It had always been amusing to me whenever I saw a kid who wanted to hide, close his eyes. It made me laugh. The innocence of thinking that by closing his eyes, he could become invisible, and wouldn’t get caught.
As silly as it sounded, I did close my eyes and wished that I could fade into darkness just like the whole world around me at that moment.
This was the most scared I had been my whole life.
The outside footsteps weren’t rapid, but they weren’t slow either. They were careful, and I didn’t know what that meant. My eyes flared wide when I realized someone was just outside the door of the storage room where we were hiding. Bassel, on the other hand, looked prepared to attack as he pointed the gun right at the door. I hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it; we weren’t ready to fight an unspecified number of enemies out there.
When the person outside went on their way, Bassel looked back at me and whispered, “We can’t stay here any longer, we have to leave this room before they start looking for us.”
As soon as he finished, I felt the room was spinning around me. My mouth was drier than a leaf in autumn, and my heartbeat was stronger than ever. The person outside would surely find the bodies of the dead men. If we were lucky, he would go down to the underground room and check if I was there before informing The Snake. It would give us time to find another hiding place.
How I prayed we could find a way out, already!
Bassel quickly took off his shoes. I imagined it was something that he didn’t want to do, given that it made him vulnerable, but he didn’t want to generate any sound.
Slowly, Bassel turned the doorknob, I held my breath as we got out of the room and quietly closed the door behind us. Our enemies would have to look inside first and maybe find Bassel’s shoes to know that we had been there. It would be a good distraction and which might give us some time, even if for no more than two minutes.
My heart was in my throat, my vision blurry, and everything around me looked very hazy. It almost seemed like there were gray clouds right inside the mansion, I didn’t even know how it was possible to feel so cold and hot all at the same time.
Bassel was practically dragging me ― almost jogging to a location I didn’t know and couldn’t see. If it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t want to make a sound, I expect he would’ve been running.
God only knows that each step I took felt like a sharp knife was stabbing me right in my stomach and back. My whole body was shaking. Walking on needles wouldn’t be as painful, I was sure. But complaining or thinking about taking a rest was the last thing that I would do. So, I just moved with him even though I didn’t know when or where our next stop would be.
I didn’t question him when we started going up some stairs, which to me seemed higher than Mount Everest. When he didn’t exit the stairwell as we reached the second floor – I bit my lips hard to muffle a scream of pain and objection. I didn’t know how I could make it up another level.
Still, I smothered my doubts with faith and drew strength from the hope that the man who once spoke to me with disrespect would be here soon with help. I prayed that we would be saved. I prayed that my son would be born into safety. I hoped that blood and death wouldn’t surround us when he’d enter the world.
Sadly, my internal strength had no impact on my physical being. My legs gave out on me, just like that. I knelt right there on the stairs that led to the third floor, completely exhausted and feeling pain in every inch of my body. I dragged Bassel’s arm down along with me because he had a death grip on my hand, although, I wasn’t even holding his anymore.
Looking up at Bassel’s eyes, I could see fear in them for the first time since he called Sheikh Qapeel. It was then that I knew that our chances of being saved, or even keep hiding for an hour or so longer, had just lowered to near zero.
My condition wasn’t helping with whatever Bassel was thinking.
“I c-can’t mak-ke it.”
My voice was lower than a whisper. I was doubtful that Bassel had heard it at all, but when he pressed his lips together, I knew that he had figured out what I was saying.
Without warning, Bassel moved past me down the stairs, hefted me in his arms bridal style and continued to move on up.
His fingers dug in the wounds on my back through the thin T-shirt that I was wearing. I squeezed my eyes tight as I felt the sharp pain strike me with force. My head throbbed as I struggled to keep quiet, swallowing my moans. I believe I blacked out, because the next thing I knew, I was lying on the wooden floor in a room Bassel found. He was desperately calling me in whispers while he shook me by the shoulders.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Stay with me, please!”
Through the fog, I made out Bassel’s figure as he knelt in front of where I was lying. The pain in my back and stomach was all I could feel. Shaking violently was the only thing that I could do.
“They know we’ve escaped,” Bassel said, and I believe my heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t like I hadn’t anticipated it because I did. But it didn’t make it any easier to hear those words from him. “I can hear them downstairs.”
When he said that, I heard it, as well. I wished I hadn’t.
Footsteps. Jogging. Squeaking floor. Whispers. People talking aggressively. They were furious. And … they were too many.
Bassel looked to be listening, too, and as I watched the fear grow on his face – I felt a panic attack approaching. Although it had been a long time since I’d had one, I remembered the signs all too well. After all, I’d had them for years, and I knew exactly how it felt when I was about to have one.
I had learned how to make it stop, and how to make it go away, but suddenly I couldn’t remember how. I tried to calm myself by looking for a safe spot in my mind – my happy place – and started imagining good things and thinking of joyful memories, but I couldn’t.
There was no safe place in my mind, just as there was no safe place for me. Danger surrounded my baby and me. Danger, fear, and death.
“Please, don’t panic,” Bassel said as my breath started to hitch and became louder. “They won’t think of us going up here. You’re safe, Your Majesty.”
His words made no sense for me, but I still tried to calm myself, even if it took away all of my remaining strength.
“Breathe,” I heard the sweetest of voices in my ear, just as if Mazen was right there with me. “Let it out slowly, princess.” Mazen’s whispers filled my mind and heart as I recalled him telling me that when we trained ourselves for our baby’s birth. “That's it, very good. Do it again.”
Magically, my breaths were slowing down. It wasn’t by much, but I could definitely feel the tightening in my throat lessen as I tried to concentrate only on my love’s voice as he told me that I was doing well.
“There are too many of them,” I breathed out, my shaky tone holding all of the fear that was eating at me from the inside. I couldn’t imagine how it could be possible to get out of all this mess alive. I just couldn’t.
“Sheikh Qapeel will be here soon,” Bassel assured me with a nod of his head; he sounded so sure of what he was saying.
“What if they reach us before he’s here?” I voiced my fears in a shaky question.
“Then I will protect you with my body and soul, Your Majesty. I promise.” The fear in his eyes was mixed with sincerity and determination, and a tired, small smile was all I could offer him in response.
That sorry joke of a smile on my face dropped the second we heard our enemies getting closer. Bassel stared at the bottom of the door as if he was watching for the shadows underneath it to change and announce that someone was right outside.
We could hear them talking; it was two or three men, I wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t figure out what exactly they were saying. Bassel was ready with his gun just like last time, and thankfully, they didn’t come near the room. I wasn’t actually sure if it was a room or an attic, it was too dark to tell.
Just as they were leaving, my eyes widened in fear as I felt the familiar pain in my lower abdomen, now much stronger than the one preceding it. Although I was biting on my lips hard, a groan managed to escape me. It was low, but audible against the silence that covered the area.
Bassel looked at me with utter terror. The people outside stopped moving, and my contraction continued – as painful as ever. I had no idea if another moan would escape me. I had absolutely no control over it.
Before I could make another sound, Bassel put his hand over my mouth and pressed tightly as his other hand aimed the gun at the door. He wasn’t even looking at me, but I could tell that he was scared, we were too close to getting caught.
The smell of dried blood on his hand made me gag. Everything was all so horrible that I imagined Hell wouldn’t be as disgusting and horrifying – the pain alone was another story.
I could only call it a miracle that the people outside continued to walk away when they didn’t hear anything else. Bassel lowered the gun, and then moved the hand covering my mouth – sighing in semi-relief as the sound of footsteps vanished.
Just as I was riding off my latest contraction, the door to the room we were in swung open, and I let out a terrified gasp. Two men stood by the door, their eyes scanning the dark room and finding us in a moment. Bassel’s reflexes were swift because before I could blink, he had taken a man down. They started fighting, and the other man called, “Over here!” before trying to get the first man out of Bassel’s grip.
I watched, frightened, as the two men tried their best to beat Bassel to death. For a second, I wondered why they weren’t using the guns I could see tucked in their belts, but figured that just like us, they didn’t want to draw attention to the mansion in any way.
If I remembered correctly, that was why The Snake refused Mo’taz’s request to take him upstairs. Her exact words were that he didn’t know how to move around the mansion the right way. It didn’t make sense to me then, but now I figured she’d meant they needed to keep away from the windows to keep the mansion looking abandoned and empty to an outsider.
It pained me to see Bassel fighting for his life. He was struggling to keep up with the two men, but I could tell that he was much stronger than they were and he had smart moves. As horrible as it was to watch, I was relieved when he was able to stab one of his opponents in the stomach, and as that man lay on his side and struggled for his life, Bassel strangled the other man until life was completely sucked out of him.
Bassel was gasping for air as he got up on his feet, swinging slightly as he bent down to pull the knife from the first man’s body. The man groaned as blood started seeping out of his wound. I met Bassel’s eyes for a brief second, and my tears fell as I saw his bloodied face. He motioned for me to stay quiet as he hid behind the opened door. I swallowed thickly, not knowing what was going to happen next.
I didn’t have to wait long. Less than a minute later, another man entered the room, moving directly towards the corner where I was half-sitting. In one move, Bassel caught him from behind and slit his throat. They were so close to me that my shirt caught the spurt of hot blood coming out of the man. It was horrible.
Bassel slowly lowered the man to the floor to prevent the sound of a thudding body. I hoped that this was the end of it.
“We need to leave this room, quickly,” Bassel said in a rush, but I didn’t know how I’d be able to do that. I was so weak that breathing was a struggle on its own.
Still, with his help, I got up, and we made it out of the room as fast as my condition and his allowed. He was limping, and I saw him wincing a few times. I wondered if he was seriously injured in a place I couldn’t see.
The distress was killing me. I wished I could take it all away, and it was devastating to know that I couldn’t.
Bassel got us in a very dark corner a few meters away from the room we were in. I couldn’t even see my own fingers, but the darkness was our only protection. The room we were in had no lock. That was the moment when I was completely sure there was no way out for us.
It wasn’t even possible for us to communicate with each other because we could hear many people downstairs. Many. I knew they were searching for us on the other floors, but I was also very sure that they would be here soon.
I put my hand over my mouth as another contraction started building, and I squeezed my teary eyes shut, finding that I was seeing no different than when I had them wide open. The darkness completely engulfed us in both cases.
It was impossible to see what Bassel was doing, but I could feel him standing right by where I was sitting, his back flat against the wall, as we both took refuge in the dark.
I was within an inch of passing out as I heard people coming up the stairs. I wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole; it couldn’t be worse than what I was going through.
They were talking about the possibilities of finding me here or there, this one telling the other to go to this place while a third one said he’d be in another. It was so scary that my heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. Everything was too much for it to take.
Yes, that was too scary, but it wasn’t comparable to how petrified I felt when, in the next moment, I heard The Snake’s voice.
“Bassel, you fucking asshole!” she shouted in anger. Apparently hiding the presence of people inside the mansion wasn’t her priority anymore. “I will find you, and I will make you regret this.”
The thumping in my heart was too loud. God! Please! Keep us safe. Keep us safe. I prayed silently.
“You were hungry, and miserable, you bastard,” she shouted, her voice even closer now, she was probably on the same floor as us. “I took you under my wing when no one agreed to give you a job. Is this how you repay me? By deceiving me?”
I started shaking violently as I heard her voice coming closer, but Bassel was utterly still. I hated myself for seeming to be helpless when it came to controlling my shaking, but it was out of my hands – I was absolutely terrified.
She was quiet for a minute, and I wondered if she could smell my fear. It seemed there was nothing impossible for her. She would do anything to put her hands on my baby and me.
When I heard her voice again, I knew that she found the three bodies.
She cried out in a fury.
“Oh, Bassel! How I am going to make you pay for this. And very soon!” she promised.
I heard many footsteps as they passed right by us. Qamar was surrounded by many people who were assuring her that we didn’t leave the mansion, and since the bodies were still warm – it meant that we weren’t too far.
“Marie!” she called. My eyes widened, and holding my breath seemed to be all I could do. “Oh, Marie, Marie, Marie,” she chanted slowly, just like an evil witch right out of a horror movie. “Is that your water I saw on the floor of the room?”
My stomach was in knots, and my eyes hurt from how tight I was squeezing them shut. It seemed that deep inside me I was hoping that the three-year-old’s method of hiding by closing eyes was real and I could really disappear right then and there.
“Are you in labor, honey?” The Snake asked, then she laughed devilishly. “Good! You won’t stay silent for too long, and I will be here waiting for your screams. If not you – it will be your little prince’s cries.”
I pressed the two of my hands hard to my mouth, too afraid I would make a sound that they could hear. For a second, I was grateful for her evil giggling as it had covered up my gasps for air. I heard her go down the stairs.
Bassel was so quiet that if I didn’t actually feel his foot right beside mine, I would’ve thought that he wasn’t there at all. I had no idea how he was able to do it. I felt him as he bent down to whisper in my ear.
“I have to leave.”
The panic in my heart couldn’t be described in words at that moment.
“No, no, please, don’t,” I begged in whispers. I was miserable. I couldn’t imagine him leaving me there, I just couldn’t imagine the idea of being alone.
“Shh, please, be quiet,” he whispered. “I’ll get you back into the room. They won’t come back in there again, at least not for some time. I promise she didn’t know that we were close. She was just trying to scare you.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” I told him in the quietest voice I could manage, begging him with everything in me not to leave.
“I’ll distract them to keep them away from this floor, long enough to let help reach us,” he said. I understood what he meant and what he was trying to do, but I didn’t like it the slightest bit.
Bassel helped me up on my feet, and just like when we first came to this spot – I pressed my thighs together and walked in a funny way just to make sure that no more water would come out of me, not to leave a trace. I knew it wasn’t something that I could control, but I also knew that I had to try, at least.
I was grateful that there were carpets that could hide our footprints on the dusty floor.
It was terrifying to know that I would be locked in this room with dead bodies for God only knew how long, but the pain from my contractions kept me from dwelling on it.
What I could think about, though, was how I was missing out on the magical moments I would have normally been experiencing right now. Moments that would have been filled with my husband’s kindness and love.
The reality was that I was alone after a complete stranger, who was desperately trying to save my life, had locked me in a dark room with dead bodies as we awaited rescue.
“Breathe, princess.”
Mazen. Mazen’s voice in my head was the only thing grounding me. I imagined him holding my hand while I lay in a comfy bed in a room full of love and safety. “You’re doing well.”
His voice was the only comfort I felt as I went through one contraction after the other, contractions that grew stronger by the minute and seemed follow closely one after another. And just the thought of what that meant almost threw me into a panic attack.
“I love you.”
It was the only reason I struggled onward: Our love. Our love for each other, and our love for our baby.
As the pain became unbearable, I bit hard on my hand until I tasted blood, so scared that any noise I might make would be the last thing I ever did.
At some point, I started hearing gunshots, so many of them. I wanted to believe that it meant that Sheikh Qapeel had arrived with the Bedouins, but after all that, it was almost unbelievable to me that I would be saved. The dark, dark voices in my head told me that the shots meant that my enemies had found Bassel and were ending him.
The smell of death saturated the air, assaulting my nose and filling my lungs with its unwelcome stench. With it came the horrible feeling of sickness and the fear of the unknown.
The scenario of dead people surrounding me, and others struggling as they fought for their lives wasn't new to me, I'd seen it before. The only difference this time was that I wasn't a scared little girl anymore. No, I was a horrified, fully grown woman.
For the past few days, I trusted that everything would be okay in the end. It was the only thing that kept me going. I refused to let go. I refused to allow anxiety to start stabbing at my heart or hold my brain in its disgusting claws.
But right now, I didn't know how to be strong anymore. I didn't know how to keep it together while feeling this agonizing pain in my body, or this unbearable ache in my chest. Being here was much more than I could tolerate.
Screaming my heart out seemed like a pretty good idea. Something in me believed that it would give me some sort of relief. But I couldn't do that because I didn't know if it would mean my rescue, or if it would only bring unwanted attention to me. The kind of attention that I didn't want.
So, I held in my screams, but I couldn't keep my tears from flowing. They simply escaped, just like the blood that was now seeping out of my body. I had no control over either of them.
I wasn't mad at myself for crying, no. I was proud of the strength I'd shown since I was brought here. Mazen would be proud of me as well.
Mazen… My heart sank at the memory of the last time I'd seen him. My mind replayed the image of him, his head held high, and he stood tall, his features were colder than ice, and the look in his eyes was harder than stone.
I remembered the tears I'd shed as I watched him spitting orders and shouting commands. I remembered the struggle I felt to keep breathing as I heard him making threats and promising the unthinkable.
I also remembered calling to him, and him never answering me.
I remembered exactly when my heart broke. And I recalled promising myself that I’d never show weakness ever again.
But realizing what was happening now – I knew this was probably the end. There was no point in not showing weakness, no point in being strong; nor there was a point in keeping it together.
I screamed.
At the top of my lungs.
My scream declared all of what I was feeling during the past days – the hurt, the pain, the fear, the worry, the shame, and the broken heart.
All it earned me was a split second of relief. I knew very well that it could be heard beyond those doors. I knew it could be the cry of the prey, which made it easier for attackers to locate it.
It couldn't be undone, and I didn't have it in me to regret it. I was ready to meet my fate.