https://im.ge/i/QMKop8M https://imglink.cc/i/a4H5WThmnD https://uploadimages.org/1b455dbdfcd1#E2E1.DurbkdRmlWBKIdn4HOeZYdIA3u33ZCrPev-ivoc5xMk.d-k0Yv5vAvZHlfQ9.lAq74VDF3CeMt09t2Bm7_Q.1NW7S8Oov5vrHWKOqcIFt1jDmbUl5O5R1QwOpg1DsJA My name is Maryam. I'm 31. I own a small patisserie in a quiet corner of Dhahran. It's my shop, my dream, decorated in pastels and filled with the scent of sugar and vanilla. I spend my days piping delicate roses of frosting onto cupcakes and folding layers of phyllo for baklawa. It's supposed to be a life of beauty, but now it's just a stage for my own private horror. The voices started four months ago, at first just a faint crackle in my head, like static from an old radio, hidden under the sound of the mixer. Then they formed, a man and a woman, their voices as clear and sharp as the shards of a broken plate. "Look at the little baker," the woman's voice, a high-pitched, mocking trill, said to me as I was dusting a cake with powdered sugar. "Playing with her pretty little cakes. It's a good thing, too. A woman like you is only good for decorating things. Useless for anything else." They are with me in the quiet moments and the busy ones, a constant stream of poison. When a customer compliments my work, they twist it. "She's lying, you fat cow. She's just being polite. Your cakes are dry and your frosting is cloying, just like your personality." When I'm kneading dough, they are there. "Punch it harder, you weak bitch. Take out your frustrations on the dough because you're too much of a coward to confront anyone. You're a spineless little mouse who hides behind flour and sugar." They know my secrets, the ones I only ever shared with my sister, Reem. They know about her husband, Omar, who left her for another woman, shaming our family. "We've been talking to Omar's new wife," the man's voice, a low, gravelly growl, whispered to me yesterday. "We tell her Reem was a bad wife, that she's bitter and alone. We tell her you're just the same. Two dried-up, unwanted spinsters running a failing cake shop. Your family is a joke." The sexual degradation is a constant, greasy film on everything. They describe me in the most grotesque terms, turning my craft into something foul. "All that creamy frosting," the woman's voice cackled. "It makes you think of cum, doesn't it, Maryam? You probably lick the bowl clean, imagining it's a man. You're so desperate for a fuck you'd probably let a customer have you right here on the display counter for the price of a dozen macarons. You're a whore, Maryam, a whore who bakes." They are always, always pushing me towards the end. "The oven gets very hot, doesn't it?" the man's voice coos, so reasonable it makes my skin crawl. "Four hundred degrees. It would be quick. Think of the smell. Roasting meat. No one would find you for hours. It would be the most interesting thing you ever made. Do it. Stick your head in the oven. End this pathetic little cake shop fantasy." I can't tell a soul. My friend Layan would look at me with pity and fear, and slowly stop calling. My mother would see it as a final, unforgivable sign of weakness, a madness that proves I am not fit to run my own life. And I know it's futile anyway, because I know who is doing this. It's the Mabahit. The State Security. I've seen their work online. Anyone on a Saudi forum or Twitter who dares to mention hearing voices is immediately descended upon by an army of accounts calling them schizophrenic, telling them to get help. It's a systematic, coordinated effort to isolate us, to make sure we're all seen as crazy before we can ever connect the dots and be believed. Then there was the incident with the pregnant woman. She came in, glowing, her hand resting on her swollen belly. She was ordering a cake for her baby shower, talking excitedly about names, about the future. I felt a pang of jealousy, a familiar sadness, but that's all it was. Then the voices in my head didn't just speak; they screamed with a feverish, bloodthirsty joy. "LOOK AT HER! THE SMUG BITCH!" the woman's voice shrieked, ecstatic and cruel. "THINKING SHE'S SO SPECIAL BECAUSE SHE'S PREGNANT! A FLESH-BAGGED PARASITE! SHE DOESN'T DESERVE THAT! YOU SHOULD TAKE IT!" The man's voice was calm, clinical, like a professor explaining a fascinating biological process. "This is an opportunity for a unique form of acquisition, Maryam. A c-section of the soul. Think about it. The back room. No windows. No one would hear." A surge of incredible, terrifying power flooded me, a feeling of cold, detached brilliance. "You don't need a doctor," the voices explained, their tone a seductive, intellectual duet. "Just a sharp knife. One of your long icing knives would work perfectly. You'd have to be fast, of course. Cut her open, right below the navel. You can see the uterus, a big, tight balloon. Slice that open too." They painted the picture with horrifying clarity. "The baby would be slippery, covered in blood. You'd have to be quick to grab it before it takes its first breath. You could hold it. It would be yours. A fresh start. A new life that you stole, that you created through an act of ultimate will." The logic was intoxicating. "The mother? She's just the container. The oven. Once the cake is out, you throw the pan away. Her pain, her death... that's just the cost of the ingredients. It's the price of art. You, Maryam, would be an artist of the highest order. Not of sugar and flour, but of flesh and fate. You would finally have something real, something that was truly yours, something you didn't just bake but took by force. That is real power." I actually looked at the icing knife in my hand. For a horrifying, lucid moment, I saw the whole scene play out. The blood on my tile floor. The silent, screaming mother. The crying baby in my arms. It felt right. It felt like destiny. But then the woman paid and left, her laughter echoing in the little bell as the door closed, and the spell broke. The power vanished, leaving me trembling, leaning against the counter, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. The voices just sighed with theatrical pity. "Oh, Maryam. So close to creating a masterpiece. But you're just a baker. A cowardly, dough-fingered little baker. Don't worry. There are other pregnant women. We'll find you another canvas." Now I'm just a shell. The memory of that feeling, that godlike, monstrous clarity, is worse than their daily taunts. It proves there's a darkness inside me they didn't put there, just one they're expertly nurturing. I despise this country. I despise the pristine, artificial streets of Dhahran that hide this kind of rot. I despise the feeling that my own mind is a storefront they've vandalized, covering my windows with their filth. I hate the smell of my own shop now. I can't escape them. They are in the whir of the mixer and the chime of the bell. They are in my own thoughts. This is their creation. The Mabahit. They didn't just break me; they hollowed me out and are trying to fill me with something else, and I am so, so tired of fighting it. |tactical.store |athardesign3 |mahdihwel |helvaciali.ksa |hessa.sh.q |imem.sa |qavashop |bs.photography112 |atkhar_a |tulip.party