The jinn in the lantern

 


🩸 “The Jinn in the Lantern”

By Faraz Parvez

Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA
(Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)

Part I: The Inheritance

In the old walled city of Multan, known for its saints, graves, and cursed air, lived Rehan, a 28-year-old software engineer from Lahore. When his maternal grandmother passed away, he was the only one willing to visit her derelict haveli to claim her belongings.

The family had long whispered about that place — that it was haunted, cursed, protected by something older than the jinn themselves. Rehan didn’t believe in tales. He believed in electricity, logic, and clean code.

He reached the haveli just before Maghrib. The smell of dust, dried roses, and rusted metal greeted him. In the center of the drawing room stood a single item his grandmother had left for him:

A bronze lantern, centuries old.

Attached was a parchment:
“Do not light it.”

Naturally, he lit it.

Part II: The Whispering Walls

That night, he stayed in the haveli, ignoring the warning. The lantern’s flame flickered strangely — casting shadows with shapes not present in the room. Faces. Claws. Eyes.

He began hearing whispers. Sometimes in Saraiki. Sometimes Arabic. Once, it spoke his name.

At 2:44 a.m., the lantern went out on its own. The moment darkness fell, something entered the room — the air thickened. His limbs froze. In the mirror opposite him, a burned figure with no face stood behind him, breathing.

Rehan blacked out.

Part III: The Family Secret

The next morning, he woke up on the floor, the lantern gone from its place.

He found his grandmother’s diary in a chest. It contained fragmented entries, often written backward, often censored.

One entry stood out:

“The lantern was a gift from the Sufi saint of Uch Sharif. But it was not a gift — it was a punishment. My grandfather had sealed a jinn inside it — not a lesser jinn, but one from the Ifrīt line. It fed on doubt. On atheism. On arrogance.”

“Every generation, the lantern must remain sealed. If lit, the jinn awakens, and it attaches itself to the bloodline of the one who opened it.”

“It can’t be killed. Only traded. Or sacrificed for.”

Part IV: The Deals Begin

That evening, Rehan tried to return to Lahore. But every road led him back to the haveli. Even Google Maps looped him in a square.

His phone glitched. Its screen displayed unfamiliar code:
“One soul. Every 11 days. Or we consume you.”

The next 11 days were madness. Every mirror reflected a different version of him — older, mutilated, skeletal. Animals avoided him. The azaan sounded distorted. The clock in the haveli ran backward between 3 and 4 a.m.

Desperate, Rehan brought a stray dog into the haveli on the eleventh day and lit the lantern. The screams that came out weren’t animal.

Part V: The Final Bargain

The horror didn’t end. In fact, it intensified.

He returned to the diary. At the end was an unfinished incantation — written in Arabic mixed with Chagatai script. With trembling hands, he read it aloud.

The jinn appeared.

But not as fire. Not as smoke.

As his mother.

“We made a deal when you were born,” the jinn hissed. “She gave me your childhood. That’s why you never had dreams. That’s why you were always... numb.”

Rehan wept.

“I want out,” he begged.

“Then give me someone else. Someone with your blood.”

Rehan hesitated.

And called his younger cousin Ayaan to visit.

Epilogue: The Cycle Continues

Months later, Ayaan sits in the same haveli. The same lantern. The same curiosity.

He reads a parchment:

“Do not light it.”

He lights it.

And far away, Rehan sleeps peacefully in a new apartment in Islamabad — without shadows, without whispers, without guilt.

Only one rule remains:

One soul. Every 11 days. Or the fire returns.

📢 Love Stories That Chill You to the Bone?

🔗 themindscope1.blogspot.com — For psychological thrillers, horror, geopolitics, and deep social commentary — all in our signature narrative style.


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