The Mark of the Ghiant

The road to Salalah was a ribbon of black tar cutting through a sea of sand, and I watched the dunes shift from ochre to crimson as the sun bled into the horizon. My boyfriend, Karim, insisted on the long route, the one that snaked through the Empty Quarter’s edge, claiming it was more ‘scenic.’ I, Lina, had seen enough sand in Dubai to last a lifetime, but Karim’s friend, Sami, who had never been to Oman, was eager for adventure. So we drove, the GPS a silent partner, as the last of the daylight faded and the stars emerged like pinpricks in a velvet shroud.

We had been on the road for three hours when the engine began to sputter. Karim cursed, guiding the car to a halt on a gravel patch. ‘It’s the fuel filter,’ he said, popping the hood. Sami held a flashlight while Karim tinkered, the beam illuminating his furrowed brow. I got out to stretch, the air cool and dry, carrying the faint scent of Frankincense from distant trees. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine.

It was then that I noticed the structure. A low, stone building, barely visible against the dark, almost as if it had grown from the earth. It had no windows, just a single arched door, and it was covered in strange, swirling carvings. ‘Hey, look at this,’ I called out. Karim and Sami joined me, and we stood before the archaic edifice. ‘Probably a watchtower,’ Sami said, but his voice lacked conviction. The carvings seemed to writhe in the flashlight’s beam, depicting figures that were human but not quite, with elongated limbs and heads that were featureless.

Against my better judgment, I pushed the door open. It gave way with a groan, revealing a dark interior that smelled of dust and something metallic. We stepped inside, our flashlights cutting through the darkness. The room was bare, its stone walls covered in more of the same carvings, but here they were larger, more elaborate. In the center, there was a circular depression filled with black, viscous liquid that reflected our lights like an oily mirror.

‘We should leave,’ I whispered, a primal fear taking root in my gut. But Karim was entranced, stepping closer, his reflection rippling in the black surface. ‘It’s just water,’ he said, but it wasn’t. The liquid was thick, like crude oil, and it seemed to absorb the light. Sami knelt down and dipped a finger in, and as he brought it to his nose, the liquid began to move, swirling on its own, forming a shape—a hand, reaching up from the surface.

I screamed, grabbing both of them, pulling them back. The hand solidified, followed by an arm, and then a torso, a creature of pure blackness emerging, its body a perfect negative of ours. It had no face, just a smooth, glossy head, and it made no sound as it rose to its full height, towering over us. ‘Ghiant,’ Sami breathed, a name he had heard in a whispered tale. The thing reached out, and its touch was like ice, and I felt something cold spread through me, a deep, abiding dread that had been planted like a seed.

We ran, stumbling out of that cursed building, and to our horror, the car would not start. The engine cranked and died, cranked and died, and in the rearview mirror, I saw the creature standing in the doorway, motionless, watching. Desperate, Karim tried again, and this time the engine roared to life. We tore away, leaving the structure behind, but I could not shake the feeling that something was with us, something that had attached itself to our souls.

The rest of the journey was silent, the cheerful banter gone. We reached Salalah by dawn, the green mountains a stark contrast to the desert we had left, but even the lush landscape could not comfort me. We checked into a small hotel, and I tried to sleep, but nightmares plagued me. In them, I saw the creature’s featureless face, and I felt its touch again, and I woke with a scream.

The next days were a blur of waterfalls and markets, but I noticed a change in Karim and Sami. They were more distant, their eyes often vacant, as if they were listening to something beyond my hearing. They would pause mid-sentence, staring at nothing, and then continue as if nothing had happened. I began to see the mark, a faint, grayish patch on their forearms, right where the creature had touched them. I checked my own arm—I was clean, but I felt the dread growing inside me, a heavy weight in my chest.

One evening, we went to a wadi to watch the sunset. The water was cool and clear, and the sound of the falls was soothing. But Karim and Sami stood apart, not speaking, their eyes fixed on the water. Then, as the sun dipped below the horizon, they turned to me, and in unison, they spoke: ‘You should not have brought them here.’

I staggered back, but their hands shot out, gripping my arms with unnatural strength. Their faces were blank, their eyes dark as pools of oil. ‘The Ghiant has claimed us,’ Karim said, his voice monotone. ‘You will be its vessel too.’ I struggled, but they dragged me toward the water, and I remembered the creature’s touch, the cold, and I knew with horrible certainty that I was about to join them.

But then, a flash of something—a bird, a rock, I don’t know—broke their grip. I fell, and scrambled away, and as I looked back, I saw their forms waver, like heat mirages, and then they stumbled, blinking, as if waking from a dream. ‘What happened?’ Sami asked, his voice shaking. They looked at their arms, the marks now black and festering, and they knew what had transpired.

We fled Salalah the next day, leaving behind the beauty and the rain, driving with a desperation that bordered on hysteria. But the marks did not fade. They grew, spreading up our limbs, and I felt the cold dread intensify, as if something were growing inside me. Back in Dubai, we tried everything—doctors, healers, priests—but nothing worked. Karim and Sami took to spending all their time in a dark room, shunning the light, and I would find them whispering in a language that was not Arabic, their voices a rasping hiss.

One night, I woke to find them standing at the foot of my bed, their faces now permanently blank, their skin mottled with black patches. ‘You are part of it now,’ they said together, ‘you cannot escape.’ And I realized that I had felt the touch too, that moment when I had screamed and something had brushed my ankle. I looked down, and there was the mark, just beginning to form.

Now, I sit in this room, watching the light fade outside, feeling the cold numbness creep up my legs. I know that soon I will be whole, that the Ghiant will have another vessel, and I will join Karim and Sami in the darkness. But I write this, hoping that someone will find it, and know that in the wadis of Oman, among the incense trees and the waterfalls, there is an ancient evil that does not sleep, and that it waits, as patient as the stars, for the unwary traveler to stumble upon its shrine. And if you feel a touch of cold on your skin, and a dread that will not lift, know that you have been marked, and the Ghiant is coming for you.