The Half-Built Horizon

My mother always had a saying: ‘The between hours are for the other kind.’ She meant noon and midnight, when the veil thins. I grew up in Dhaka, a city of noise and concrete, and I believed such things belonged to the villages, to superstition. I was seventeen, arrogant, and dripping wet from a shower, clutching a towel and a handful of wet clothes.

We lived in a half-finished building—my family occupied the first floor, and the floors above were a skeleton of bare bricks and scaffolding. It was Friday, the only day the construction workers had off, a fact I conveniently forgot. The roof was the only place to dry clothes, a flat expanse under the blazing sun. My mother, sitting in the kitchen, called out, ‘Don’t go up alone. It’s the hour of the jinn.’ I laughed. ‘Ma, it’s a building in the middle of Mirpur. What’s going to happen?’ I slipped on sandals and headed for the stairs, my wet shirt dripping a trail behind me.

The stairs were narrow, concrete, and scuffed with dust. As I climbed, the sounds of the neighborhood—car horns, vendors, the drone of a generator—faded. The air grew hotter, heavier, and I felt a strange pressure, like the building itself was holding its breath. I reached the second floor landing, then the third. Just before the last step to the roof, I paused. The door above was ajar, and through the gap, I saw something that made no sense: the sky looked wrong. It wasn’t the clear blue of a Dhaka afternoon; it was a sickly yellow, like a bruise. And the usual city noise was gone—no horns, no voices, only a deep, resonant hum, as if the building were vibrating.

I should have turned back. But I was curious, and I remembered my mother’s warning, and I thought, ‘I’ll just hang the clothes and come down.’ I pushed the door open. The roof was not the empty, sun-baked space I knew. It was crowded with figures—dozens of them, all facing away from me, all motionless. They wore no uniforms, no construction vests; they were clad in gray, shapeless garments, their heads bowed. I thought maybe they were workers, but on a Friday? I noticed their feet: they barely touched the ground, floating a hair’s breadth above the concrete. My heart slammed against my ribs. I tried to step back, but my legs were frozen.

One figure slowly turned. It was a man, but not a man. His skin was the color of ash, his eyes were white, like cataracts, and his mouth opened wider than any human mouth should, revealing a void. He spoke, but not in words I knew—a language that felt like sandpaper on my mind. Another figure turned, then another, until all of them faced me. They began to move, not walking but gliding, converging on me. The yellow sky darkened to a deep red, and the hum grew into a deafening drone. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I felt a cold hand touch my shoulder, and the world tilted.

I woke up on the stairs, lying in a heap, my wet clothes scattered around me. The door to the roof was closed, and the sun was back to its normal glare. My mother was shaking me, her face pale. ‘What happened? You’ve been gone an hour.’ I couldn’t speak. I looked at my arm, where the hand had touched me, and saw a mark—five dark bruises, like fingers. I never told her the full truth, only that I’d slipped and fallen. But I know what I saw. And every Friday at noon, I stay inside, the door to the roof bolted, and I listen for that hum, praying it doesn’t find me again.