Mytacea: Rayyan's mistake

Chapter One: A Small Change

Her steps sounded dull on the asphalt as Rayyan got ready to leave the Gordon House Museum after a long day of work. Although she'd complain to her co-workers to fit in, Rayyan secretly loved staying late and getting to walk around the garden for a bit. After a day of explaining the COVID-19 measures to pushy tourists, some time alone in a quiet garden was deeply appreciated. Only the rustling of the wind through the plants, the sounds of civilisation in the distance and her own steps on the ground. She could turn on the flashlight on her phone, but Rayyan knew the road well and loved the sense of being embraced by the early onset darkness for a moment. The silence and darkness like a soothing blanket for her eyes and ears, so they could rest from all the information they'd had to process during the day.

The ringing of her phone tore through the silence, causing Rayyan to hastily search through her bag. Answering it gave no real relief from the shrill sound, however, as on the other end of the line she could hear the shrieking of a child. "Rayyan, Rayyan, I'm so happy you picked up." Rayyan could hear that her cousin, Eva, had been crying. "My baby, my Mary, she won't even let me hug her. She was doing those flappy hands and I tried to stop her but..." a sudden end to the shrieking interrupted Eva, and Rayyan could hear her saying "no, no, no" in the background before the call was cut off. Rayyan took a moment to compose herself and decided to go back to the room she'd been renting.

Once back in her room, she resumed her usual daily activities. After dinner with the family from whom she was renting the room, she washed herself in accordance to wudu and prayed Maghrib - a force of habit, taught to her by her mother to help her keep a rhythm in her days. Her father never quite understood why his agnostic wife taught their daughters these prayers, but Violet knew the power of daily moments of self-reflection and continued showing her daughters these daily prayers although she herself no longer fully held her parents' beliefs. It also gave Rayyan and her sister an easy way to connect to their grandparents when they were younger, and Violet wanted to make sure her kids had enough information to make their own choices once they were old enough. Thus, she'd also convinced her husband to teach their daughters about the Christian religion he'd grown up with and his brother had even told the girls about the BuKongo religion connected to their KiKongo roots. As a result, Rayyan her daily prayers were not specifically aimed at Allah or any one god in particular, but rather a time when she looked inside herself and truly felt that someone out there cared for her and would protect her, regardless of that someone's name.

Later in the evening, Eva called again. Rayyan decided to go for a walk, so that the family she was boarding with wouldn't hear any private information - they spoke English quite well, even though they'd never lived in an English speaking country. As Rayyan was walking around the neighbourhood, careful not to attract any unwanted attention and to follow the safety tips her mother had taught her at a young age, Eva told her all about how Mary had thrown a tantrum and had started banging her head against the wall when Eva and Rayyan had called earlier - thus the sudden end of the call, as Eva had ran and tried to stop her child. "And then she just started screaming again," Eva cried, "It's like I can't do anything right. What is the point of being a mother if I can't even protect my own child or make her happy?"

Rayyan took a deep breath, uncertain what to say to her cousin, and reminded herself of all the research she had done since Eva first started venting to her about Mary. "You're doing the best you can, parenting a child with autism is incredibly hard. Some things will never be normal about her, she'll never be able to connect to you the way another child would. But remember that you are still her mother, you know what's best for her. Keep doing what you're doing. Soon, she'll be old enough for ABA and therapy will make such a difference. You just have to hold on until then, remember that you're not alone." Eva seemed to calm down on the other end of the line, so Rayyan continued her affirmations.

In the distance, a voice shouted at Rayyan. She couldn't understand the Hebrew, but there was nobody else around and the silhouette in the distance was clearly waving at her. She lowered her phone and shouted back in Arabic, hoping they'd translate what they were shouting at her. Before she could finish however, everything around her disappeared and she was devoured by a silent darkness. The last thing she heard was a voice shouting at her in Arabic: "Don't change anything!"

In a flash, the silent darkness made way for a bright light. It took a few seconds for Rayyan to let her eyes get used to the light, before she could see that she was in a forest, in the middle of the day. The streets and buildings she had been surrounded by before, were nowhere to be found. Confused, she started walking around, hoping to find something she could recognize. She soon stumbled upon an open field, where a small hut stood that she assumed had been made by children playing around as it was composed of branches and leaves. Although she wanted to go see if there was someone there to help her, a gut feeling told her to wait, hidden by the trees and bushes around her. After a few moments, a person came out of the hut. Rather than wearing modern clothing, this person wore what seemed to be old animal hides tied together by a cracked leather belt, covering up most of their bronze, reddish-brown skin. Rayyan estimated that this person was around forty years old and wondered what someone of that age was doing in a hut in the middle of a forest. The person started walking around, seemingly gardening the wild plants placed randomly across the open field. Rayyan decided that this person clearly wasn't of a healthy mind and turned around to leave, but her movement caused a sound from the bushes around her and the weird stranger clearly heard it. Without looking, the stranger said something in a language completely unrecognizable to Rayyan - she had come to recognize Hebrew, and she knew this was not it.

Rayyan almost jumped from fright when a new voice bellowed from the other side, saying "Ey-seh". Yet another person, around the same age as the first, also dressed in animal hides and leather - although these seemed to be significantly less old - became visible as they walked out from the forest and into the open field. This person now faced Rayyan without seeing her, and Rayyan could see he had a beard. The first person, Rayyan assumed they were the "Ey-seh" the man had called out for, seemed very angry with the man, and yet afraid of him. Rayyan wondered if she should intervene if things got worse. Ey-seh called out: "Ney-kah", after which both were quiet for a while. Then, the two started talking with words that Rayyan was certain she had never heard before. Hidden behind the trees and bushes, Rayyan felt a bit guilty to be eavesdropping, but too afraid that if she moved they would find her - and who knows how these weird people would react to someone invading their poorly built space? The man seemed rather upset, and whatever he said was clearly upsetting Ey-seh too. At first, Ey-seh seemed mostly angry with him, but over time Rayyan could see their shoulders drop and had the idea that they started to sound concerned rather than angry. She started noticing that the two strangers kept repeating one word, "Gah-see", and wondered what it meant. She moved slowly to quietly take her phone out of her pocket, thinking that if she looked it up perhaps she could find out these strangers' language and use a translating app to ask them for help. Weirdly, however, her phone showed absolutely no connection - even with the great phone plan she had gotten when she decided to travel the world, all the way from Delaware to Israël.

While she was deliberating her next move, Rayyan was suddenly devoured once again into a silent darkness as the forest and light around her fell away. She closed her eyes and thought to herself that perhaps, it had been a dream and she was waking up now. As the darkness started to pull away, she heard the echo of the voice she'd heard before: "Don't change anything!"