This is a voice recording that was taken in 1987 by a man named Jasan Alsaeed, a nomad who had stumbled across a small, abandoned town. According to Alsaeed, paranormal events took place within this city yet the exact whereabouts or existence of this city are still unknown. This recording was later declassified and publicly released in 2001.
I had been in Saudi Arabia for a while to visit a friend. He lived in a small village that was in the far east of Saudi. I preferably travelled by horse, I got to see the world that way.
A few days into my journey I encountered a strange town. It was completely deserted and looked as though no life had stepped foot on it for centuries. There were few buildings and the ones that did stand were very simple in design. They looked like small, square, beige blocks with a few square holes for windows.
I didn’t think much of the town however I felt eerie being in it. In some way it was unnatural. With night approaching, I set up a tent near the city and went to sleep.
I woke up to the sight of light peering in through the crevice of my tent. In the far distance I could see that one of the buildings had lights peering through its windows. Enthralled with curiosity, I wandered over to the city and as I got about fifty yards from the building, I could hear shouting and anger. The light was so bright that I couldn’t see what was going on through the windows.
As I approached the building, all the voices disappeared; the vibrant lights that had been emanating from the building: extinguished. All I could hear were the ghostly whispers of the wind flowing past me. “Hello, is anyone there?” I asked. No response, just silence. Shaking, I slowly moved towards the entrance of the building. I put my head against the archaic door, still nothing. I pushed the door inwards, which made a sharp wailing sound.
Stepping into the room, nothing seemed off. The building must have been a bar. There were round tables on each side of the room with four chairs surrounding them and all these tables and chairs had a thick coat of dust which lay upon them, as though they hadn’t been touched in a while. The same was for the bar itself which was positioned at the far end of the room, opposite the entrance. There were cabinets that were behind the bar and were mostly vacant of alcohol, safe for a few bottles that were arbitrarily placed.
I stood at the doorframe for a moment before going in. As perplexed as I was, certainty lay within my mind. I was sure of what I witnessed and did not want to conclude that my brain had been playing tricks on me. Yet who was I to say that the harsh desert nights hadn’t taken a toll on my mental health? After wrestling my mind, I decided to survey the room, looking for things within the bar in the hopes that I could find out what this old relic of a city once was. As I looked around in the centre of the room, the door slammed shut behind me. I rushed towards it, pulling at the door handle to force myself out; it wouldn’t budge.
When I turned to look at the room, which was now pitch black, and almost cried in horror. Peering back at me, in the dark abyss, were two eyes. They were a pale white with small pupils, absent of an iris. I hastily fumbled around my bag, attempting to find my flashlight. By the time I got the flashlight the eyes had disappeared. I slumped against the door, covering my face with my hands. I was left speechless within that moment, unable to even comprehend what I had just witnessed. Minutes passed by as I slowly retracted into a ball, completely possessed by fear.
I heard a small metallic ring coming from the other side of the room. I slowly crept towards the bar, keeping the flashlight locked in position. Behind the bar, was a small silver key. Only a few feet away from this key was a wooden trap door with a lock on it. No part of me wanted to engage with this any further but what was I to do? Not only was the door immovable but the windows were stuck in place as well. The only place to go was through the trapdoor.
Opening the trapdoor, I could barely see the ladder that I would have to climb down. It was if I was staring into a void. The ladder was covered in rust and oil and would groan with every step I took. By the time I got down the ladder my hands were blackened dirt and metallic sediment. I could hear wet pattering’s underneath me when I moved. The room was exceptionally moist for one that was in the middle of an arid desert. The walls were made from a crude stone and had been etched with writing of an unknown language. The floor had been carved into to create a large pentagram.
On the other side of the room there was a portrait of Jesus Christ however in the portrait Christs eyes were red with what looked like thin lines of blood going down his cheeks. Underneath the portrait was a dull candle that sat on a small table with a small bar of text that read “If only they knew.” What was even more disturbing than the eerie religious portrait and esoteric language, was a small skull that peered out from underneath the table. The skull was somewhat yellow in colour and had a jagged texture like that of the moon’s surface, giving the impression it had been there for quite some time.
Adjacent to the table and portrait was an oak chest. The oak chest was a very simple, roughly made square box with a rusted metal hatch. Carefully opening the box, I found compactly fit sheets of folded paper all of which related to the disappearance of a child called Akilah Ayad. Apparently, at the age of twelve, the child suddenly vanished and when people of the town were asked what they thought, they all said they didn’t know what had happened to her and wished her to come back. Underneath the rubble of paper there was a small black book.
The book looked to be expensive; the cover was made from a thick leather and had stylish engravings on it yet was absent of any title. The contents of the book seemed to be practical ways on how to obtain certain things through rituals. Most of the rituals were about achieving power or wealth however there were a few that deviated from that norm. For example, some of the rituals included love, knowledge, agriculture, family and even happiness. They were odd and always required some form of violence to work.
The dull light of the candle faded, turning into a thin streak of smoke. My torch began to flicker until it completely stopped, leaving me in a dark abyss. The indentation of the pentagram began to turn red, and blood began swirling around its ring. Suddenly, a myriad of large eyes appeared around me, identical to the ones I had seen at the bar. It felt as though they were staring into my very soul. At that moment the pentagram illuminated beneath me as a vivid red and the room began to shake.
“Stay away from me!” I cried. My efforts seemed futile as I began to hear murmurs from within the eyes. “It had to be done!” one screamed, “Please have mercy!” Another stated. The sound of a woman, presumably in her thirties in a melancholy tone “We will never escape from this chamber of hell”. The shaking got so violent, I began to stumble back and forth across the room. Bits of sand were flickering off the ceiling which was followed by a ruptured sound. A large crack appeared above me; the ceiling was going to collapse.
A large chunk of debris fell from above, crushing the table and all the contents on it. A series of rumbling sounds could be heard from the ceiling. I leapt on top of the debris and attempted to climb up to where the entrance of the building was. The structure of the bar was beginning to collapse in on itself and if I didn’t get out soon, I would surely be gone. Holding nothing back, I threw myself at the door. On my third attempt it gave way and I fell into the soft sands outside. The building was gone it was almost as though it had been completely swallowed by the desert itself.
I felt a wave of relief enter my body and began to smile until far off in the distance I saw someone. They were somewhat tall and slender. They had long curls of crimson and dark grey eyes. They chuckled for a moment and turned their head. A sandstorm began to surround me; I could no longer even see my own hands. Then suddenly, everything went black.
I woke up in a village a few days later. A man who brought me to the village said he found me slumped over in the middle of the desert, frozen in place.