Page 30 of Heavensent & Hellbent

After a year of having the dreams, I realized the peoplearound me didn’t want to hear about them anymore, so I stopped telling them the details. They were mine, and mine alone, to bear.

“The figure?” Zain repeated. When I turned, his expression had changed. He was pale, almost, like he was afraidforme. It took me aback.

“The sleep paralysis demon?” I offered feebly. It locked into place then. Everything I knew, had learned. “Do you think…”

It was so obvious, but I couldn’t say it aloud.Do you think it’s real? Do you think the sleep paralysis demon is a jinn?

His eyebrows knitted together.

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. The creeping fear that I was losing my mind transformed. This was something even more sinister, something external, and not just in my head. And I had no way of stopping it—at least, not that I knew of.

We had reached the peak of the hike. To the side of us, a man and presumably his son, who appeared to be no older than Ehsan, were taking pictures of the view.

Zain led the way around the corner, to a crevice in a large bit of rock, which we stood inside. Now, we were inches away from each other. From the outside, we probably looked like a couple wanting a moment together, but the reality was darkly different.

I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding—not only from the exercise, but the anticipation of what Zain was about to say.

His breath tickled my face.

“I don’t think this thing you’ve been seeing is just a figment of your imagination,” he finally said.

“But you said you hadn’t heard of sleep paralysis before.”

“I haven’t, but it sounds like a way for humans to justify seeing jinn in their sleep—or, worse, being possessed by them.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. It was warm yet weighty. Had I not been leaning against the rocks, I might’ve collapsed.

“Roxana, breathe,” he whispered.

I took a deep intake of air and then let it out.

“No one believed me. They all thought I was making it up, but the snakes marked me.” I revealed my faded bruised wrists. “They’ve never caused me to bruise before, but the dreams have gotten weirder. They’re progressing—” I almost said more but pressed my lips together.

Last week, I saw Zain in another time, another century. I had drawn what I could remember of Zain with the castle behind him. I couldn’t, however, draw the man cuffed to the wall, or shake the wordsthis is what happens when you make a deal with Shaitan.

Zain hovered his fingers over my wrist, as soft as a feather. I was hyperaware of him touching me, the nerves in my body excited, even in these circumstances. I forced myself to focus on the red rock behind him.

“What else happens in the dreams?” he asked, his voice soft, reassuring.

I heard murmurs from the boy and his dad, as well as the birds squabbling overhead.

“I have a nightmare of being burnt to death,” I replied. Something told me to withhold parts of my dreams, an instinct I couldn’t ignore.

He nodded. “Interesting.”

“The sleep paralysis usually comes before, though not always.”

“What do you see when you’re being burned?” he asked, his voice neutral, almost too neutral. I narrowed my eyes at him.

His own widened in response. “What?”

“What do you know?”

Zain’s eyes were like stone, until he let out a breathless half laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know something. What, is me being burnt alive a premonition of what’s to come?” I spoke flippantly, but a grim twist to his mouth made my heart drop.

He must’ve noticed this because he quickly said, “No, I’ve just—”