Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Children of Olive

Amal glanced at the barista. He was frothing milk. The customers were scrolling on their phones. No one was looking at the two Palestinian women in the corner. We were invisible again.

Amal opened the book.

The smell hitting them wasn't coffee. It was soil. Dry, hot soil. The smell of a harvest in late August.

She turned to the first page.

Village: Bayt al-Rih.

Date: May 14, 1948.

The text wasn't just a list. It was a story.

The columns of smoke were visible from the hill. The commander ordered the evacuation at 0600. The villagers refused. The Shadow Unit was deployed.

"Shadow Unit?" Yasmin whispered. "I thought it was the Haganah."

"Keep reading," Amal said.

The Shadow Unit deployed the Silence. Effectiveness: 100%. The villagers ceased vocalization within ten minutes. Resistance was purely physical. Livestock were liquidated. Wells were poisoned with "The Black Water."

Amal looked up at Yasmin.

"Black Water," she said. "The stuff in the clinic. The stuff that makes the Hollow Ones."

"They were using it back then?"

"They invented it back then," Amal realized. "The Hollow Ones... they aren't just trauma ghosts. They are a weapon. A biological weapon made of magic."

She turned the page.

Asset Acquired: Ibrahim Al-Masri. Subject displays high resistance to Silence. Transported to Facility Zero for extraction.

"Facility Zero," Amal breathed.

"Where is that?"

"I don't know. But look at the note in the margin."

There was a handwritten note in red ink.

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