Embark on a surreal and haunting journey into the depths of a dream where reality and the supernatural collide. Follow Layla as she navigates a misty landscape filled with strange rituals, hidden dangers, and a test of spiritual courage that will keep you breathless until the final awakening.
Layla stands with her family as they prepare for a journey to Madinah under a heavy, expectant sky. While her aunts are packed and ready to depart, her uncles remain behind, their refusal to join casting a strange shadow over the start of the trip.
Inside the moving car, the atmosphere is quiet as Layla rests her head comfortably on her mother’s lap. In the back seat, her brother’s wife suffers through the journey, her sickness prompting the aunts to whisper about the hardships of her current pregnancy.
The car pulls into a gas station shrouded in a thick, gray fog that makes it impossible to tell if it is dawn or dusk. Her paternal aunt appears through the mist with a disturbing, fixed smile, urging them to hurry toward the bathrooms before the crowds arrive.
The path to the facilities is a steep, crumbling slope that causes Layla to lose her footing and nearly tumble into the gray abyss. Her mother catches her with a sharp word and a tight, protective grip, leading her forcefully down toward the weathered building below.
They reach a desolate, one-story structure surrounded by towering, ancient trees that seem to lean in toward the yard. Two elderly women with distorted, frightening features sit in silence on straight-backed chairs, one dressed entirely in somber black garments.
At the entrance, a crowd dressed in vibrant turquoise and dark pink pajamas engages in a chaotic, ritualistic clash. Layla watches in confusion as they carry someone through the fray, but her mother commands her to look away and ignore the unsettling sight.
The interior corridor is a nightmare of crowded, bizarre figures and inexplicable behavior that feels both frantic and normal. Layla focuses on her task at a solitary sink, performing her ablution while a mysterious, shifting figure watches her from the shadows with a haunting intensity.
After finishing her prayers, Layla enters a room to find her grandmother and uncles gathered around a feast of rice and meat. The reunion is cut short when scorpions begin to crawl over the table, yet her mother and sister brush the venomous creatures away with a terrifying lack of fear.
Layla refuses to eat and insists on finishing her prayers, but as she rises from the ground, her family vanishes entirely. She is left facing a mocking man with long red hair and a dark-haired woman, leading Layla to lash out in anger and seize the man's hair to stop his taunting laughter.
The world suddenly plunges into total darkness, and Layla finds herself alone, surrounded by a circle of glowing red eyes staring from the void. Realizing that fear is her only weakness, she calms her racing heart and begins to walk bravely forward into the dark, searching for the road back home.
Generation Prompt(Sign in to view the full prompt)
It started as if my family and I were planning to travel to Madinah. All my aunts were going except my uncles, who said they wouldn’t go. Then I saw myself in the car with my family and two of my aunts. I was sitting next to my mother, resting my head in her lap. My brother’s wife was sitting in the back and vomiting, and one of my aunts said, “It seems your pregnancy is difficult this time.” We stopped at a gas station that had bathrooms, and it was located down a slope that we had to walk down. My mother got out of the car, and I went with her along with my aunts. We saw my paternal aunt coming, and my mother asked her if the bathrooms were clean. My aunt smiled in a strange way and said, “Yes, very clean—go quickly before it gets crowded.” The atmosphere was very foggy, gray, and unclear whether it was morning or evening. There were large trees surrounding the place, and everything felt dramatic and worn down. My mother went down the slope, and I followed her, but I couldn’t control my speed and almost fell. She came to me, scolded me, and held my hand tightly, taking me with her. We reached a worn-down one-floor building with a large empty yard in front, surrounded by huge trees. There were two chairs placed in a straight line, and on each chair sat an elderly woman with strange, frightening faces—one of them dressed in black. At the entrance of the bathrooms, there was a group of people wearing clothes like pajamas, in turquoise and dark pink, fighting or clashing with each other. It looked like they were carrying someone or performing strange rituals or maybe a funeral—I wasn’t sure. My mother said, “Ignore them and don’t look at them.” We went inside. There was a corridor with bathroom doors on the right, and sinks on the left. It was extremely crowded with people who looked strange—some naked, some behaving oddly together as if it were normal. My aunt kept telling me, “Don’t look, don’t look.” We continued until the end and stopped at an empty sink. I quickly performed ablution. While doing that, I turned back and saw a person with black hair staring at me. I remembered he had also been in the yard staring at me. I couldn’t recall his face—each time it seemed different, but it gave me the same feeling. I ignored him and said in front of my mother and aunt, “In the name of Allah,” and I completed my ablution, mentioning the Prophet, Imam Ali, and Imam Al-Kadhim. When we left, the corridor was suddenly empty—as if it had never been crowded at all. We exited and went to a room where my grandmother and my uncles were, even though they had said earlier they wouldn’t come. There was a large tray of rice and meat. My mother and sister sat, but I refused because there were insects. I saw a scorpion climb onto my mother, and I screamed. She removed it forcefully without fear. Another scorpion went toward my sister, and she shook it off in fear. They told me to sit, but I refused and shouted, “No! Give me the turbah now, I want to pray first.” My uncle gave it to me, and I started praying. When I raised my head from the first prostration, I saw that my family had disappeared. Instead, there were two people in front of me: a woman with black hair and a man with long red hair and bangs, who looked ridiculous, like a movie character. He was laughing at me mockingly. I got angry, ignored the woman, and grabbed his hair strongly. Even then, he kept smiling in a provoking way. I pulled harder and looked straight into his eyes. His expression became sharp. I shouted angrily: “Enough! Enough! Don’t you understand? I told you to stop!” His eyes flashed, and suddenly I found myself outside in darkness. I started screaming, “Mom! Where are you? Why did you leave me?!” Then I stopped in the middle and saw many red eyes surrounding me in a circle, watching from a distance—but they couldn’t come closer. I calmed myself and said, “If I panic now, I’ll be the weak one.” I gathered myself and started walking forward bravely toward the road we came from. Then the dream broke, and I woke up.
