Hooked By The Hijabi

One

It's dark. Murky dark.

But Maha has been in here for quite some time so she gets accustomed to the darkness.

She seems to be at the bottom of an empty well, given the cylindrical wall encompassing her and the depth. Although, providing she has never been inside a well before, it is hard to be sure.

The sky is blanketed by cumulus grey clouds. Despite the depth of the dingy well, Maha can smell the impending rain. The thought steals into her mind that, if the rain water fills the well, she is going to drown. Instantly, panic pulses in the pit of her stomach. Her heart rate escalates as though trying to cover the record of a lifetime of beats. Just then, the brief illumination of a lightning allows her to spot an iron ladder. She scuttles over to it. Grasping and stepping on one rung at a time, she begins to ascend.

Maha is nowhere near halfway up when, unluckily, a downpour commences. She struggles her way up, undeterred by her rain-soaked clothes weighing her down. Every time a clap of thunder sounds, she freezes and screws her eyes shut momentarily before resuming her clamber. Frigid wind adds to the relentless rain, biting and slashing at her mercilessly. But Maha persists to the top.

Just as she grips the final rung, she misses her footing and lets out a yelp. However, Maha does not drop to her death, for a hand firmly secures around her wrist.

"Hang on." her savior mutters. "I got you."

The downpour abates and a bright flash of lightning lights up his face to only permit Maha a glimpse. As Maha is hauled up, they both tumble down, she on top of him, panting and gasping for breath and both soaked to their skin. Maha swiftly gets off from him. After a couple of awkward beats of silence and snatching glances at each other, Maha is the first to break the ice with a laugh. The boy grins.

"Thanks. I owe you big time." Maha says before a look of curiosity takes over her face. "But how did you know someone was in there?" She asks, motioning to the well.

"That," the boy says, hoisting himself up to his full height, "is a good question."

The sky gradually clears, bringing forth the opportunity to get a vivid look at the boy. But then, without prior notice, everything starts to swirl and distort, including Maha and the boy with the grey eyes.

Maha's eyes fly open and the first thing she sees is the realistic-seeming, hideous, emaciated, scabby-faced ghoul, wearing a psychotic grin with a red pupil staring from it's black sclera right at Maha. As soon as the image registers in Maha's mind, she produces a shriek and tumbles off her bed.

Tan strips off the mask and erupts into a side-splitting laughter. "And that, my dear friends, is how I paid back my best friend for what she did to me on the morning of last Monday, third of Feb, 2015."

Now, what Tan hasn't been expecting is Maha getting up and laughing her head off as well before shuffling closer to where Tan's phone is positioned on her bookshelf, filming them.

"And that, my dear friends, is how I hoodwinked my best friend into thinking that she actually scared me. Thanks for watching! See you guys in the next episode, In Sha Allah. Until then, Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh."

Maha taps on the red circle on the phone's screen, thereby stopping the video recording.

"Now, that was an interesting start to the day." Maha says after stifling a yawn. When she swivels around she catches Tan, shrouded in a black abaya that had been part of her costume and scowling at her. She grins at her in return. "How did I know? If you had lived twenty years playing pranks and pulling stunts, you would've known it too. Sort of like a sixth sense."