The morning peace didn’t just break; it exploded. Yahya pushed his chair away from the breakfast table, the steam from his tea curling up like a final, mocking puff of calm. Then the terrible weight arrived a huge, invisible slab of stone slamming down onto his chest.
His vision went fuzzy. The room wobbled. His legs turned to jelly as his hand shot to his heart, convinced his life was ending right there in the kitchen.
Was this the end? Was he dying?
His breathing became sharp and shallow, like he was drowning on land. Cold sweat instantly coated his skin. He white-knuckled the table edge just to stay upright. The fear wasn’t about bills or a dark alley; it was about everything—pure, untamed terror that saw danger in the air, the light, and the silence.
Please, not now.
The house was quiet, humming with normal life. The fridge motor, the gentle clink of a spoon, a bird chirping outside. No one was there to hurt him. Yet his body was staging a full-scale riot, believing the apocalypse was happening inside his skin. He was trapped in a crisis that only he could see.
The Weight Nobody Else Saw
By the time his sister, Mariam, showed up later, Yahya was ghost-white, completely drained by the fight.
“You look pale. What happened?”
She asked, but her real focus was on her phone screen.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice quiet. “My heart was racing so hard. I couldn’t catch my breath.”
She barely looked up, still scrolling. Her small shrug felt like a door slamming in his face. It was a clear message: Stop being dramatic.
“Probably nothing. You should drink some water. Just try not to worry so much.”
He nodded, but inside, a vital connection broke. What he needed was someone to understand the earthquake he’d just survived. Instead, he got useless advice and a closed-off screen.
The Cure That Didn’t Fit
Desperate for any answer, he told his Uncle Farooq that night. The older man listened, serious and certain, but his solution was entirely disconnected from the problem.
“Were you near a graveyard? You must have picked up something unclean, a bad spirit,”
His uncle declared.
“I’ll get someone to help you cleanse your home.”
Yahya knew his uncle meant well, but the words felt like grit in his teeth. He felt buried alive by his fear, but to his family, it was a tiny problem requiring simple magic.
Soon, the house was filled with well-meaning rituals. A relative mumbled protective verses over him. A black thread, tied with seven knots, appeared on his wrist. Incense burned constantly, making the air thick. His mother murmured prayers until the silence was gone.
But the panic kept returning, sharp and sudden. His heart would start thundering for no reason. His breath would catch like a stone in his throat. Every ritual, every prayer, every piece of advice was immediately proven useless the second the terror struck, leaving him feeling raw and alone.
The Critical Question
Late one night, sitting on the floor, sweat glistening on his forehead, Yahya stopped looking outward for a solution. He was tired of the smoke and the threads.
He whispered into the dark, challenging the only thing he had left:
“Is it really an unseen force… or is it just me?”
The question was revolutionary. Every “cure” so far—avoid certain places, wear certain colors—was based on the idea that the problem was out there. But each attack proved the terror was made inside. The slab of stone wasn’t dropped by a ghost; it was generated by his own body.
His aunt heard his doubt and scolded him the next morning.
“You have no patience, Yahya. These are tests from God. You must wait.”
“Maybe,” he said, his voice low with doubt.
“But what if I don’t need a spirit healer? What if it’s something else entirely?”
He wasn’t giving up hope; he was simply realizing that to survive, he had to stop searching for a curse and start searching for an explanation. He closed his eyes, no longer looking for a religious verse, but for a name, a scientific word that would finally make his invisible suffering real.