Portrait of Abu al-Ala al-Bishri

Author's name: Baher Badawi

On the screen, we saw a live broadcast of a sleeping city, with its buildings, minarets, and towering palm trees. The sky was black, pregnant with stars that shone and faded as quickly as meteors. The desert and desolation spread across the outskirts of the Iraqi capital, everything ready for the onslaught of a nightmare spanning thousands of miles. A psychiatric hospital, and a group of patients weaving bonds of friendship between them. Each of them had their own story that brought them to the hospital, some of them funny, others fraught with suffering. But in the end, they had to put aside their fears and overcome them, after rumors spread through the hospital corridors about patients disappearing from the ward at night. The circle of fear tightened around them, and they were forced to confront the evil seeping into the hospital from the outside world.