The Night Hag
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She turns to her left just as the blob and the silhouette cease to switch. An aura of darkness completely engulfs her vision as she feels her consciousness slipping away.
Eyes closed and half awake, Zahara feels her body floating in mid air. A sharp pressure on her chest makes her eyes snap open, and she is greeted by the sight of a terrible one-horned creature.
Black adorning every inch of its body, barring its bright green eyes, it sits on top of her chest, choking her. She tries to scream, but her voice comes out as a choked, terrified whisper. She tries to lift her arms in desperation to strike the monster which seems to be feeding off of her very soul. Not a muscle moves. She finds it impossible to breathe. The fiend’s emerald green eyes burn into her vision as she lies scared and helpless.
“Some… one… help…” she manages a feeble, almost inaudible cry.
THWACK!
Zahara gasps for air as the pressure is suddenly lifted.
THWACK! comes a second blow.
The horrendous creature lies a few yards behind her, partly unconscious. Before she can speak a word, an old, yet well-built man rushes to where the creature lies and grabs its nose tightly.
The beast lets out a shrill screech —
“Seven miles to go before Eleven
In the direction of hot yellow ball of leaven
Seven heads be seen after eleven
Lies after it a golden haven”
As the man turns and lets go of its nose, emerald flames emerge from its eyes and proceed to erase it from existence. Zahara’s saviour now turns to face her.
“The name’s Kane, my child,” he declares. “You’re lucky I was in the area.”
“What in Manāt’s name was that?” asks Zahara.
“It was a Night Hag, a deadly one at that, I should say. They attack people in their sleep, paralyze them and feed on their blood, leaving disfigured corpses in their wake.”
Zahara gulps as Kane completes his sentence. For the first time Zahara notices her surroundings — a cold barren desert with never-ending dunes stretching across the horizon, glowing under the faint shimmer of moonlight. Suddenly, a child in her early teens comes into her field of view, as she runs to Kane curling her arm around his.
“Where is this place, and who’s that now? Also, what’s the deal with grabbing its nose?” Zahara asks, puzzled at the sequence of events that have just taken place.
“This is my daughter, Manal. She’s the one who noticed you initially,” he says.
“It’s been long believed that a Night Hag reveals a secret place, a place filled with gold more than a generation of Pharaohs could ever have — the Cave of Ghouls. The last time I encountered one, it managed to escape. Today though, luck seems to have been on my side,” says Kane, wiping off the creature’s sickeningly green blood from his iron mace.
“So tell me, what brings you to these parts, and how did you end up here?”
Zahara explains her situation as her saviours listen in disbelief.
“Well, there’s no going alone from here on. We’ll figure out how to get you home soon enough,” says Kane. As Zahara starts to wonder how far home really is, Kane pulls out a blanket from his bag.
“I presume that you’re a bit tired,” he continues. “We plan to head to the Cave and see what else luck may have in store for us. We can even start at dawn if you wish to take rest for the night. The journey too would become easier as the sun would rise by then for us to navigate with ease but I also should warn you, that we’ll have just about five hours to reach the cave.”
Glossary:
Night Hag — a creature which is used to explain the phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
