Chefchaouen, Morocco, November 7, 2023.

“NO!” he screamed — jumping from his bed and falling hard on his face on the rough ground of his bedroom. He looked at his bed, almost not believing his luck that he was back in his room; unharmed — the room’s light turned on and his eyes laid on the beautiful woman sitting on the bed, looking at him, terrified.

“Nabil! Are you okay?” she said with a voice filled with terror and sleepiness. He looked at his wife, who also looked unharmed, and sighed loudly. He stood up and went back to their bed next to her. She caressed his back, whispering sweet words into his left ear. He clenched her other hand as tears ran down his face. “Same nightmare?” she asked softly after wiping his warm tears.

He didn’t answer, he just nodded and buried his sweaty head between her arms, forcing her to lie back and hug him tightly. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, it keeps happening every time,” he said after a while.

“What happened this time?” she asked, kissing his forehead.

“It’s not a nightmare anymore… it’s a vision.”

She flinched and moved her arms away from his body, looking shocked. “What? Are you sure it’s not just a dream?!” his tears ran again over his face, overwhelmed. “but… you can’t have visions! How is that even possible!”

“She told me… it’s a vision…” he said, resting on his back.

“She… oh my god you mean—”

“Jalila.” A loud gasp slipped from his wife, both resting on their backs freaking out. “What should I do? It’s terrifying.”

“We must tell the elders!”

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“No one will believe me; I don’t know how I even got this vision in the first place!”

“Maybe your power resurfaces now,” she said and looked at him. “But that is nearly impossible.”

He looked at her and sighed, “She told me something I don’t remember… her voice was low and far. I could only hear her saying it is a vision.” Some tears fell out of his tightly closed eyes. “Same horrifying demolished cities… same lacerated bodies and the same girl dies every time.”

She took her phone from the nightstand next to her and texted her sister. “I texted Loubna. If it’s a vision, then it means something.” Nabil looked at her. He was about to object but stopped when Aicha shifted her body to face him. “We need to know if it was a vision before telling the elders. Loubna can help you retrieve it.”

“I don’t wanna live that nightmare again.”

“Reliving a dream is much easier than living it as a reality,” — she held his face and kissed him — “we will do everything in our power to prevent that vision from happening… no matter what.”

The next morning.

Aicha and Nabil waited nervously in the living room for Loubna’s arrival. The clock on the wall across them was ticking loudly, time seemed slow and unbearable. Nabil’s hands were shaking lightly. For the first time in his life, he felt powerless.

Descended from the Alaoui clan, the oldest Amazigh in North Africa. His clan is powerful. They possess rare abilities that only belong to them. Women in the Alaoui clan granted with most authority over anything related to their abilities, while their men are mostly weaker in their abilities and powers, yet still much powerful compared to any other clan.

A prophecy was delivered to them when his parents wed. Three girls promised to be born from their bloodline with great powers and destiny. Yet when Nabil’s mother gave birth to him, the entire clan was shocked, not only because he was a boy, but because he had no trace of any ability or power within his DNA.

Everything changed after his birth, and it was like his powerless soul brought nothingness into their lives. Every prophecy they had vanished, and their lives rewritten. In his late twenties, he married his college sweetheart Aicha, a strong woman from a powerful merged clan, known for their beauty and fierce powers.

A loud knock startled both. Aicha looked back at where the sound came from a small hall behind the couch they were sitting on. She stood and looked at Nabil, who looked more nervous, and said, “Don’t worry, babe.” He grabbed her hand fast and kissed it.