him, he turned it half a turn; that dial creates a magnetic field between the floor of the Aquarium and the metal cuffs on Husam and Eyad’s ankles… or in other words increases the effects of gravity on them.

Eyad lost his balance and fell, as for Husam, he swayed a bit before he could regain his balance, that was an encouraging signal to the criminals to continue their attack and ignore what happened to their comrades. The less courageous of them attacked Eyad who was covered in his own blood, he wrapped his arms around his neck to choke him, the other gripped his knives tightly and screamed as he stormed towards Husam’s chest whose feet were stuck on the floor because of the increased gravity.

Binyameen turned a second dial, water started to flood the Aquarium, as if what Husam and Eyad were facing was not enough to finish them, the Aquarium started living up to is name as the water level started to rise mixed with the blood.

Husam tried to evade the stab, he some what succeeded, as one of the knives slashed his upper arm, he needed to exert double the energy to move his legs, there was no way he can throw a kick in such circumstances, but he can utilize it to break the neck of the thug chocking Eyad, he struggled to raise his foot then dropped it to detach his neck’s vertebrae before the last thug regained his footing…

Binyameen was whispering to himself as he watched this display of blood:

“Come on Husam! Bring out your abilities… Damn it what are you waiting for?!”

The water level reached Husam’s waist, as for Eyad, he was coughing blood and water as he tried to take a breath… the last thug was attacking in a final attempt to finish off Husam.

On average, a human can hold his breath for no longer than three minutes before loosing consciousness, as for Husam, will he passed that time by at least double, and that was an advantage that he can use to end the battle, he decided to jump the thug and grab his neck so that they would both fall into the pink pond; as the minutes passed the thug attempted to stab Husam in the back, this time he was struggling to take a breath of air… But could not get any… Husam left him float peacefully and ran towards Eyad who’s face started to go underwater and he was unable to swim because of the increased gravity, Husam shouted as he punched the Aquarium’s glass:

“Binyameen!”

Elyana asked him:

“Should we stop?”

Binyameen slowly nodded NO… and continued watching Husam who lost hope in the shackles coming off, so he headed to Eyad and struggled to carry him on his shoulders, he gasped his last breath before his nose went underwater… he stared in anger through the reflective Aquarium glass directly at Binyameen wo continued whispering:

“Come on Husam… Please!”

(6)
#SaveEyadAndHusam

H e sat on the edge of the bed, watching me through the reflecting glass in front of him, while I rolled up my sleeves and sat behind him tending his wounds that spread across his back, he was in a bit of pain, yet he smiled a lot. I think we got used to these situations, his life is in danger, his body sustains tons of injuries, I attend to them… and we smile…

Our joy of meeting each other outweighed injury… it mocked pain.

“It has been a while since I spent quality time with you”

“Ever since you went back to your world and stopped sleeping!”

“Am I asleep?”

“You are about to drown”

“Malak, what exactly is going on?”

“Forgive me Husam… it is all my fault”

He turned to me and held my face… oh how my cheeks missed his palms, and my eyes his.

“I did not know that the entire world will hunt you down as a result of what happened between us here…”

“The entire world does not matter to me… all I care about is returning to you!”

“My hear aches for you Husam, you are facing death on every moment and I am here powerless”

“I will come back to you as soon as I know that Maram is safe…”

“I will miss you Husam…”

My heart bleeds every time I remember that he will not stay in my arms, every day he spends away from me I live as a decade… every moment in his life is like a long heavy day in mine, he vanished from my arms, my tears washed the remnants of his touch on my cheeks. Husam left me once again and returned to the living.

Binyameen’s face was dug into his palms, and his brain was deep in a vortex of thought and conclusions… and worry…

Feelings that he had abandoned ever since he bid his mother farewell and with her most emotions and feelings… but those emotions decided to storm him at that moment; Elyana cut off his line of thought as she whispered in a format military tone:

“We performed the necessary medical aid on Husam and Eyad… and…”

“Did you get the recordings from the Marriot Hotel before the explosion”

He interrupted her as she had his line of thoughts, he was going over all the data and conclusions in his mind… and his eye. As the connection between his brain and eye was not limited to being an alternative tool for sight, but it was also a miniature computer connected to his nervous system and to the internet at the same time. He was digging though all of that in search for the answer to Husam and Eyad’s mystery… Tzipi’s statement and her thirty-hour ultimatum were haunting him.

“Yes, I emailed you the link just now”

He accessed his email through his eye, he was able to download that huge video file in second, Elyana had to utilize all of her connections in the intelligence community to access that video in such circumstances, the video played from his eye into his optical nerve directly, his mind reviewed it frame by frame, he dissected every frame… Binyameen noticed the child that was playing the piano with Jumana, and he was utterly shocked at the moment the explosion happened, not because of the explosion itself, but because of what he saw in the fraction of the second between the explosion and the end of the recording, in that small window the camera shook in a way that defocused the image, but Binyameen was able to notice Elyaseen’s movement and him carrying the piano with one hand then disappearing with Jumana!

“Impossible!”

Said Binyameen calmly in a way that intrigued Elyana’s curiosity while awaiting his instructions… he repeated the scene several times to convince himself to believe what he is now seeing with his eyes. His astonishment grew as he focused on the corner where one could barely see Sawsan, Maram, Hawjan and Jumara, and he fanatically kept repeating the two images: before and after Hawjan, Jumara, Elyaseen and Jumana vanished.

His smile widened with his astonishment, he raised his head slowly and gave Elyana his commands:

“Prepare the capsules and the Stealth Bomber, we will start the last phase right away!”

“But that might cause…”

“Elyana, my life and yours are in much graver danger that Husam and Eyad, follow my orders without question before Tzipi revokes our authorities”

“As you command Mr. Binyameen, everything will be ready in two hours and…”

“Only one hour! During that time, I want to get a complete report regarding the movement and communication of Eyad’s wife and Husam’s sister from the moment they arrived at Paris, in addition to a detailed report regarding their kidnapping operation”

Elyana dismissed herself as he appeared to have drifted away, she had no idea that he was replaying that scene between his eye and his mind, and his breath was getting faster as his excitement grew to solve the biggest mystery he had ever faced.

*****

Tears -usually- carry one of two messages: joy or sorrow. But a mother’s tears are different, a tear slipped down Manal Al-Aqeel’s face carrying its own message, a tear of sorrow, a tear of plea, a tear of query, and plenty of tears of worry.

The explosion that occurred at Marriot Hotel caused a second explosion that was no less violent in her heart, the was about to get on the first flight from Nice to Paris to catch up with her husband who had canceled his business meetings there to checkup on Eyad, Sawsan and Jumana, but the message she received from Mr. Mansour lit off more explosions inside of her; an abrupt message from their son’s old phone saved under the name Dr. EZ sent tot her maid’s phone:

“I am Mansour, Take the first flight from Nice to Rome and then from there to Jeddah, don’t tell anyone and do not take your phone, I will see you at Jeddah with Eyad, Sawsan and Jumana, Love you”

Her tears continued as she leaned her head on the plane’s window, she did not know that this was a plan to save everyone from the grip of one of the most ruthless secret organizations, a plan created by her husband in cooperation with an Efreet from the jinn universe.

Mr. Mansour Al-Zaydi was no less worried for the safety of his wife, he was heading north on the highway at maximum speed in his Lamborghini that Eyad had gifted him for his 60th birthday, he was heading to the spot that he had told Hawjan to meet him at after he was able to shake off the thugs; Mansour was thinking in a way that would suggest he had dealt with them before… or worked for them. Heading to the airport or the Saudi embassy in Paris was equivalent to surrendering themselves to that organization, as they would expect all of those possibilities and will monitor all roads leading there, the alternative was to insure Mrs. Manal’s return via Roma, and head to the Saudi embassy at Brussels while getting rid of any phones that the organization could use to track them. Everything went exactly according to plan, but Mr. Mansour noticed a helicopter appear in the horizon behind them, his throat arteries swollen announcing his worry:

“Impossible!”

Sawsan who was holding her child in the front seat shared Mr. Mansour his worry:

“Dad? What happened?!”

“They sent a helicopter to track us, how could they locate us?! We left all our phones, search your clothes and Jumana’s cloths, there must be a tracking device!”

Sawsan went hysterically through her clothes and Jumana’s, and then shouted when she remembered the Little Ponies bracelet that Binyameen gave to Jumana… the ripped it off and was about to throw it out the window but Mr. Mansour shouted to stop her:

“Don’t throw it! Quickly hand it over to me!”

Mr. Mansour toke the bracelet and sped up to get closer to his target, the truck in front of him! He drove by its side and threw the bracelet at it then turned right to pass through Ermenonville Forest.

Reaching his friend Christopher Augustin’s farm through the Ermenonville Forest added an extra two hours to their trip, he carefully pulled up to the hut’s door, and before he got out of his Lamborghini Christopher’s voice echoed, he had not seen his Frensh friend for years:

“Last I saw you, you were a young man, now you return an old man with his grandchildren!”

Mansour let got of his worry and embraced his old friend:

“From what I recall you had more hair Christopher, what remained of it lost its golden shine”

“Brauds prefer mature men by dear!”

Their laughter encouraged Sawsan, so she carried Jumana and approached to greet Mr. Christopher:

“This is Sawsan, Eyad’s wife, and that is Jumana my granddaughter… Jumana, say hi to uncle Christopher”

Jumana crossed her legs and as she greeted him:

“Happy to meet you Mr. Christopher”

As she stood up right, she heard a familiar voice:

“Jumana!”

He ignored Christopher’s instructions not to come out and ran to hug Jumana:

“Elyaseen! What are you doing here?!”

Maram came out leaning on Jumara, Sawsan rushed to hug them; Christopher looked at Mansour by the edge of his eye and smiled as he said:

“I thought you got old for adventures; you owe me plenty of stories from what I gather”

Mansour felt a lot of relief when he saw Maram and Jumara, but a question was nagging at him, and before he asked Jumara answered him as she tried to control her tears:

“Hawjan went to Eyad and Husam, he received a message from Binyameen!”

The calls and messages between Sawsan and Hawjan before he got to Paris were the keys Binyameen needed to decipher the mystery, after he saw Elyassen, Jumara, Hawjan and Jumara vanish in the camera recordings from the Marriot Hotel, he now needed to locate those “beings” and communicate with them… the answers came to his through Elyana’s investigation… this so called Hawjan was the key to the mystery!

“Husam and Eyad’s lives are in danger, follow this link to save them”

An abrupt message that he sent to Eyad’s old phone registered under the name Dr.EZ was enough to force Hawjan to leave Jumara, Maram and Elyaseen in the care of Mr. Christopher after they were able to shake off the thugs following them and ditched the ambulance, Jumara then possessed Maram and Hawjan pretended to be her husband looking for a car to take them back to their farm.

Hawjan rushed towards the live location that was sent by Binyameen, he only carried the phone and the gun he confiscated from the thug at the ambulance, and plenty of worry. The point was approaching fast, it was near a location he knew well… his home… Hindabah.

“Binyameen, we are getting too close to the territorial waters of Saudi Arabia”

Elyana was nervous as she flew the Stealth Bomber towards the point where Hawjan’s calls originated.

“That is why I chose the Stealth Bomber, so that we can finish the mission without bothering the radars, but the idiots in the ministry of defense insisted on sending an escort of F-35”

“Are you really convinced that someone will show up to save Husam and Eyad?”

“We will shortly know for certain, I sent my message to the ghost Hawjan more than an hour ago, if he could teleport, he would have shown up by now, we must end everything immediately”

The fleet of the Stealth Bomber and the two F-35 fighters were passing by Tiran island, carrying two capsules designed for deep see missions, Eyad was in one and Husam was in the other, they were programed to head towards the remote island of Tiran.

Binyameen was not planning of suffocating Eyad and Husam in the depths of the Red Sea, the original plan was to put them in extreme situations to provoke Husam’s super abilities to surface, but the adjustments to the plan occurred when Hawjan came into the picture, the two capsules will land on the coastline of Tiran island that occupies the same space as Hindabah does in the other dimension. Binyameen swallowed his sorrow and worry to prevent them to show in his tone of voice as he said:

“Connect me to Husam and Eyad, I need to bod them fair well, even if they were lucky enough to survive, I don’t think I would be so lucky!”

Binyameen sent his message through the speakers in the capsules holding Eyad and Husam, Husam alone received it since Eyad was still unconscious; he then looked at Elyana who held the controls and commanded her to release the capsules after he lost hope in Hawjan showing up.

But before Elyana executed his commands, something slammed into the bomber’s glass! Just a sound without any object, it made Elyana twitch and dive the plane as an impulsive reaction, while Binyameen’s smile toke over his entire face as he shouted:

“Finally!”

Bangs came in droves, Elyana started to panic and Binyameen got ecstatic, their panic and ecstasy got to its peak when the source of the banging appeared, Hawjan who started to materialize holding onto the edge of the glass in front of Binyameen with his right hand and in his other hand he held the gun that he smashed with all his might on to the glass, Elyana screamed as she sharply turned the plane forcing Hawjan to let go… and vanish from sight.

Another scream echoed, but this time over the com system coming from the F-35 pilot:

“Damn it! What was that?! It is shooting at me!”

The bullets bounced of the fighter’s glass, Hawjan tried again, but this time he pointed at the jet engine, his bullets ran out, but none of them did any damage. Hawjan’s grip tightened on the plane in his last hope to reach Eyad and Husam, with all his anger and fury he released a thundering scream between dimensions, the pilot was pushing the engines to the limits:

“We received orders to retreat and return to base immediately, I repeat retr…”

His voice was cut off, in fact the entire plane was ripped apart! Its nose vanished with parts of its wing and engine…

It went to the jinn dimension for less than a second then it reappeared again to smash into its other half and falling into a fire ball towards the beaches of Tiran.

“Elyana, release the capsules!”

Commanded Binyameen as he secured his seat belts, Elyana who was overwhelmed with terror ignored him, Binyameen reached his hand to the control panel to launch the capsules, Elyana grabbed his hand in objection, but he harshly pushed her aside as he said:

“He has come for them; you have to get rid of them if you are scared of facing an Efreet”

The capsules launched and dove several meters into the Red Sea before it adjusted its direction towards Tiran coastline.

Binyameen, as usual, ignored the orders from central command. He ejected himself from the bomber in the final chain of terrifying event for Elyana, his seat was ejected, and its parachute unfolded, and he floated calmly down to the beach of Tiran following Husam and Eyad’s capsules. His joy as he stepped in sea water heading closer to the two capsules far exceeded the joy of a bride on her wedding day to the prince of her dreams, he cam down on his knees, and started by opening Eyad’s capsule then Husam’s all the while laughing hysterically as he repeated:

“I knew I was right! My mind never failed me!”

As soon as he opened Husam’s capsule, a kick threw him on its glass nose, he turned and said:

“We meet at last my friend”

Hawjan who had materialized without taking any form, held Binyameen from his shirt and screamed in his face:

“Here I am you damn psycho! What do you want from me?!”

Binyameen surrendered to Hawjan’s grip, and looked through the emptiness where the voice came, his eye gears were turning wildly trying to capture any signal:

“Your existence is enough… you are my proof! You are the doorway between the world and the metaphysics”

Hawjan’s anger threw a punch into Binyameen’s gut, bit the latter did not allow it to pass this time, he still retained his blind insight that allowed him to see sound and movement, Binyameen held Hawjan’s unseen wrist:

“Who are you Hawjan? What are you?”

Hawjan’s face slowly started to form, Binyameen’s gears went mad with anticipation, and its crystal lens widened when Hawjan’s features became visible as he materialized in our world while saying with harsh anger:

“All you need to know now is that I will pluck your neck if anyone got heart!”

*****

Mansour and Christopher sat on the porch overlooking the latter’s farm, they watched Jumana and Elyaseen has they played with joy with Vital the dog who was larger than the both of them combined.

“Ah my old friend, tell me your story, I suspect it would be way crazier and exciting than your youthful adventures, please do not disappoint”

He lit the flames in his pipe in anticipation, his statement forced a smile upon Mansours face, so he replied:

“The issue is not in the amount if excitement, but in its believability, I promise you, I myself find it har to believe my own eyes”

“I hope this has nothing to do with your old friends”

“I suspect that they are the ones after us”

“What?! I thought you cut all your ties with the group since the nineties”

“That was youthful recklessness, the propaganda around the masonic movement was enticing as much as it was terrifying, but I was encouraged when I found out that prominent social and religious figures had joined them”

“I don’t know what came over you! Such a unique successful person as yourself does not need to join a movement to achieve his dreams”

“I joined the Frensh Latin Masonic house because it was more refined than its counter Scottish Anglo American counterpart, it represents the left labral wing of the Freemasons”

“But of course, everything that is Frensh is superior to its English counterpart no doubt… but Freemasons are Freemasons”

“By the time I made it to level three I started to discover that their slogans were nothing but a vail for the disasters that only a select few of their ranks ever get to see, that is why I decided to stop fooling myself, from the moment I was enlisted in their ranks they claimed that the objective of joining is to make me a better human; to strengthen my connection with God and my family, and to improve my performance at work and my interactions with people; all of those fluffy claims dissolved within their suspicions rituals and the excessive secrecy even amongst themselves, I became confidant that they were involved in a lot of crimes, so I decided to cut my ties with them”

“I think that entering their brotherhood is much easier than exiting”

“Exiting the brotherhood means to get your throat slit or hanged, those are the terms of joining, they did threaten me several times, but their taste for assassinations had receded, there was a time when they would not think twice to take out presidents and kings, but today they are struggling to fix their image, they try to maintain their grip in a time where awareness is flooding the world and the weapon of secrecy and pushing lies became worthless. But their beef this time is not with me, but with Eyad and his wife Sawsan, the bombing of the Marriot was a cover up for kidnapping them”

“But Terrorist groups have already claimed responsivity for the bombing!”

“Terrorist groups, secret organizations, crime families… all different names of the thugs who feed on the blood, money and freedom of the innocent , what worries me is their persistence for abducting Eyad and Sawsan, a suicide mission, attacking a hospital, chasing me with a helicopter, what drives them to risk their secrecy and provoking the Frensh government?”

Christopher’s eyes widened and he almost choked on his pipe’s smoke:

“And what do you plan on doing? How will you shake them off?”

“Tomorrow I will head to the Saudi embassy in Brussels to secure our return to Jeddah”

“What about Eyad?”

“They abducted Eyad long before the explosion and took him to Israel…”

“What I do not understand is your friend Joe… Joehan?”

“Hawjan”

“Whatever… did he really go to Israel to help Eyad? How? Is he not Saudi? Therefore, he can’t enter Israel?”

Mansour smiled as he joked:

“You can consider him from another universe”

*****

Sunset in a remote island like Tiran means that the night will ingulf everything, and nothing will escape its darkness save for the chandelier decorating it with holes the maximum they can do is separate the decorated sky from the dark earth. Silence was expected after the horrors that they’ve just been through, Husam gathered his breath while Eyad was regaining his consciousness as a result of the drugs pumped through his veins, Hawjan let go of his form and Binyameen ignored all the possibilities that he was going to face; they sat facing the sea who’s waves played a symphony that was not appropriate for the tense discussion:

“I think that your experiments are over now Mr. Binyameen, now that we ended up here on this remote island with no living beings other than ourselves”

Husam stated in a tone torn between anger and fatigue, Binyameen responded:

“I thought this island was inhabited, otherwise, how did Hawjan call Sawsan from here?”

Eyad’s eyes widened as he yelled:

“What? Hawjan, is he…”

“Sawsan knows everything! Relax they are all safe now, I left them with…”

“Hawjan we are being watched”

Husam said interrupting Hawjan as he recalled Binyameen’s signal to him at that burger place, he deduced that someone was monitoring everything his bionic eye was transmitting, but Binyameen replied assuring:

“I turned my eye off the moment I saw Hawjan, relax”

“And you expect us to trust you after attempting to kill us several times you despicable Zionist scum?!”

Shouted Eyad who would have jumped to snap Binyameen’s neck had he not been so severely injured, the latter replied:

“You have the right to curse at me but never call me a Zionist! It dishonors me to be affiliated with a group that survives on killing the innocent and its interests are in destroying the world”

“Is this a new scam?!”

“Binyameen is not lying now”

Replied Hawjan who knew Binyameen was being truthful because of his balanced aura, Binyameen went on:

“When my father died; thy scammed my mother into moving from LA and settling in Israel, she had no choice really after his legacy as a movie maker in Hollywood turned into debt, the only thing he left her was a fetus who was fated to be born before the end of his seventh month as a result of the horrors that she had witnessed at the settlements, I lost my sight because of the stupid mistake of the nurse who ignored covering my eyes that had not been developed properly yet! My mother became a thorn in their sides, she participated in all anti-Zionist movements, produced several documentaries exposing their crimes, signed pacts with holocaust survivors’ families in support of Gaza and how the Zionists have been using their story as a justification for their crimes. She would rush with her jeep into warzones after every bombardment that targeted civilians neighborhoods to help save survivors; and that got her into heated arguments and fights with Israeli forces officers almost on daily bases, she dedicated all of her time, money, efforts and connections to provide care for the children she saved from beneath the Israeli bombshells; all while still taking care of her blind son… at the end… they killed her”

Binyameen stopped, as he took in a deep burning breath that forced his bionic eye to cry, he almost crushed the black chess knight and he squeezed on to it then continued:

“An Iron Dome missile that was launched on the day of truce during the Operation Strong Cliff in Aug 2014 that burned the rubble of innocent civilians while my mother was trying to save some children from that hell. I received the news while I celebrating my graduation from Singularity University at Mountain View, CA, my heart stopped pounding, and all my emotions vanished, I aged decades in a blink, and I swore to fulfill my promise to her and dedicate my life to humanity after I had failed in achieving my dream of seeing her, I only saw her grave and what remained of her pictures and movies. Luckily Israel’s government is obsessively supporting science and technology, otherwise I would have ended up dependent on charity. I was given an open budget to achieve the only thing that I had in common with the Israeli government: Technological and Scientific superiority”

“To serve the Zionist agenda!”

“The Zionist agenda is falling apart, dying, we are propelled to a new age, an age where humanity and science will eradicate the remnants of the ideologies that have enslaved humans and torn them apart for millennia, but idiots can’t comprehend that, especially the Zionists and the organizations that support them”

“And were back to the Freemasons!”

Said Eyad who did not know that the organization he mentioned was so entrenched into his life to the extant that his father was once a member.

“Zionists and Freemasons were able to create the illusion of money that they control, why do you think Gold and Diamonds have such value? Why did the universe agree that this metal and that rock are the measures of wealth? And who is stock pilling them and controls its flow? Who controls and manipulates the world financial markets? A simple equation rally, controlling the elites through influence, desire and interests, control the masses by utilizing ignorance and ideologies while enslaving them in the grinding machine of making ends meat, that is what they have done for decades… actually for centuries, but its affect is subsiding as science and awareness spread; the Freemasons could not come to terms that its secret forts will be demolished by the explosion of information”

“And what does all of that have anything to do with abducting us and our families?”

“First you need to know that I never intended to simply extinguish your lives, I had to convince you that your lives were in danger to force your subconscious to respond while at the same had all precautions in place to save your lives if I had to, I had been batching you since news of Husam’s recovery spread across the medical community, then I discovered that you were accompanied by some invisible force, I thought that Husam had acquired some telekinetic abilities as well”

He smiled as he looked in the general directions where Hawjan’s sound was coming from:

“I had never expected that I would meet a real Efreet”

Hawjan who was still furious responded:

“You almost killed Sawsan, Maran and Jumana!”

“I had never planned to abduct Sawsan, Maran and Jumana, I was had only setup surveillance to figure out your powers, but things got out of hand when that damn Danny intervened, this guy has hands so deep in the filth of both Zionist and Freemasons’ movements, he had convinced the officials of a cleansing operation to coverup any traces of the abduction of Eyad and Husam, he supervised the bombing operation himself through the masonic chapter in Paris”

Hawjan added:

“They have been persistently tracking us down, I risked my life as well as my wife and son to save Sawsan, Maram and Jumana, I left them with a man I never met to come and save Husam and Eyad”

“And you succeeded! You brought down a fierce F-35 with your barehand, and now you will take them with you”

“Hindabah’s outskirts are on the other side of Tiran island, but in all cases I can’t take Husam and Eyad with me”

“Are you trying to hide your secrets? I thought you were convinced that I was being truthful!”

“This is the truth! It is nearly impossible for Humans to come to our universe!”

Binyameen eyes widened as he said with clear surprise is his voice:

“But Jumana vanished the instant that explosion detonated then reappeared mere seconds later hundreds of meters away! How did that happen? She must have moved through some other dimension!”

Hawjan exhaled as his gaze moved between Eyad who was drenched in his pain, worry and anger, and Binyameen who was soaked in curiosity:

“My son Elyaseen… I don’t know how he was able to do it; he moved Jumana when the explosion happened”

“Didn’t you just rip half the plane into your dimension?!”

“Trust me I don’t know how I did that, when I scream in anger, I move stuff between dimensions… there are plenty of legends surrounding our ancestors who used to…”

Binyameen almost jumped from his posture as he shouted:

“Said one who had knowledge from the book, I will bring it to you before your glance returns to you!”

They were all astounded by the fact that he was reciting a verse from the Quran with such excitement, he continued:

“Teleportation must be happening through another dimension where time flows differently, the one who had knowledge from the book must be able to move through that dimension, (I will bring it to you) is clearly a hint to the time and effort needed, but because it is happening through that other dimension; the time spent in that dimension to go to Sheba and return with the throne was mere fractions of a second in our world (before your glance returns to you)”

Hawjan stuttered when Binyameen came to that conclusion:

“We are the blood line of Fayhee, the descendants of Hanaeel, the servant of King Solomon and his son Menelik, the guardian of the Arc of Covenant and the companion of the keeper of the book…”

“Your grandfather then was that Efreet who offered to bring the throne of the Queen of Sheba before he rises from your place! But that means that he could move it through the dimension of jinn but not through that other dimension!”

“Full mastery of moving through dimensions higher than ours is knowledge that only the keeper of the book had, Elyaseen apparently inherited our ancestors’ abilities to move between human and jinn dimensions, more importantly is that he can move humans without their bodies ripping apart between dimensions, Jumara inherited the abilities to form, she can turn into anyone just by holding any trace of him”

“DNA sample!”

Said Binyameen interruptingly, as his brain was exhausted beyond anything he had ever experienced before by what Hawjan was saying, as the later continued:

“As for me, I have limited abilities in materializing and moving objects between our two dimensions”

Binyameen sot his most pressing question:

“Do you know where the Arc of Covenant is?”

“My grandfather Hanaeel carried the Arc back with King Menelik to Sheba, he lived five hundred or so years as the guardian of monastery of the Arc in Fayh Valley”

“You are speaking of Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion at Axum; things are getting clearer! According to the manuscripts of the great Negūses, Kebra Nagast, King Menelik son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba was the one who took the Ark after his father’s death and hidden it in Axum that was part of his kingdom… Zionist authorities are actually taking steps in that regards, in 2009 Patriarch for their church Abune Paulos announced during his visit to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican that they had the Arc in Ethiopia and that they are working on revealing the Arc to the public, then Masonic and Zionist influence intervened to insure that the Arc was relocated to Israel once the Temple of Solomon was rebuilt, but for some unknown reason the Patriarch and the Ethiopian prime minister  were eliminated in mysterious circumstances after their public announcements… they must be trying to get their hands on the Arc, if they did not get it already”

Hawjan and Binyameen’s discussion painted the full picture that uncovers the mystery of the Arc of Covenant, that picture needed to shed light on both human and jinn sides to be revealed… Hawjan concluded:

“My grandfather’s statue has this engravement (The arc will till the end of times be guarded by the son of man and the son of jinn)”

“The verse did mention an Efreet of jinn and the man with the knowledge of the book, can that be your grandfather Hanaeel and the master builder of the Temple Hiram Abiff? Is that why one of the Temple’s towers are is called the Tower of Hananeel? And if the Arc dose exist, then what prevents the Zionists from accruing it? No no, there is no way they already have it, that would be a disaster by scales, Zionism and Misoneism will regain its full power, strength, and reputation that had receded even amongst its ranks… not only that, but what if the Arc contained even more scientific discoveries? The Zionists and Freemasons were able to rebuild existence with what little crumbs of science they were able to recover from underneath the ruins of the Temple, imagine what the what they would do with actual Arc and the secrets it contains! We must get to the Arc before they do, we must prevent them from ever having it”

Although the discussion was intriguing Husam and Eyad, yet the latter objected:

“Now I know for a fact that you are a lunatic! Your lunacy led us here to this remote island and instead to finding a way put of here you brag about challenging the Freemasons!”

Binyameen thought silently for a moment then addressed Eyad in a strict voice:

“Mr. Eyad, What does the future of Jumana mean to you? Would you be happy for her to live in a world controlled by a bunch of devils? If you care about her future, I care about the future of eight billion people, I will never give up on fulfilling the promise I gave to my mother before she died until I give up my last breath”

Binyameen’s tone was enough to bring everyone onboard with that same promise, Husam assuringly said:

“Binyameen, you are not the only one who would give up their lives for humanity, but before we do, we will need to find a way out of this mess!”

“We have got a few moments before the Israeli forces get here, I never expected Hawjan to destroy the fighter, as it exploded, so will the Israeli government and ministry of defense, they will storm here in rage before a political crisis ignites between Israel, America and Saudi Arabia”

“What does the America have to do with this?”

“Hawjan destroyed their most furious fighter with ease, this will plummet its value and that my friend will drive the Americans mad”

Eyad exhaled with growing pain as the painkillers’ affects started to ware off:

“And why don’t we hide on the island instead to waiting for them to arrive?”

“The Israelis have filled its sand with landmines before they evacuated it, but everything has changed with Hawjan here… I am contemplating a few plans… for starters, you all have to die for some time!”

*****

It is hard to find the words to describe how safe Mansour, Sawsan, Maram and Jumana felt when they set foot on their nation’s soil… even if that soil was a small plot on Franklin Roosevelt Avenue in the heart of Brussels that represented Saudi Arabia’s Embassy in Belgium. The Saudi Ambassador welcomed Mr. Mansour Al-Zaidi as he would a brother, they all sat in the Ambassador’s office including Jumara and Elyaseen who were back in the jinn realm after getting exhausted of forming amongst humans. The Ambassador addressed them with curiosity filled with anxiety:

“Thank God you are safe, we were all worried when we heard the news of the explosion at the Champs Elysees and that there were Saudi casualties”

Mansour who had thrown his weight onto the chair next to the Ambassador’s desk while lowering his head to open up the pathways for his lungs breath:

“Thank God that they had announced the casualties’ names after I had found Sawsan, I would have had a stroke if I’d believed the news!”

“What’s important is that you are fine now, in a few moments I will call his excellency the minister and let him know that you are safe, then we will issue you new passports for Sawsan, Maram and Jumana and finalize the preparations for your trip back home… but do you have any news regarding Eyad and Husam?”

“Unfortunately, Eyad and Husam have been abducted, and all the evidence point to the fact that they are now in Israel”

“That is unacceptable!! I will inform his excellency at once!”

“Your excellency, I must let you know”

Said Sawsan who had started exciting her plan for saving her husband:

“The news regarding the explosion spread through the internet , everyone thought we were amongst the casualties, especially after we stopped all our social media presence after we had been heavily present during Husam’s exhibition… but I went onto my twitter account today and sent out my first message since the bombing”

She pulled out the phone she got when she arrived in Belgium and opened the message that had exploded across all social media platforms:

“The bombing at the Champs Elysees was a conspiracy, Eyad and Husam have been abducted to Israel! Please #SaveHusanAndEyad”

*****

The night’s vail burned over the island of Tiran, shattered by the tens of shining spotlights that looked like meteors cutting through the Red Sea’s waters towards the point where Binyameen’s digital eye’s signal was detected. The solders of the Israeli special forces jumped out of their armored boats to surround the area, leading them was one of the most ruthless ex-military and a current member of the Knesset and Future Israel, and the most envies of Binyameen… Danny Danon.

Binyameen was on his knees next to the two capsules that had expelled Eyad and Husam’s bodies mixing their blood with the beach’s sand and waves, the solders surrounded them, they pointed their spotlights and machineguns at their faces and made way to Danny to reach his target… he bent one of his knees and brought his face close to Binyameen’s as he said in a mocking tone:

“I thought you had followed your traitorous mother, but you are still alive… unluckily for you”

“You saw everything! They are coming! Premuda is but the beginning… the beginning of the end”

Binyameen was rambling those incoherent sentences, Danny did not give it much attention as he turned towards Eyad and Husam.

“You have lost your mind; I do not blame you for losing is as you did your two dolls that we were performing your stupid SciFi experiments on!”

“They all died… he killed them all!”

“Listen Binyameen, we all know that I get everything your bionic eye transmits! Stop playing the fool! The footage of you fighting with an invisible freak, and the battle between you two that supposedly killed the two Arabs… you want me to believe that? I am sure that you are pulling off another one of your tricks to fabricate that scene and transmit it through your eye!”

“And you think I can fabricate two bodies that you now see with your two eyes?! Leave them here, they are no longer useful, here I am in your grip, take me to leadership, there is important information that I must present to everyone!”

Danny gestured to one of his solders who in turn went to feel Husam and Eyad’s pulse, he removed his glove and pressed with his pointing finger on their necks, then shook his head left and right announcing that they were indeed died…

“OK then… no harm in making sure, in fact I only trust my bullets”

Danny said as he heavily steeped towards the two capsules… he never suspected that Husam could drop his heartbeat to just a few beats per minute, and that Hawjan has done the same to Eyad’s heart as he possessed him and controlled his muscles and nerves, yet that plan did not bold well with his intuition; so he pushed his machinegun against Husam’s forehead… and the race started! A race between Danny’s trigger finger and Husam’s fest that grabbed the machinegun’s barrel, and Binyameen who stacked with all his might… And Danny’s finger won! The bullet stormed out, but it missed Husam and dove deep into Binyameen’s gut, then Husam and Eyad jumped to their feet, more accurately Hawjan who was controlling Eyad’s body, they engaged Danny and his solders in a desperate attack that the bullets ended promptly.

Danny moved towards Binyameen who had started to lose his consciousness as a result of his pain and lost blood, he raised him aggressively by the throat and looked with half a smile into his bionic eye:

“Wait wait my friend, I don’t want you to die yet; did you forget that you owe me an electronic ash tray? Come on freak, record your last moments, I want you to enjoy my face before you pass my kisses to your mother in hell”

Binyameen gathered his last breaths, coughing half of them with blood as he replied:

“You are committing the biggest mistake in your life! I must meet your Masonic masters; I now know everything!”

As Danny held Binyameen’s throat in his right grip, he pulled out his bionic eye with his left, then kicked him with all his strength where the bullet had struck his gut, Binyameen screamed and a vail came over his consciousness… and over that hellish night.

(7)
Knight amongst Pawns

E ach of us has two eyes…

They rejoice, sob, rage, whisper, scream, bleed tears, sing and sparkle.

Two mirrors of our soul, ambassadors of our hearts… their mission only ends when its shine does.

However…

Some of us force them to live despite them fading, ignites them despite their lack of spark.

Nine years old, never saw light save for in his mother’s arms, each of them forces joy into the other’s life. He’s always laughing, jumping, running and competing with those with sight, he only differs by the sound he makes while running eliminating the path in his mind along with the echoes of his reckless steps that had covered his face with bruises.

He sat across her challenging, his toes brushed over the carpet’s wool as he swung them back and forth while concentrating his thoughts on winning this game of chess, his mother was a pro who had inherited her metal chess set along with her skills from her father who had escaped the Nazi hell to the American hope; she did not go easy on her blind child this time, she knows that his drifting dim grey eyes did not see the chess table, but his mind detailed the battle completely, she taught him how to calculate the locations of the armies by their coordinates, he had recreated all of them as he squeezed them with his fingers, he reached out to the black knight whom he remembers his location by heart, and threw his knockout by surrounding the king:

“Check… mate?”

Asked Binyameen, not believing that he had won his first game, his mother applauded him both with her hands and heart, he jumped in joy, his shoulder slammed into the table scattering the chess pieces, the kid shouted as if he had won a real battel, it was indeed a real battle that his mother was preparing him for, he felt the scattered pieces searching for his black knight that he could recognize by its scratches emblazons, he held it over his head as she shouted:

“I won! I won!”

She untied the red leather bracelet from around her rest while he continued:

“I will challenge everyone! No one will beat me after today!”

She took the knight from his hand, knotted her red bracelet around its base allowing it to hang upside-down, and crowned her child with that neckless:

“The only thing that can ever beat you is your vanity Binyameen”

He felt the knight with his fingers:

“I will become the world champion, nothing is impossible, right ma?”

“Winning my dear child is not by beating others… winning is by helping them and bringing them joy”

“I want to bring you joy ma”

“If you trolley want to bring me joy, then you must promise me something”

The horrors of life distracted her from the fact that she was speaking to a nine-year-old child, she saw her husband’s persistence and dreams in what remained of his eyes:

“You must promise me that you would dedicate your life to change this world to the better”

The horseman tightened his grip on his knight:

“I promise you mother! I will change the world”

She held him in her arms, she knew her child will do anything for her, she felt that he would fight a devastating war with the devils that were dragging the world to their hell… he moved his fingers over her face, and looked directly into her eyes as he continued:

“And I promise you that I will see you ma, I will see you with my eyes as you see me now”

His world unleashed a flood of tears as she squeezed him into her ribs:

“Sure you will see me Binyameen, future advancements in medicine will…”

The knight child cut her off:

“I will not wait for medicine to advance; I will make my eye myself!”

*****

Binyameen gasped, his mother vanished, he woke from his dream and came back to his pains. His gasp squeezed on his wound’s pain that spread from his gut to his ribs. Elyana -who had not left his bedside for the entire ten nights he had spent at the military section of the Sheba medical center at Tel HaShomer- rushed to him and so did Amal after Elyana was able to pull enough strings to get her from the orphanage. Amal wrapped her arms around Binyameen’s neck with joy.

“Amal! You will hurt Binyameen!”

“Let her be Elyana, this is but a simple wound”

“Simple wound?! You lost two ribs and a kidney! Spent five days in a coma in intensive care, and you say a simple wound?!”

Elyana regretted her failure to keep her emotions in check in front of Amal, she did not notice that she was occupied by her secret dialogue with Binyameen, who held her small palm and started tapping it with his fingers while at the same time talking with Elyana:

“I am fine now, don’t worry one kidney is enough for me!”

She handed him the tinfoil that she brings every visit:

“Fine, try not to lose it as well, I’m not so keen on donating my kidney!”

He took the tinfoil, and handed half of it to Amal and started working on another hobby that they share with no one else, Elyana sat as she watched them squeezed the tinfoil into works of art while continuing their tapping dialogue… Binyameen made the tinfoil into the shape of his mother’s face before serious knocks on the room’s door brought and end to their abrupt moment of joy, the knocker did not wait for an answer, as he, actually she, entered with heavy footsteps that shot shivers down Elyana’s spine, so she pulled Amal by the arm:

“Come on Amal we must go to the waiting room, we will come back to Binyameen later”

Amal tried to resist Elyana, but her fright forced her to leave Binyameen alone with Tzipi.

“Inquiries will start tomorrow”

She said as she sat on the edge of his bed and crossed her arms and legs, he replied:

“That is kind of you, by the way, thank you for the flowers”

“Don’t you ever stop your mockery?”

She pointed towards the tinfoil statues placed around Binyameen:

“I think you got enough presents; you exhausted your security detail while searching every tinfoil for hidden codes”

“Don’t worry, I am but an injured blind casualty under tight security!”

“You listen to me, I want to know everything before the inquiry starts, please Binyameen, I gave you my trust, my reputation and history of serving Israel is at stake here”

“I have simply figured out the secrets of the Premuda Triangle, Roswell and the location of the Arc of Covenant. In short, I solved most of the mysteries and paranormal activities that have baffled the world for centuries”

“Binyameen!”

“Creatures from other worlds vanished the plane for an instance, exactly as they did when they threatened the American government of abducting more planes and ships at the Premuda Triangle”

“Listen, management almost left you to die after your fatal injury, but we decided to do everything we can to save your life and find the truth”

“Ah, kept me alive and one whole kidney… I am speechless, can’t find the words of gratitude for your kindness… damn you… damn you very much!”

“I knew that your recklessness will cost you your life, but I never thought that you would be so stupid that you would resist a special forces battalion!”

“Is that the story Danny came up with?”

“An ambush to retaliate on the special forces battalion, high risk action that required the elimination of all those involved… that is the official report, you can add your statement tomorrow if you wish”

“I thought you were smarter than that my lady, you know Danny and you know me, if someone among us was stupid it surly would not be me. He fabricated his entire story to settle his beef with me, I am sure his mercenaries will testify for him”

“I do wish you are lucky enough to convince the committee of that”

Binyameen pointed to the cavity where his bionic eye was supposed to be, he tapped with his index finger on its metallic base inside his skull:

“The shooting was not at all justified, everything is recorded, sound and picture!”

“And you think Danny will give back your bionic eye?”

“I let stupid Danny believe that he succeeded in tracking my eye’s signal and that he was watching me all the time, I had triggered its system self-destruction before he removed it”

Her eyes widened and jaw dropped:

“You weasel! You sent the recorded files to another server”

He smiled as if he could actually see her dropped jaw:

“Everything is recorded on my beloved cloud! And sending a copy of all the files to political figures in Israel, France, Saudi Arabia and America will not even require me being alive!”

Tzipi stood suddenly and held him by his shirt in a manner that was not appropriate for a woman of her age and shouted at his face:

“Now you listen to me you freak, you made me regret the trust I placed in you, you have erupted a diplomatic crisis, especially after your friend’s wife rallied the social media networks and ignited public opinion to save her husband, add to that the destruction of a fighter plane at one of the most volatile points in the Red Sea, do you know what this all means? America has gone mad and sent an investigation team, you have destroyed all of their future deals for selling the F-35!”

She tightened her grip on her shirt and as she grinded out each letter:

“If you dare compromise Israel’s security, I will rip your head off your corpses with my bare hands!”

Binyameen laughed so hard multiplying the pain of his torn gut, he answered her by passing his fingers over her face gestures and hair:

“Oh my God I have never seen you this angry, only now do I miss my bionic eye! Would you allow me to make a tinfoil statue of your angry face!”

She flinched in surprise, she did not notice her hairlocks that were still in his fingers, she swallowed her anger that he had succeeded in erupting despite her experience and stature, she listened to him as he continued:

“Do you really think that someone like myself cares for keeping his head on his shoulders? Rest assured, my list of objectives till this moment does not include compromising Israel’s security, my only objective is to serve humanity… to hell with Zionism and its interests that appose humanity’s!”

“You are such a scoundrel traitor to his nation”

“I carry two passports, one with an eagle and the other a candelabrum, but I owe no allegiance to either of them, my only allegiance is to humanity! However… at least my American nationality promises the marching of armies if I was ever harmed, and it had not snatched my kidney so far”

“You better not brag about your American nationality; I have been briefed about the details of the movements of EI8, the organization that you had established there!”

“Movements? Organization? Are you still stuck in the logic of the Mossad? Exponential Impact 8 is a formal company, Google owns half its shares and has eight of Singularity University’s brightest under the personal supervision of Ray Kurzweil, our objective is to positively impact the lives of eight billion people on this planet! That is a thousand times as many lives as those you squandered your life for”

“Stop theorizing Binyameen; tell me, what is it exactly that you want?!”

“A generous offer from a woman that doesn’t believe in concessions! What I wonder terrifies you so much?”

She pulled out her phone and exhaled:

“Stop fooling around! How can we get rid of this disaster that you have brought upon us?”

She played a video captured by the security cameras in the intensive care  unit at the military hospital in Tel Aviv, it showed Eyad’s motionless body connected with tubes and wires, everything was calm for a few moments… suddenly the room’s lights went crazy, and with it everything else… then something… or… someone started screaming and demolished the fortified walls then uttered one sentence:

“I will burn you all”

Then a second echoing scream before the image vanished… Binyameen saw nothing, but the noise, screams and the terrifying statement at the end was enough to convey the image, Tzipi commented:

“An invisible Efreet attacked the military hospital, the door to the ICU vanished along with parts of the wall”

“My Efreet friends must have wanted to say hi”

“We have enough enemies as it is Binyameen, we can’t face any new ones… not like this, I beg you close the doors of hell that you have opened! After that you can leave Israel and go to your friends in America”

“All I want is for you to secure the return of Husam and Eyad to Saudi Arabia, and Elyana and Amal to the US if anything should happen to me”

She did not expect his request, but he went on confidently:

“I will take care of the rest; I just need you to protect me from the stupidity of Danny!”

The iron woman did not know that Binyameen had actually started executing his plan, a plan that included escalation by sending an electronic message to one of the most prominent members of the Freemasons, a master that holds a rank that most Freemasons don’t even know existed, British royal blood ran through his veins and chairs the throne of the London lodge, a very short message of only three words:

“Found the Arc”

Elyana drove her miniature car on the costal road returning from Tel Aviv to Haifa, Amal leaned her head on the window, her fingers did not stop tapping the glass as if Binyameen was responding to her taps. Her tapping stopped, prompting Elyana to ask:

“Amal? Did you fall asleep?”

One can’t tell wither she was asleep or awake as her eyes were closed in all cases.

“Why did they try to kill Binyameen?”

“Don’t worry, Binyameen will be fine, we will all go to live in America… do you remember everything he told you?”

“Of course, every letter!”

Elyana’s anxiety increased, she switched off her phone and turned into a side road as a precaution to insure she evades her surveillance.

“Can you tell Mr. Emad now?”

Amal’s body shivered; she was never convinced that Mr. Emad Zaki whom she became the emissary between him and Binyameen was a normal person, she nodded and Elyana whispered in a quivering anxious voice:

“Mr. Emad? you are with us, are you not?”

Moments of silence passed that almost paralyzed her, then a voice came from the back empty seat:

“Yes Elayan, I am here… What did Binyameen tell you?”

The two girls gasped, although this was not the first time they had a dialogue with a creature from another universe, the real terrifying moment was when Hawjan detached from Eyad after he had to remain in Eyad’s body to maintain his vitals after he got a fatal shot from Danny’s solders, Hawjan knew that Eyad’s body will not survive unless her remained possessing him and forced his heart to beat until his vitals become stable. The plan Binyameen set in motion before they get attacked by Danny depended on Hawjan communicating with Elayan, the only person Binyameen trusted.

Hawjan left Eyad’s body and the military hospital after the shock of panic he caused them, he was unable to leave the fortified room at first, so he had to yank the door and throw it in another dimension, then he headed directly to the address he got from Binyameen… Elyana’s address. Their first encounter was terrifying for Elyana, yet calming at the same time, as she found out that Hawjan was the one who’d attacked them and almost brought down their plane was no on their side.

Amal started detailing everything Binyameen told her by tapping on her hand, the communication method that never occurred to the strict surveillance imposed on Binyameen, how could they have anticipated that this was a complicated code not mere child’s play. Amal turned to face the back seat thinking someone was there, she hesitantly said in Hebrew while Elyana translated for Hawjan:

“ I told him everything you asked me to, told him that Husam had quickly recovered, and that Eyad was still in critical condition at the ICU, and he said he needed secure access to the internet”

“Impossible!”

Said Elyana, Amal pulled out a few hairlocks from her pocket and offered them to the back seat:

“Binyameen said that Mr. Emad’s wife can impersonate Tzipi if she got her hairs”

*****

Whoever said that that clock hands move at a constant speed? Does it not flee from joy? And stall with sorrow? As for moments of anxiety, will those cause it complete paralysis! That paralysis engulfed everyone at the reception hall at Mr. Mansour’s palace north of Jeddah city, everyone was sad and silent, save for Jumana and Elyaseen, as their small hearts did not know how to carry the weight of worry, their play became whispers on a silent canvas that included Mr. Mansour, Mrs. Manal, Mrs. Raja, Sawsan and Maram… and Jumara.

“My God bring them back safely”

Said Mrs. Raja who’s anxiety did not reach the same levels as everyone else as she patted her daughter’s hair, Mr. Mansour commented:

“I got a call from the office of the Minister of of Foreign Affairs, the US has just appointed an Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and they are meeting with him the moment he arrives tomorrow and let us know once the meeting is over”

“Hawjan!”

Jumara called out then jumped to the door before anyone knocks… she threw herself in his arms and Elyaseen followed her to be part of this family hug.

“How could you trust that Israeli after all that he had caused us?!

Said Mansour after Hawjan told them what had happened, he answered:

“Binyameen was about to lose his life right in front of my eyes as he tried to protect Eyad and Husam, in any case, we have no other option!”

“But how? How will he help us while he is held under guard by the Israeli military?”

“He has a plan to pressure the Israeli government to return Eyad and Husam… but…”

The breath of hope he breathed into the room dissipated when he continued:

“But we need Jumara… she must impersonate Tzipi!”

Everyone’s gaze shifted to Jumara who courageously commented:

“I am with you Hawjan! By God’s grace we will bring Eyad and Husam back!”

“Me too! I must go with you… I must help you and protect mother, right?”

Said Elyaseen in a strict tone as if he was an adult, Hawjan bent his knees and looked at his son and said:

“Elyaseen… how did you carry Jumana when the explosion happened?”

Elyaseen shifted his gaze between his parents fearing that he was in trouble, Hawjan continued:

“Can you move any human?”

The boy stared in his father’s eyes, he felt the plea in the tone of the question, no one understood the intentions behind the question other than Mansour who realized that Hawjan was exploring every possibility to save Eyad… he came close to them as he encouraged Elyaseen:

“Elyaseen, I have a game! Can you get me out of the house without anyone noticing?”

Everyone including Hawjan were shocked by what Mansour said, Manal gasped:

“Mansour! Have you gone mad?!”

Mansour turned to her and her statement knotted her tongue:

“Hawjan as risking his life to save out son… you want me to just sit here and watch?!”

He came to his knees in front of Elyaseen, and held him by the shoulder as he smiled encouragingly:

“Come on Elyaseen… I dare you to get me out of here!”

Elyaseen looked at his father seeking approval, Hawjan nodded, Elyaseen closed his eyes and screamed, as his scream got louder it deafened them as much as it terrified them, it got so loud that human ears could not comprehend its frequency, he pushed his palm against Mansour’s chest, Mansour felt dizzy and out of breath, and a bright light blinded him for a couple of seconds, the light dissipated suddenly as he found himself falling backwards in his backyard. He lost his balance and fell to the grass; everyone came rushing out of the house, Manal shouted:

“Mansour! Are you ok?”

His wife helped him up, he was speechless as he wiped the sweat of fear off of his forehead, Hawjan came close to him and carried Elyaseen who started to form once more in his arms, Mansour patted him on his head even before his forming was complete:

“No one can dare Elyaseen the great!”

“Elyaseen the great will come with me to bring uncle Eyad and Husam back!”

Said Hawjan as he kissed his son and so did his wife… he has chosen to sacrifice himself, his wife and son once more for Eyad and Husam…. for eight billion souls.

*****

Tzipi leaned her head on her hands and exhaled. Despite everything she has been through in her life, she has never felt so worried as she did after he visit to Binyameen, the threat now is unpredictable, this new threat is one Israel cannot overcome; not even if by the intervention of her guardian… the USA.

What is that thing returned? What if it followed through on its threats? What is we were attacked by a full army of that creature? She breathed out her anger and anxiety in a second exhale:

“Damn you Binyameen”

A call that could not be ignored even at that late hour disrupted her thoughts:

“Mrs. Tzipi, our investigation team noticed something suspicious on the surveillance footage, you must see it”

She ended the call and received the video sent to her, it first it seemed as innocent child’s play, but then the surveillance zoomed in on Binyameen and Amal’s palms, Tzipi gasped, her spy eyes could not miss the fact that a code was hidden in those childish taps, she realized that she was duped by two blinds!

Tzipi rushed trough the corridors of Sheba medical complex heading towards the heavily guarded wing, followed by a guard from the special forces, no one dared get in her way including the military unit’s guards who stepped aside the moment they noticed her walking towards them in trots, she gave her strict orders prohibiting any visitors from visiting Binyameen and stormed into his room without knocking, she closed the door and the guards stood in front of it blocking anyone from entering:

“The sight of your disfigured eyes disgusts me”

Binyameen awoke from one of his rare naps, he felt the bed sink next to him and his dark glasses fall into his lap, he carefully picked it up:

“I suspect you implanted a timed bomb in them, what a creative way to whack me, in any case I needed it badly as sunlight was bothering me so was seeing some of the faces here; I am deeply grateful”

“Binyameen, I need some clarifications immediately!”

The moment Binyameen put on his glasses, the Bluetooth speakers and microphones in its temple started working and connected with the apps for blinds on the phone Tzipi was carrying, and to the ear pieces in her hear as well as the guard and Elyana who was in the parking lot.

A connection to the internet and accessing his accounts and cloud was all Binyameen needed to turn the tables, and with the existence of the verbal apps for the blind, all he needed now was a distraction, Tzipi took care of that, actually it was Jumara who had formed as Tzipi after she got her hairlock… the DNA from the hairlock along with watching some videos of her online were enough for her to impersonate her and her reactions, she was keen on repeating the exact words Elyana dictated to her through her earpiece, and so Jumara’s Hebrew performance started:

“Our government is being pressured by the American’s to handover your friends, the situation is very delicate, if they are ever confirmed to be in Israel the government will be subjected to a storm of political and media accusations”

She was speaking slowly and carefully, trying not to make any mistakes, although she had memorized the entire thing and went over several times, she still made some mistakes… Binyameen moved towards the window so that the cameras would not notice his lips’ movements and Jumara continued emitting Tzipi’s tone:

“We need you to put an end to this charade”

“Do you really think that I can do anything while locked up in here?”

“What exactly do you need?”

“I must leave this place, and make several calls, and I need my eye”

Jumara handed him the mobile as she said:

“OK, here you go, do whatever you want right in front of me!”

“Are you mocking me?! How am I supposed to use your phone without my eye?!”

He acted as if he was feeling out the phone while he was actually giving verbal commands to access tis files and send several electronic messages then he whispered through the mics:

“I need to pass some details to Hawjan”

Hawjan, who was actually the special forces guard, answered him whispering:

“I am here”

Binyameen started detailing his plan while whispering, and was about to send his final and decisive message to the Masonic leader… but…

The door suddenly collapsed, and an armed battalion stormed in along with the last person Binyameen would have wanted there at that moment… the real Tzipi!

The solders pointed their guns while resisting the shock from seeing a second Tzipi in front of them, Hawjan realized that resistance was not an option against such large numbers, he pushed the solder nearest to him, and started to vanish as he ran towards the window along with Jumara followed by the solders’ bullets. The window shattered, and the solders ran to it looking for the shredded bodies, but no trace of such bodies existed… in their universe!

One of the solders shackled Binyameen’s hands behind his back while Tzipi threw an echoing punch at him, his glasses dangled and his empty metallic eye groove appeared, Binyameen smiled as he said calmly:

“Send”

That was the send command that will change the balance of power in this battle, Tzipi gasped and her eyes widened as she shouted:

“Damn you Binyameen! I swear I will kill you! I swear I will kill you and both the girls!”

Binyameen smiled:

“You are too late, but don’t worry, the battel no longer concerns Israel… the battle now is between me and… the Templar!”

Tzipi collapsed, her entire weight fell onto the bed as he buried her face in her hands… she inhaled her pain and anger and raised her radish eyes filled with tears towards Binyameen and said:

“Binyameen, tell me the truth”

“Is that a request or a threat?”

“A request, a final request, please tell me!”

She gestured to the guards to leave the room, they hesitated for a moment before they complied, Binyameen fixed his dark glasses and sat next to her and looked at her with no eyes:

“I will tell you everything you need to know, because the Freemasons are disgusted by ladies, that is firstly… secondly because I owe you some trust”

She gave him all her attention and focus; she nodded her head forgetting that he could not see her:

“War and Peace… the two words you uttered the most and spent your life in between! Now you need to choose one! The Freemasons’ organization are intoxicated by war, they lit its fuses everywhere, their objective is to destroy world economy so that they can control it once again, their hope in regaining their reputation is to find the Arc of Covenant and rebuild Solomon’s Temple”

Tzipi was engaged in politics, she never gave the Freemasons and attention as they were in parallel streams that her own… at least that is what she thought, Binyameen continued:

“What I am saying is not just a pedantic conclusion, what I am saying are facts reached to by several years of research, along with testimonies from within their ranks. Can you imagine if they completed their plan? Millions of lives would be wasted including a nice chunk from Israel! They worship their masters with blood! Do you doubt that they offer thousand of lives in suspicious events to please their master? Would you like me to list the wars they ignited and the terrorist operations they executed?”

Something from within her convinced her that what he was saying was true, she asked with worry:

“And you will stand in their way?!”

“There is knowledge buried within the secrets of King Solomon, he who finds it will win the battle! Those you saw today are jinn from the descendants of the Arc’s guard, and they might be our last hope to reach that knowledge, and they are with me in this war”

Tzipi struggled to stand, what she heard was hard to comprehend, she leaned against the door before she left, she turned and said:

“Binyameen, please do what you can”

He smiled a gray smile:

“I will do what I can, but please do forgive me if I finished my breaths before I finished my mission”

*****

Danny was a complete wreck as he drove his luxury car towards Nadeem Mansour’s office, the previous headmaster of Masonic lodges in the Middle East; he was thoroughly inspected a the gate at stripped of every piece of metal or electronics before entering the wooden leathered office that resided over a chess like marble floor guarded by two alabaster pillars packed with Syriac engravings and Masonic symbols that covered everything in that office. His hands were shaking as he performed the Masonic handshake to his master who was completely silent for several minutes before Danny collapsed:

“Master, Binyameen was playing us all the time, I did not wish to bother you before I was sure that the matter was worthy of your time”

Danny was feeling Mr. Nadeem’s ring pokes as he was tapping it on the edge of his desk, the statue finally spoke:

“He says that he has found the Ark of Covenant, do you trust him?”

“Binyameen is a slimy weasel, allow me to deal with him, no one knows him as I do!”

“You almost killed him! Imagin if he actually did know secrets the Arc!”

“I will force him to confess and…”

His master interrupted him in a calm tone:

“He has requested an audience”

Danny was taken back by surprise, his master continued:

“Me and the head of UGLE”

“Master, there is no need for you to bother with…”

“The Grandmaster will arrive after tomorrow, please arrange for a meeting with Binyameen and his assistants… Let me know if you faced any issue with the government”

He turned his chair towards the side table announcing the end of the meeting, Danny’s legs struggled to carry him back to his car, the attendance of the Grandmaster of the English lodge personally meant that this was more serious than he thought, and that his life was on the line.

*****

Husam bent his knees around the edge of the metal bed where he had hardly slept at the military hospital in Tel Aviv, he hung by his legs and left his torso dangle down and connected his hands behind his head and let his six pack the task of carrying his weight. He never stopped training, nod did his mind stop thinking… and worrying; days crawled slowly adding to his worries not knowing Eyad and Binyameen’s fate, not even his own fate, his wounds vanished quickly, he only felt the hunger; the hospital meals could never satisfy a person with three times the metabolic rate of professional athletes; those days routine was dissipated when a group of Israeli solders rushed to his room, he stood on his legs in an instant resisting his pale thin body, a nurse followed them carrying a black suit that she handed to Husam who put it on without discussion, they secured his hands behind his back and a small army guided him to the hospital’s entrance where he found Binyameen who had retrieved his bionic eye and was a similar suit and cuffs. Husam’s eyes carried queries for Binyameen regarding Eyad; he was relieved when the latter nodded his head and drew a phantom of a smile on his face.

Moments later they were joined by a young middle eastern man with black hair, the solders cuffed him as well while he released a mocking sigh and passed a silent greeting to Husam and Binyameen.

An armored vehicle approached and the three were shoved into it along with a number of solders, it was a terrifying sight, especially for the lady watching from behind the glass windows, he heart almost jumped shattering her chest and the glass when Hawjan appeared as the middle eastern man, Binyameen’s conclusion we spot on, he forced them to hand them over, everyone; individuals, governments, armies and organizations was being played on his table with his rules, all she wished for at that moment was for Binyameen and his nightmares to leave her and Israel forever, Tzipi could only whisper to herself:

“Don’t disappoint me this time Binyameen… Please!”

(8)
The Book
and
The Arc

K ing Menelik threw the crown of gold and emerald aside after a long weary day of ruling his kingdom… the kingdom of Sheba; he threw himself and his worries on his mother’s throne, and rubber his worries on his father’s ring. His father’s dreams of building the perfect world and leave three his sons the world’s kingdoms was about to vanish by his brothers’ greed… as the battles for power do not know the bonds of blood.

He shivered along with his palace, his father’s guard suddenly appeared in front of him lowering his head and bending his knees; the servant raised his head and Menelik relaxed when he recognized him, but his shock returned when the servant sobbed:

“My King… My master the king has died”

Menelik got close to the guard Hanaeel with shivering steps, how could the master of the human and jinn universes just simply die? There is no time for sorrow as the kingdom is about to collapse under the weight of Rehoboam’s - his half-brother – greed… the king of Israel.

“The nobles of both human and jinn have left through the heavens, they took all of their books; only Hiram Abiff remained… the Temple’s architect”

The shock took King Menelik by surprise, that surprise was aggravate when Hanaeel continued:

“My Master, we must secure the Arc and join the nobles, to rebuild another earth where you revive your father’s kingdom, if Rehoboam got his hands on the Arc and its secrets; we are all doomed!”

Hanaeel did not give King Menelik any time to make a decision, he vanished as suddenly a she had appeared, a scream echoed that almost ripped him apart, he lost his breath and was engulfed in bright light that plucked him from his place, from his entire world to find himself in front of the gates of Jerusalem inside the Temple of Solomon and in front of him was Hiram Abiff clutching onto his book.

“Your highness, the death of our master is a disaster that set upon us all, Rehoboam will raid the most Holy of Holies to seize the Arc of Covenant”

Said Hiram Abiff while his eyes were still soaked in tears, Hanaeel responded:

“We should take the Arc and join the nobles through the heavens and reb…”

Hiram Abiff cut him off clearly heartbroken:

“Rehoboam solders have captured the last heaven carrier and damaged it as they tried to ride the wind and follow the nobles”

The racket outside was getting louder, the solders march was shaking the Temple’s hallways, Hiram Abiff pushed the book to King Menelik as he looked him in the eye and said:

“My master, you are the last hope for humanity! Take the book and the Arc and I will hold them off”

The king finally spoke:

“The kingdom needs the head engineer much more than it need its king!”

“This book is the engineer! They want me! They want the secrets of the Book and the Arc… go now before it is too late”

Hiram Abiff rushed out towards the solders, while Hanaeel demolished the gates to the most Holy of Holies unveiling the Arc of Covenant, their fear for the Arc was greater than their fear of it, Hanaeel raised the Arc’s wings removing its cover, he pushed King Menelik inside it before he screamed an echoing scream that moved them some other location, through some other universe.

*****

The small envoy of dark armored trucks passed the Dome of the Rock as the passed over Mount Moriah. The envoy dived into one of the buildings, then the one holding Binyameen, Husam and Hawjan stopped, the guards guided them into the main hall of the building; it took about an hour to search them, most of it was wasted on inspecting the metal cavity in Binyameen’s skull after they had removed his bionic and acrylic eyes. Hawjan handed them his cell phone, as for Husam, will he only carried his worries. The guards shuved them through a thick metal gate that went deep into the wall, it swallowed them and started to slip downwards; moments later it stopped, the doors slipped open revealing a metallic corridor lit by two strips of lights on its sides, the metallic sheets started to dissipate from the ceiling, then the floor followed by the walls, replaced by rocks to finally find themselves in the threshold of a cave. Binyameen who’s ears noticed the change if echo levels of the metal and the rocks, and his foots distinguished the curvatures of the rocks, whispered as he smiled:

“A cave, Solomon’s cave, the bastards’ headquarters”

All three of them were shackled to alabaster seats that were located inside a rock cavity decorated with purple velvet scarves and two columns of the cave’s rocks along with a half circle table where two solemn men – had it not been for their gloves and their decorated aprons - stood on its two edges, the both suddenly stood up straight and chanted out a talisman phrase greeting their three masters who had just entered the rocky hall from the other end. The three sat facing the three, the one who had the throne at the center said in a pure English accent:

“What do you want?”

Binyameen smiled as he said:

“And how can I be certain of your identity when I have left my eye outside?”

“You will have to risk trusting us or losing your life”

“And would you risk losing the Arc of Covenant for another three thousand years? In any case, I recognized your voice and the voice is clearly from generated by vocal cords and not magnetic vibrations, the chances that someone could imitate your voice is less than three percent, that is an acceptable risk…”

“You have one minute to present your case”

Said the previous headmaster of the Middle East lodge in a disgusted bored tone, he sat next to the master of the pyramid, Binyameen responded:

“The Arc of Covenant is at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion at Axum north of Ethiopia”

“Did you come here to tell us something that any teenager could deduce from the internet?! You have…”

“You have already broken into the church in 2009 and found out that the Arc inside it was a fake!”

Binyameen’s addition of that detail convinced him that he was either infiltrated their ranks, or he had some other means that gave him insight into their plans and steps… the master of the pyramid added:

“I confess that you have impressed me with your knowledge, the Global Pound in particular”

“It was a simple deduction, I tried to design it in a manner that satisfied your obsession with symbols while maintaining your identity secret, I then used my 3D printer to print it from pure gold, but your men unfortunately confiscated”

“Young men of your talent and your superhuman fiend; should join the elite and enter the ranks of the greatest brotherhood on earth… but that is another subject, we might seriously entertain if our cooperation was fruitful at this stage”

The headmaster of the Middle East lodge intervened:

“If you know that the Arc is a fake, then why do you insist that it still resides at Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion?”

“Because you for thousands of years were satisfied with only searching our dimension, my friends can help us search in other dimensions”

Binyameen now added fuel to their burning interest, the young man sitting to the right of the master of the pyramid said something the old Syriac language, Binyameen could only partially understand it, but Hawjan was surprised, as it was very similar to his mother tong… the language of the Fayhees, the young man said as he gestured with his eye towards Hawjan:

“So that is why a Marid is here with them?”

Hawjan leaned his head downwards… he vanished for a moment then reformed standing after the shackles surrounding his hands fell behind the seat:

“I am Hawjan son of Meehal Al-Fayhee, descendant of Hanaeel, servant to King Solomon and his son Menelik, guardian of the Arc”

Hawjan said that is the original Fayhee Syriac language, the masks of poise melted off of their faces, their jaws dropped in awe, although they were used to meeting Lucifer’s messengers in their rituals. The other young man stood who was but a Masonic marid and said:

“Can you bring the Arc to the human dimension?”

“My clan rules over Malaj, after we killed your friend King Hayaf I refused to rule, I am the only one who could move things permanently between dimensions, and no one can stop me from getting the Arc”

The young man sat and so did Hawjan, the tensions recede after moments of silence, the young man nodded to the master of the pyramid, the latter said:

“If you have all of those powers, why do you bargain with us?”

“To save the lives of Husam and Eyad and return them home”

The master of the pyramid shook his head in response to Hawjan’s statement, Binyameen added:

“That is firstly… but secondly and more importantly… to stop all the wars that you are starting all over this region”

The Grandmaster could not control himself, he giggled in anger and amused by the audacity of a blind man:

“You have gone too far blind man… do you not fear for your life?!”

Binyameen raised his head and gazed without eyes, chillingly cutting him off:

“You must stop spilling blood to please the one you sanctify! You must stop this obsession that you have succeeded in spreading amongst the freaks of religious extremism and used it to spread the fire of war! You can save your threats; when facing those who have nothing to lose, you lose before you start! I have no eyes to fear for, but your large disgusting eye is tempting to burst! I beg you to note this threat: the Global Pound is but a sample of what I gathered of your secrets, I know more about the Freemasons than you yourself know of Grandmaster, I have documents, details of the crimes, wars, terrorist operations and a list of all those involved around the world with all the evidence to indict them… all of this is saved securely on my cloud, and will be automatically published on my blog MasonsLeaks if I do not log into my account for more than 30 days… or if someone was stupid enough to try and hack into it”

Binyameen’s threat succeeded in shaking the Freemasons’ master, the all gulped in fear, Binyameen lowered his head and smiled as he continued:

“In fact, I have already published a sample that should be enough to chop off a decent number of your arms in Paris; you could take a risk this big, who knows; history might remember your name as the Grandmaster who destroyed the Freemasons”

Binyameen’s statement was very provocative… and terrifying; the master of the pyramid tried to pull himself together as he stood and said ending the tens meeting:

“We leave for Axum… now!”

*****

The sea is the best listener…

Despite the fact that its depths are filled with the worries of everyone who has ever entrusted with his confidence since the beginning of time… Yet it still prefers to listen with respect… It listens to your worries without you even needing to open your mouth… It shakes its waves listening and understanding… swearing that secrets is the only thing that could never float to its surface.

That is why Mansour chose the coastal road on his way back from his meeting with the his excellency the minister of Saudi Arabian foreign affairs at his residence in Jeddah, his worries were heavy for both him and the sea… his son was laying between life and death under the heavy guard of the Israeli forces, the last he heard was that he was alive at the ICU, Hawjan disappeared after telling him that news and left him to his worries to eat at him. The minister was following the situation personally, he trusted what Mansour had told him and confronted the American mediator with, this embarrassed the Israeli government and worsened the dilemma they found themselves in after Sawsan created the public opinion storm that pointed all fingers at them, those fingers turned into missiles when Binyameen published a video of Israeli special forces attacking them under the hashtag #SaveEyadAndHusam.

Mansour ended silent his one-sided dialogue with the sea with a hot tear those in his stature would never allow anyone to see… other than the sea… it was fueled with his sorrow, worry and regret of the moment he joined the devils den.

He did not know that at that specific moment the real battle with them was about to start… a battle where his only son might pay for with his life.

*****

Although their chances of surviving such a situation as almost null, yes losing their lives had no place among their accumulated worries, a private jet carried Binyameen, Husam and Hawjan, but it also carried a couple of us seen passengers Jumara and Elyaseen who had attached their lives to Hawjan’s, all of them had thrown their lives into the pit on the unknown. Danny was waiting for the at the landing strip on the outskirts of Axum city accompanied with a group of armed men who had no allegiance to anyone other than the Freemasons. The muzzles pointed at all of them unfairly, where the majority of them were pointed at Husam, but he did not resist when two solders cuffed him and replaced his shirt with an exploding vest. When the solder secured the vest, Danny announced:

“Forgive me Husam, this is just a precaution, this vest is enough to turn you and everyone around you into a dough of meat, blood and bone, I will detonate it at the first sign of suspicion and… by the way if you want to save me the trouble to sending out the detonation signal you can tamper with its edges and it will explode on its own”

The remote area surrounding the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion into a heavily guarded military barracks worthy of the delegation that came from all over earth to wetness the event that is amongst the to two most important in the history of the Freemasons along with the building of Solomon’s Temple. Three head of states, a top authority in the world bank, the godfather of media and entertainment in America, the real driver at the UN, the one controlling the Vatican and of course their English Grandmaster; they all ignored their busy schedule to rush to writing their names in the history of the Freemasons as a witness of the appearance of the Arc of Covenant; each of them put on their aprons, gloves and necklace in vainness and walked surrounded by security into the secure arch built inside the church facing the fake Arc of Covenant.

Masonic symbols spread on the arch in a manner that is painful to the eye, it was crowded with leaders and their bodyguards, Lucifer’s emissary was on the arch greeting them, and so was Danny along with Binyameen and Husam who were both detained inside an armored glass cage that can resist anything. Two heavily armed giants guarded the cage while Danny was observing them, waiting for any excuse to trigger the detonation signal to rip Husam and Binyameen inside their cage.

Hawjan was led to the Arc of Covenant, preceding him his was a group dressed in the uniforms of Solomon’s Temple keepers and they surrounded the Arc, they raised their horns and blew them, the leaders closed their eyes and started to mutter their talismans, some of them could not control their emotions and their tears came down as they were witnessing with their own eyes the moment of revealing the real Arc of Covenant. Arranging the gathering of those elites usually takes months of diplomatic preparations, but when it comes to their existential dream, impossible vanishes and priorities are dropped! The Grandmaster took charge, the device secured on his ear carried his voice to everyone, it echoed on the walls of the old church as he repeated in solemnity that was worthy of such a moment… silence engulfed the moments until the Grandmaster pronounced:

“At this moment gentlemen… the Holy of Holies will be revealed once again, this is the moment Hiram Abiff sacrificed himself for, the moment when his secrets will return to his sons… the Freemasons… the guardians of Solomon’s Temple. Al-Wadda’s messenger will now step forth, Hawjan son of Hanaeel the guardian of the Arc to reveal it in front of us, and for us to become the new wetness, Arc guardians and Temple builders”

Hawjan’s anxiety climaxed, he took slow steps towards the Arc, Jumara formed as she approached the Arc from the other end, voices of the monks raised with talismans. Hawjan turned to the arch and said:

“The Arc is hanging here; we must move the fake Arc aside”

The monks rushed to carry the Arc aside, Hawjan turned to Jumara and they both vanished… they returned to their dimension where the Arc was, they held its winged edges and Hawjan summoned all of his powers, he summoned his loyalty to Eyad and Husam, his fear for Jumara and Elyaseen, the screamed…The only person who saw that was Lucifer’s emissary as he was a jinni and could see what was going on in that dimension, for a moment he did not believe that Hawjan would succeed in bringing an object of such size from the jinn’s dimension to the human’s… permanently; the echoing scream shredded the silence for a moment… irises froze, a series of gasps were heard, tears were held, and Hawjan and Jumara started to gradually appear and the Arc of Covenant between them.

The shouts of the Masonic leaders and their hugs masked the shout of terror that Lucifer’s emissary made as he rushed towards the cage holding Husam and Binyameen the moment its side vanished… and he attacked Elyaseen!

Elyaseen toke advantage of that moment to sneak in to rescue Husam by moving him to the other dimension found himself in the grip of Lucifer’s emissary! The sound of the armored wall slamming into the floor was followed by the sound of the Arc shattering on the rocks of the church, as Hawjan had dropped it and its content scattered while every one was stunned, he vanished from in front of them, he returned to his dimension to wrap his arm around Lucifer’s emissary’s neck, at the same time Husam ran out of the cage and launched his foot at one of the guards’ necks and slipped to catch his gun, the solders hesitated to fire their bullets at him as Danny hesitated to send the signal to the exploding vest after his escape from the armored cage, the arch turned into chaos and the guards surrounded their masters, Hawjan’s echoing scream terrified them as he formed in the Human dimension carrying Lucifer’s emissary’s head while leaving the rest of his body in the jinn dimension; Elyaseen wanted to head back to Husam to carry him to the jinn dimension but Danny’s bullets got to him first… a fountain of blood exploded from Husam’s neck and mouth… his wounds struggled to heal but it could not take the bullets this time.

“Take Elyaseen and get out of here Hawjan”

Was the last words Husam uttered, filled with plea and blood, he looked at Binyameen apologetically as their eyes gestured farewell; he opened his vest… and an explosion echoed turning everyone on the arc into a dough of meat, blood and bone.

(9)
Souls between dimensions

I n the arms of my Angel…

Moments shy away from us…

Her gazes are a stream of bless… drowning me in the “now”… takes away the sorrows of the past and worries of the future. Is there any more accurate definition of heaven? Life with your soul mate where time loses its dominance and farewell turns into an unusable term, erased by eternal happiness. My father and mother are happy I am here despite their sadness that I have died, I am now with them… awaiting Maram.

Allow me to continue the chat with you as my beloved is busy engulfing me with plenty of love, let us start with Maram, all the pain I went through, including my body exploding can never compare to my pain for Maram, sorry had shredded my heart way before the explosion did.

Two years have passed, and she still wraps herself in black silence, she almost never talks except when we visit her, my parents and I, in her dreams.

She entered my room, she did not change a thing in those two years, my books, paintings and tools, she carefully sat on my throne in fear of moving a single speck of dust from the place I left it, the pushed the blood pressure measuring device to her face and emptied her tears on it. It had always warned her that I could leave her at any moment, but she did not expect everything to end to abruptly. Her phone rang, she jumped to see who the caller was, hoping to see my number. It was Sawsan; she decided to finally answer the call instead of ignoring it as she did all her previous calls.

“Aunt Maram! I am Jumana”

Maram hid her sadness from her tone, she faked some joy into it to protect Jumana’s feelings:

“Jumana! I really missed you”

The child did not answer as she ran to her mother and shouted in joy:

“Ma ma, aunt Maram answered”

Sawsan took the phone from Jumana who did not easily agree to hand it over and said before she did:

“Aunt Maram come visit us, please please please!”

Maram wiped a dry tear before she heard Sawsan’s voice:

“Maram… Maram are you ok?”

“Thank God, I am as good as a jinni!”

“Maram what you are doing is not right, two years you impression yourself alone at home as if you were the one who died not Husam”

Sawsan quickly regretted het statement that caused Maram’s fake joy to collapse and she responded:

“Husam did not die, Husam visits me every night with mother and father”

“What do you say you come visit us for a couple of days to change the scenery and help me control Jumana… she drove me crazy asking about you!”

Jumana jumped in excitement around her mother as she yelled:

“Yes aunt Maram, please please come play with me like we used to, me, you and Elyaseen… Elyaseen brought me plenty of gifts from their house I want you to see them!”

Sawsan took control of the conversation again:

“As you can see, this is going on every day!”

“Hawjan and Jumara still visit you?”

“Hawjan and Jumara did not leave us for an instant since the day the Israelis handed Eyad over, they stayed with us at the hospital for six months until he recovered”

“How is he now?”

“Working twenty-four seven, he calls you every day, but you never answer, it is regarding Husam’s paintings, the movie production, the academy of talent that they had founded together, without you he can’t do anything”

“The best thing is for me to give him the power of attorney so he can act…”

“This is your wealth Maram, many international galleries offered Eyad millions, Malak’s painting alone got so many offers that it needs an auction”

“He can sell them all except for the paintings that have Husam, those I want, and re invest all of the proceeds in the academy… I just want him to change its name to Husam’s academy”

Maram could barely complete her sentence, Sawsan gave her a few moments before she lured her from her sorrows:

“So, when are you coming to visit us? If you did not come, I will have to send you Jumana and Elyaseen to drive you crazy”

Maram looked around her taking in the remnants of the room’s spirit before she shook her head and said:

“Fine, I will come by the end of the week, if you can please invite Hawjan and Jumana, I truly miss them”

*****

“Hawjan! you took too long at Malaj, I got worried!”

Said Jumara to her husband who spends most of his time between Hindabah, Malaj, Jeddah and America.

“Where is Elyaseen?”

“He already left for Jeddah, we must hurry, I don’t want to be late!”

“Elyaseen has been spending more time with Jumana that with us!”

“A human has taken over his thoughts, I wonder where he gets that from?!”

She turned away to her fury by pretending to get ready to leave, Hawjan held her harm, then pulled her to hug her from behind as he whispered in her ear:

“I can’t allow you to be jealous of a human, or even a jinni, not even an angel from now on, understood?!”

His words dissipated her jealousy, fulfilled her femininity, and made her shy, she tried to release his grip as she whispered:

“Hawjan! We are late!”

He insisted in besieging her with his love, he secured his arms around her waist and arms and continued darting her with his whispers:

“Jumara, you are the only one worthy of my love and heart, no one else owns me!”

She turned to him with eyes melting in tears of joy and love:

“Really Hawjan?!”

His eyes, smile, fingertips that wiped her tear, gave her the most accurate sincere answer, she buried her face in his chest that muffled her voice:

“I love you Hawjan, I am madly in love with you, every day I yarn for you more than the day before it!”

He fiddled with her hair and he cheeks with his fingertips:

“To hell with all humans and jinn as long as my beloved is in my arms! All I wish for is for us to be together, I will flirt with you, say that I love you and repeat it for a hundred years, two hundred…”

The female inside her awakened”

“Until I get old and shriveled?!”

He raised her head by the chin and swore to her:

“Every day your beauty will grow in my eyes, every day your love will grow in my heart, till the last breath in my life! I swear to you Jumara!”

“God forbid my love; you have no idea how worried I am from them! What did you do in Malaj?”

“I had to support the Fayhees to prevent a second war from starting! The Freemasons analyzed the Arc that we got from the jinn dimension and found out that is was a second replica that was created by my grandfather Hanaeel. The went mad and asked for the support of jinn everywhere to find the real Arc… Malaj turned into a sea of Marids and Masonic witches”

Jumara’s eyes widened as Hawjan continued:

“I am sure they will arrive at the same conclusions as Binyameen and discover that the church had three Arcs, one in the humans’ dimension, a second in the jinn’s, and the real one in the higher dimension!”

“I fear they will find a way to find it”

“Don’t worry, no one can reach that higher dimension except of Elyaseen unless they get a hold of the architect’s book… the book Elyaseen got from the real Arc on the day of the explosion”

“Hiram Abiff’s book? I worry there might be a second copy”

He nodded that there was not, then he took a breath and exhaled as he said announcing the end of that nightmare:

“If there was a second book, Lucifer and the Freemasons would have found it in those past three thousand years… I was sure it was Hiram Abiff’s book… and I burned it!”

*****

A child’s hear beat quickens when they visit a new place, all of his senses dance in response to his heart’s loud music. This instinctive yarning painted Amal’s facial gestures as she looked out of the taxi’s window that carried her with Elyana from San Francisco’s airport to the suburbs; the was enjoying the sight of the country where she will spend her life with her four senses, her enthusiasm was not dampened by the lack of her sight. She still refuses to believe the news about Binyameen’s death, and she still waits to give hive a harsh scolding for his absence for two full years. She did not care about the stock shares in the Exponential Impact 8 company that she inherited from him, and she did not comprehend the fact that she turned from a forgotten Arab in an orphanage to a small wealthy Californian, especially after the company launched its projects that were to harness science to positively impact eight billion people on planet earth. Binyameen had planed for the day he left her; he secured her move with Elyana to the bay area away from the pots of war in the Middle East. His dreams finally turned into reality with the hep of his friends at Singularity University and the two girls got an apartment with a permanent residency in the USA, and Elyana was able to get the paperwork for becoming Amal’s guardian.

Elyana opened their apartment’s door, Amal rushed in feeling it up with the echoes of her steps. I t was more like a small museum; its wall was filled with pictures and its shelves with tinfoil statues.

Elayan looked at the hanging pictures, two US presidents Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy as well as King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bruce Lee, Princess Diana, Michal Jackson and Tupac… is short a number of those who were a threat to the Freemason’s interests, or refused to give in to their demands and were assassinated. She stopped at a bunch of pictures of Binyameen set onto of a side table, she picked up one of his pictures with his mother holding an infant Amal… she hugged it and cried in silence so Amal would not notice while she was feeling the tinfoil statues and shouted out:

“This is Binyameen’s mother, and this too… and this is you Elyana… ah this is me!”

Her hand come across the chess table that Binyameen’s mother’s family has been handing over from one generation to the next and survived the Jewish genocide during the Spanish inquisition and then the holocaust in Germany.

Some of the metallic pieces that had engravings and scratches that told the story of scattered Europe coming from extremism to the light of science, freedom and equality. She carefully felt the pieces to put them back in their place and make sure that they are all there, but the black night was missing. The tapped her finger in its empty place, and her tears came down to fill it:

“Binyameen, come back to me… please!”

She did not utter that sentence with her tong, but by tapping the code on the chess table, the was drowned in her sorry and her tears, she did not hear Elyana gasp behind her, she only felt fingers patting her tears that have flowed down her cheeks… answering her:

“I will not leave you again!”

“Binyameen!”

She screamed unbelieving, and she threw her fest at his chest before she collapsed crying. Elyana’s shock silenced her… the shock of seeing Binyameen alive… and his state that looked like a scene out of a SciFi movie. Metal swallowed his legs and right arm, they were covered in a layer of translucent silicon, as for his eyes’ compartments, they were stuffed with tens of lenses and sensors, he was a human in a machine.

“Why did you not tell us? Why did you leave us?!”

Elyana finally spoke with her tears… he answered:

“I have wiped out a number of world leaders and destroyed the Freemasons plans, do you expect them to leave me alone? I had to disappear to insure your safe arrival here”

“But how? How did you survive?”

“The Masons saved me! They caged me in an armored cage that dampened the effects of the explosion, then those remaining of them moved me to a hospital where I miraculously survived after they amputated my arm and legs while sustaining heavy burns over most of my body”

He carried a picture from the table showing Binyameen celebrating the test of his first bionic eye with a group of Singularity University alumni, he pointed to a girl standing next to him and continued:

“Tasha McCauley designed my old eye, she redesigned everything you see; this optical system is connected to the two optic nerves, I now see things in three dimensions! In addition to many other abilities”

He raised his metal arm that was hugging Amal’s head on his chest, and passed it through her hairlocks and continued:

“All of the artificial limbs are covered in sensing silicon that is connected to my brain…”

“What is important is that you are alive!”

Said Elyana who had not stopped crying, Binyameen was still alive… she cared for no other details; he answered her jokingly:

“What is important is that Amal forgives me!”

The poor child raised her head and felt his face, eyes, metal arm and shook her head in refusal while her dim eyes did not stop pumping tears.

“Amal, you will see the light soon!”

“I will have eyes like yours?!”

“You will have real eyes! Lovely just as yours are, created from your DNA”

Elyana come close… she wanted to throw herself in his arms. Amal wrapped his metallic palm with her own, he told her:

“I will not leave you again Amal! I will not leave you no matter what happens!”

“Neither will I! I will always stay with you!”

“You will become my daughter, I have already started the adaptation process, you will get a green card and soon after the American citizenship”

“Amal will get an American citizenship?!”

Said Elyana, Binyameen raised his bionic eye towards her and looked at her with eyes - that despite its mechanical nature - carried deep feelings:

“You will both get the American nationality; they will not accept the adoption request if Amal was not joining a stable family”

Elyana’s eyes widened not believing the hint he just made, but he cut to the chase:

“Elayan, will you marry me?”

He looked at his metallic hand and limbs, smiles… and restated:

“I mean that man that is left of me?”

The barriers of hesitation crumbled, she did what she always wished to do every time she saw him, she threw herself in his arms, he almost fell back in surprise as she said:

“In my eyes, you are the only whole man, the only man in my entire life”

Binyameen kissed her between her eyes as he said:

“In any case, my artificial limbs will hide underneath the tuxedo and my eyes behind the black glasses on our wedding day”

Amal shouted:

“I am here! I can hear you!”

Elayan continued lovingly:

“But I fear for you from them, I will die if anything happened to you”

“Elayan… look at us, I am the descendant of the Spanish inquisition, Nazi holocausts and the harshness of settlements, your mother miraculously survived the cleansing in Ethiopia and immigrated to Israel in Operation Solomon in 91, only to face the horrors all Falash Mura faced, while Amal was born of war, blinded by war an orphaned by war. It is time for this ugly age to end! The gold and blood lust fueled by politicians’ greed and extremists’ superstition will vanish forever! As for the Freemasons, I assure you… they are even more keen on my life than I am, my blog MasonsLeaks; automatically releases their secrets if more than a month passed without me signing in, the have faced many disasters from the scandals caused during my coma”

That only grew her fear, her eyes widened:

“Binyameen…!”

“They did not beat me when I was alone, now I am superior scientifically and have company! At the end science will overcome superstition and ignorance, free humans will overcome the authoritative, barbaric, extremist devil”

“You mean EI8?”

“We are changing the name to EI9! Our objective now is to positively impact nine billion people… we are also joined by a ninth member who was able to get Hiram Abiff’s book for me to save here in my eye before he burned it! A member who will turn all the tables!”

Elyana and Alam’s eyes carried all the queries and curiosity… Binyameen went on:

“A young man only hundred years old… named Hawjan Al-Fayhee!”

- The End -

Acknowledgment

“Honey, why don’t you write a few words?”

This statement pushed me to write every chapter of this novel, my love Maina has an extradentary ability of forcing me out of any mode that blocks my imagination and writing, and she shoves me into the creative mode, showing her gratitude is a task that I find myself incapable of fulfilling no mater how hard I try, I will reward myself by reading the entire novel for the first time to her once I finish its pages!

Mohammad bin Saad, my friend and multi-talented inspiration, a catalyst, author, camera man, editor, cook, composer, and piano player… born prematurely without sight. He was able to take me to his colorful world, showed me what he saw, allow me to hear what he heard, accurately explained to me what goes on in his mind, gave me time, advice and encouragement. Thank you Mohammad, your friendship… brother hood is an honor!

Louay Khalifah’s friendship… was the first I made over twitter. Days later he told me that he dreamt of gathering those who had creative talent to enrich the Arabian SciFi content; and we met…

Louay, Omair Taibah, Madiha Khayat, Maryam Khayat and I. A highly contagious creative gathering. Resulted in out lining a story that connects the past the and the future, between the secrets of Solomon’s - peace be upon him – kingdom and Masonic conspiracies. At the end of that meeting I announce the novel Binyameen. I am great full to all of them.

And last… I owe thanks and apologies to everyone who asked me about the release date of Binyameen, this novel witnessed turmoil that had changed my life; a dream vanishing, a lawsuit, changing jobs… and death of a close one. I finally completed it after reaching the end of the tunnel. To everyone who asked me about the release date: if it not for you I would have never finished it… if not for you I would have never passed that tunnel!

I will not stop…

The last thing I will write here is my promise to you that I will continue writing as long as someone as asking: “When will you release your next novel?”

Wait a moment… what is my next novel? Fine, after completing the epics of writing the scripts for Hawjan movie… yes, Hawjan will be adapted into a movie by MBC and Image Nation, followed by “The Delusionists” that portrays the events between the two novels Hawjan and Somewhere ; after I am done with all the scripts I will work on finishing the novel of madness: Motamagnitoon, and the novel of art: “Zyraab” then I will go back for a few decades, maybe centuries to the past and the future to tell you what I had not yet about the jinn universe in: “Mehaeel”, “Elyaseen” and “EI9”.

Hoping to meet you soon between the pages… and screens.

Yours truly… who owes it to your passion

Ibraheem Abbas

[1] Madain Saleh is …..

[2] Bin-Yameen: in Arabic Bin means the son of, and Yameen is right, combined it means the Son of the Righteous.

[3] Chapter 27 Surat An-Naml (The Ants) verse 39

[4] This verse was part of a story of King Solomon in the Holly Quran, where he was asking ministers to bring him the Throne of Sheba before the Queen of Sheba arrived