Beneath the Salt Wind
Beneath the Salt Wind
The salt wind that perpetually scoured Karachi carried more than just the scent of brine and distant fish markets. It carried whispers, old stories embedded in the very dust that settled on the city’s weary bones. For decades, the sprawling metropolis had hummed with an oblivious energy, a relentless forward march of progress and chaos. But lately, the whispers seemed to be coalescing, hardening into something tangible, something that pressed down on the city’s spirit like an unseen hand.
Amina Begum, perched on her verandah overlooking a courtyard choked with overgrown jasmine, felt it first. It was not a sound, nor a smell, but a profound shift in the atmosphere, a subtle discord in the symphony of everyday life. The usual chattering of sparrows had grown hesitant, their chirps laced with a nervous energy. The shadows in the afternoon sun seemed to deepen prematurely, clinging to the ornate carvings of her ancestral home with a possessive grip. She adjusted her spectacles, her gaze sweeping over the familiar chaos of the street below. A fruit vendor hawked his wares, children played a boisterous game of cricket, and a weary-looking man in a crisp shalwar kameez navigated the throng. All seemed ordinary, yet the dissonance persisted, a low thrumming beneath the surface of reality, like a forgotten tune played just out of earshot. She murmured a verse from the Quran, a habitual gesture against the unseen. But this time, the words felt thin, brittle, unable to hold back the encroaching tide of unease. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced since the fever dreams of her childhood, the ones her grandmother had spoken of in hushed tones – tales of djinn stirred from slumber, of curses unearthed by careless hands. She was a woman of habit, of quiet piety, but the unsettling sensation gnawed at her, a persistent itch beneath the skin of her placid existence. Something was wrong. Terribly, irrevocably wrong.
Miles away, in the sterile chrome and glass of his newsroom, Rizwan Khan found his own mundane routine fraying at the edges. He was chasing the usual city drama – a petty political spat, a minor traffic accident that had snarled arteries for hours. His editor, a man perpetually on the verge of a coronary, wanted a sensational headline. Rizwan, however, felt a peculiar emptiness in the air, a lack of the usual vibrant friction that characterized Karachi. The city felt… muted. Even the usual torrent of complaints and petty grievances that flooded his inbox seemed to have dwindled. He’d chalked it up to a slow news cycle, a collective exhaustion. But now, as he scrolled through his emails, a peculiar cluster of them caught his eye. Encryptions that refused to yield, subject lines that were unsettlingly vague, and one anonymous tip – a single, chilling phrase: “They’re watching the shadows.” He dismissed it as the usual online nonsense, yet the words lingered, a faint, unpleasant echo in the otherwise predictable noise of his profession.
Dr. Sameera Ali’s clinic was an oasis of calm in the heart of Karachi’s bustling Gulshan-e-Iqbal. Soft lighting, carefully chosen abstract art, and the gentle scent of lavender were designed to soothe and reassure. Today, however, the serenity felt brittle, tested by the persistent tremor in her hands as she reviewed the case notes of her last patient. The young woman, a student named Aisha, had presented with a constellation of symptoms that baffled Sameera. It wasn’t just the recurring nightmares, the feelings of being watched, or the escalating paranoia. It was the details Aisha recounted – whispers in a language Aisha couldn’t possibly know, the sensation of cold, spectral fingers tracing patterns on her skin in the dead of night, and a recurring image of a vast, empty space, punctuated by a single, unblinking eye. Aisha insisted these experiences were tied to an old, dilapidated bungalow on the coast, a place her family had no connection to. “It feels like… like the walls are breathing, Doctor,” Aisha had stammered, her voice a reedy whisper. “And the wind… it doesn’t sound like wind anymore. It sounds like it’s speaking.” Sameera, a staunch advocate of empirical evidence and neurochemical imbalances, had initially diagnosed severe anxiety with dissociative episodes. But Aisha’s conviction, her sheer terror, and the way her narrative seemed to weave itself into a chilling, coherent tapestry of dread, had begun to chip away at Sameera’s clinical detachment. There was a raw authenticity to Aisha’s fear that couldn’t be easily dismissed. Later that evening, after Aisha had left, Sameera found herself staring out her own office window, not at the familiar cityscape, but at the darkening sky. The distant roar of traffic seemed to recede, replaced by a phantom echo of Aisha’s words – the breathing walls, the speaking wind. She shook her head, dismissing the fanciful imagery. Yet, as she packed her bag, her keys slipped from her grasp, clattering onto the polished floor. As she bent to retrieve them, her gaze fell upon a small, framed photograph on her desk – her younger brother, lost years ago to a mysterious fever. A shiver, unrelated to the cool evening air, traced its way down her spine. He had loved the sea.
Meanwhile, Khalid, the night watchman at a seemingly abandoned warehouse on the fringes of the old port, moved with the quiet precision of a ghost. His territory was a labyrinth of decaying concrete and rusting steel, a place where the city’s forgotten detritus accumulated. Tonight, the salt wind carried an unusual chill, a mournful howl that seemed to eddy and swirl around the skeletal remains of ships long past their prime. He’d heard stories, of course, whispers from the dockworkers and the few solitary fishermen who still frequented these waters after dark. Tales of a place where the veil between worlds grew thin, where the restless dead found purchase. Khalid was not a man prone to fanciful notions, but even he felt a prickle of unease. The usual scuttling of rats and the distant cries of seagulls were absent. The silence was profound, broken only by the unnerving keening of the wind. He made his rounds, his flashlight beam cutting sharp arcs through the oppressive darkness. As he passed a boarded-up section of the warehouse, a faint scratching sound emanated from within. He paused, his hand instinctively going to the sturdy metal pipe he carried. It wasn’t the sound of rats. It was too rhythmic, too deliberate. It sounded, disturbingly, like fingernails on wood, trying to get out.
Rizwan Khan’s car crunched over loose gravel as he navigated the poorly maintained access road to the abandoned warehouse. The structure loomed larger, its corrugated iron walls scarred by rust and time, a forgotten monument to Karachi’s industrial past. He parked discreetly, the silence here a stark contrast to the city’s usual thrum. The air was thick with the smell of decay and something else… something metallic, acrid, like old blood. He approached the warehouse cautiously, his recording device activated. The scratching sound Khalid had heard was now faintly audible even from outside, a dry, insistent scraping that sent shivers down Rizwan’s spine. It was coming from a section of the wall, reinforced with thick planks of dark, water-stained wood. He peered through a narrow gap between two planks, his heart beginning to pound a heavy rhythm against his ribs. Inside, the darkness was absolute, broken only by slivers of the fading twilight filtering through cracks in the roof. He could discern shapes – hulking machinery draped in tarps, discarded crates, and… figures. Not living figures, he realized with a sickening lurch. Silhouettes, unnaturally still, arranged in a disturbing tableau. And then he saw it. On the floor, near the source of the scratching, a small, crudely carved wooden doll lay discarded. Its eyes were painted shut, and its limbs were twisted at unnatural angles. It was disturbingly similar to a piece of folk art he’d seen displayed in a small antique shop near the old city, a shop that had recently been recommended to him by a source researching local superstitions – a source connected to the very house Amina Begum was now approaching. The realization hit Rizwan like a physical blow: the warehouse and the antique shop, and by extension, the bungalow Amina was heading towards, were not disparate points on a map. They were nodes in a chilling network. The “influences” weren’t just metaphorical; they were tied to something ancient, something that trafficked in relics and dark rituals.
Simultaneously, Amina Begum’s car bumped its way along a barely-there track, overgrown with thorny bushes and clinging vines. Karim, her driver, was visibly unnerved, muttering prayers under his breath and casting anxious glances at the dense foliage that pressed in on either side. Amina herself, despite her resolve, felt a growing sense of dread. The air grew heavy, charged with an almost palpable tension. It was as if the very earth around them was holding its breath. They finally emerged into a small, desolate clearing. Before them stood the bungalow, a spectral silhouette against the darkening sky. It was more ruin than structure, its once grand facade now crumbling, windows boarded up like vacant eyes. A low, mournful groan emanated from within – not the wind, but a deep, resonant sound that seemed to come from the very foundations of the house. As Karim killed the engine, a profound silence descended, broken only by the insistent, rhythmic thudding that now seemed to emanate from the ground beneath them. It wasn’t a natural sound. It was slow, deliberate, like a colossal heart beating beneath the earth. And then, from the darkened doorway of the bungalow, a single, pale, impossibly long strand of hair drifted out, catching the dying light like a silken thread. It wasn’t just hair; it seemed to writhe, as if imbued with a life of its own. Amina watched, transfixed, as the strand detached itself from the unseen source and began to snake its way across the overgrown lawn, moving with an unnerving, independent grace towards their car.
The realization that the warehouse, the antique shop, and the bungalow were interconnected struck Rizwan Khan with the force of a physical blow. The scraping from within the warehouse grew louder, more frantic, as if whatever was trapped behind those planks was growing desperate. He felt a primal urge to flee, to put as much distance as possible between himself and this place of palpable dread. But his journalistic instincts warred with his fear. He forced himself to take one last, shaky photograph of the wooden doll, the acrid scent of decay filling his nostrils. Then, with a sudden surge of adrenaline, he scrambled back to his car, the image of those arranged figures and the gnawing sound seared into his mind. He peeled away, tires spitting gravel, the warehouse receding into the encroaching darkness like a festering wound.
At the bungalow, the strand of writhing hair had reached the edge of the overgrown lawn, its sinuous movement unnervingly deliberate. Amina Begum stared, paralyzed by a terror that transcended logic. The hair wasn’t just moving; it was probing, extending tendrils as if sensing their presence. Karim, his face ashen, fumbled with the car keys, his hands trembling uncontrollably. The rhythmic thudding from beneath the earth had intensified, a deep, resonant pulse that seemed to vibrate through the very chassis of the vehicle. Suddenly, Karim cried out, pointing a shaking finger towards the bungalow’s dark doorway. Another strand of hair, thicker and darker than the first, had emerged, followed by another, and another. They began to weave and writhe, coalescing into a grotesque, shadowy mass that pulsed with a sickening, unnatural energy. From within this emerging darkness, a low, guttural whisper began to emanate, a sound that was not of this world, a sound that seemed to promise ancient, unspeakable horrors. It was the sound of the salt wind finally speaking its true, terrifying language. Just as the shadowy mass began to detach itself from the doorway, a shrill, insistent ring cut through the oppressive atmosphere. It was Sameera Ali’s mobile phone, vibrating on the dashboard. Karim, in his panic, accidentally answered it. “Hello? Hello?” Karim stammered, his voice cracking. On the other end, Sameera Ali’s voice, sharp and professional, cut through the static. “Hello? Is this the driver for Amina Begum? I’ve been trying to reach her for the last hour. I received a rather disturbing, albeit fragmented, message from a Mr. Rizwan Khan concerning a property near the port and a… a doll. He seemed highly agitated. He mentioned you were heading towards a derelict bungalow on the coast. Is everything alright?” Sameera had been reviewing Aisha’s case files again, the details of the bungalow and the “speaking wind” haunting her thoughts. Rizwan Khan’s fragmented call, full of panicked words about a “network” and “old things,” had sent a jolt of alarm through her. She had tried calling Amina Begum directly, fearing the worst. The sound that answered Karim’s panicked exclamation wasn’t human. It was a wet, slithering hiss, followed by a low, predatory growl that seemed to emanate from the very air around the car. The hair-like appendages were inching closer, probing the vehicle. “Doctor, please! We’re in trouble!” Karim shrieked, his eyes wide with abject terror as he finally got the car into gear. He slammed his foot on the accelerator, the tires spinning wildly before finding purchase on the uneven ground. The bungalow, with its pulsing darkness and the horrifying cascade of unnatural hair, receded behind them, but the guttural whispers and the dreadful thudding seemed to follow, carried on the relentless salt wind.
Back in his car, speeding away from the warehouse, Rizwan frantically tried to make sense of what he’d seen. The doll, the arranged figures, the scratching. He remembered the antique shop. He pulled over, his hands still shaking, and punched the shop’s number into his phone. It rang unanswered. Frustrated, he tried another number from his notes – a contact who specialized in local folklore and occult history. “Dr. Arshad Afzal is… unavailable,” a hesitant voice replied on the other end, before abruptly hanging up. The familiar pen name, uttered so strangely, sent another prickle of unease down Rizwan’s spine. Unavailable? It was a word that was starting to echo ominously throughout Karachi.
The phone call, though cut short, had been enough. Dr. Sameera Ali felt a cold dread settle in her gut, a feeling that transcended her usual professional concern. Rizwan Khan’s panicked utterance about “old things” and the chilling description of the bungalow – “speaking wind,” “breathing walls” – resonated uncomfortably with Aisha’s fragmented confessions. The antique shop, a place she’d dismissed as a mere detail in Aisha’s narrative, suddenly felt like a critical nexus. With a newfound urgency, Sameera bypassed protocol. She drove to the antique shop herself, the one Rizwan had mentioned. It was nestled in a warren of narrow streets in the old city, its facade obscured by dust and shadow. The air here was heavy, not with the city’s usual bustle, but with a palpable stillness, the silence of forgotten things. She pushed open the creaking door, a small bell above it emitting a mournful chime. The interior was a claustrophobic jumble of curios, relics, and artifacts. The scent of aged wood, dust, and something vaguely floral but cloying hung in the air. Amidst the clutter, she spotted it – a small, wooden doll, its limbs twisted, its eyes painted shut. It was identical to the one Rizwan described. And then, her gaze fell upon a collection of faded photographs on a dusty shelf. One depicted a group of stern-faced men and women in traditional attire, gathered before a grand, albeit dilapidated, bungalow by the sea. Amina Begum’s family crest was subtly visible on a banner. Another photograph showed a younger woman, strikingly similar to Amina, holding a similar wooden doll, her expression of profound sadness. As Sameera examined the photographs, a voice, dry and raspy like rustling parchment, startled her. “You seek knowledge of the old ways?” An elderly man, wizened and frail, emerged from the shadows at the back of the shop. His eyes, deep-set and unnervingly bright, fixed on her. He introduced himself as the proprietor, a guardian of sorts, of the objects within. He spoke of rituals, of appeasements, and of places where the earth’s pulse was strongest. He confirmed that the bungalow was one such place, a site of ancient power, and that the dolls were conduits, meant to soothe or contain restless energies. “These whispers the wind carries,” the old man rasped, his gaze distant, “they are its hunger made audible. The scratching… it is impatience.”
Meanwhile, Khalid, the night watchman, found himself at a precipice. The scratching from within the warehouse had become a deafening cacophony, punctuated by guttural roars that shook the very structure. It was no longer a matter of unease; it was primal terror. He could hear the wood groaning, splintering. Something immense was trying to break free. He knew he should call the police, but the sheer unnaturalness of the sounds paralyzed him. This was beyond any human criminality. He remembered stories, tales whispered among the port workers about this very warehouse, about strange lights and disappearances. Driven by a sudden, desperate impulse to understand, or perhaps to warn, he crept towards the section of the wall where the wood was visibly cracking. Through a widening fissure, he saw it – a flash of something that was not flesh, not bone, but a pulsating, phosphorescent membrane. Tendrils, impossibly long and slick, writhed and strained against the yielding wood. He caught a glimpse of a grotesque, eyeless head, its mouth a gaping maw that seemed to absorb light itself. He couldn’t bear witness any longer. He turned and ran, not back towards his small guardhouse, but towards the main road, his only thought to find help, to find anyone who would listen. He ran past the rusty hulls of derelict ships, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the monstrous sounds of the warehouse echoing in his ears, growing louder, closer. He stumbled, falling hard onto the damp, salty earth. As he tried to push himself up, he felt something cold and slick wrap around his ankle. He looked down, his blood turning to ice. It was a tendril, pale and glistening, emerging from a crack in the ground at his feet. It pulsed with a faint, sickly light.
Back in the city, Rizwan Khan, his blood pounding in his ears, stared at the glistening trail snaking its way out of the shop and into the oppressive darkness of the alley. Sameera’s warning echoed in his mind, but the journalist in him, the need to know, was a powerful, almost irresistible force. The trail was undeniable evidence of something profoundly wrong. If it led to the docks, it led to the heart of the city’s underworld, a place where the Khwaja-e-Be-Lab could sow its fear unchecked. He had to see. He had to document. He took a deep breath, the acrid scent of decay filling his lungs, and stepped into the alley, following the unnerving, glistening path into the encroaching night.
The unleashed Khwaja-e-Be-Lab did not merely break free; it consumed. The sounds from the warehouse escalated from roars to a vast, tearing hiss, a sound that seemed to vibrate through the very bedrock of Karachi. Lights flickered and died across entire districts. The constant hum of the city faltered, replaced by an eerie, expectant silence, broken only by the distant, growing cacophony of unseen horrors. People on the streets froze, their faces contorted in uncomprehending terror as the salt wind, now laden with a palpable malevolence, whipped around them, carrying not just dust, but whispers that echoed their deepest, most primal fears. Shadows detached themselves from buildings, stretching and contorting into impossible shapes. The city, for all its vibrant life, was being suffocated by an ancient dread made manifest.
Dr. Sameera Ali, trapped in her darkened clinic, felt the icy tendrils of the entity’s influence closing in. Her phone, clutched in a trembling hand, was now silent, dead. She could hear them, the whispers, slithering into her mind, dredging up the deepest fears. The image of her lost brother, the unresolved grief, the guilt – they were weaponized against her. She saw fleeting visions: the dissolving figure Rizwan described, the writhing hair at the bungalow, the vacant, hungry maw of the entity. It was everywhere, and it was feeding. A profound despair washed over her. There was no fighting this. It was a force of nature, an embodiment of oblivion. Yet, as she sank to the floor, her gaze fell upon Aisha’s case file, still on her desk. A fragment of a recurring dream Aisha had described, dismissed as delusion, surfaced: “A single, pure note… can break the silence.” A pure note? What could that mean in this symphony of terror? An idea, desperate and fragile, began to form, a spark of defiance in the encroaching void.
Rizwan Khan, his breath ragged, had followed the glistening trail into the pulsing darkness behind the antique shop. It led him not to a room, but to a space that defied geometry, a non-place where the air was thick with the stench of decay and despair. The whispers here were deafening, a deafening chorus of lost souls. He saw it then, the Khwaja-e-Be-Lab in its true, horrifying form – not a physical entity, but a void, a sentient absence that consumed all light, all sound, all life. It was the ultimate embodiment of emptiness, of the forgotten and the unexpressed. He saw glimpses of Khalid, of Amina and Karim, their essence being siphoned, their fears fueling the entity’s growth. Rizwan felt himself being pulled in, his own memories, his own fears, being plundered. He was dissolving, not into shadow, but into nothingness. Yet, as he felt himself fragmenting, a single, primal scream ripped from his throat – a pure, untamed sound of defiance against the consuming silence. It was a futile cry, a single note in a symphony of oblivion, but it was his.
Miles away, the sea churned with unnatural ferocity. The warehouse, or what remained of it, was a gaping maw from which the Khwaja-e-Be-Lab’s influence radiated. The salt wind howled, now a tangible force that tore at the city. Buildings crumbled, not from impact, but from an internal decay, a spiritual rot. The darkness was absolute, a physical manifestation of the entity’s hunger. Yet, amidst the desolation, a single, persistent light flickered in the distance – a small generator in Dr. Sameera Ali’s clinic, stubbornly refusing to succumb, its solitary hum a faint, almost imperceptible note against the encroaching silence.
The End?
Karachi was consumed. Not by fire, not by flood, but by an ancient, existential hunger that fed on fear and oblivion. The Khwaja-e-Be-Lab had awakened, its influence stretching far beyond the city’s borders, a chilling testament to the power of the forgotten. The faint, persistent hum of Sameera’s generator, a solitary note of defiance, was a whisper of what might have been. A single scream from Rizwan, a fleeting echo against the vast emptiness. The lingering scent of jasmine from Amina’s ancestral home, now a scent of decay. The salt wind continued to blow, carrying not just the brine of the sea, but the chilling echo of an ancient hunger that would, perhaps, one day awaken again. The Mind Scope had peered into the abyss, and found it staring back, hungry and eternal.
Written by Faraz Parvez pen name of Dr Arshad Afzal
themindscope.net
