"Batool Yaseen..."

My full name, unmistakable, like a knife cutting through me, appearing in the middle of a casualty list on a Facebook page dedicated to the victims of the massacre. I read it over, letter by letter, rereading the entire list again and again, hoping it will vanish amidst the crowd of names and lose its letters among the others’. But it does so in vain, and I try to breathe deeply, calming myself.

"...Batool Yaseen, 30 years old..."

The name appears again on a list on another page! New names have been added, yet it remains fixed among them, clinging like a leech feeding on the blood of the eye. Panic shivers through me as I read the number beside it, noticing that the list is dedicated to young men and women. Small numbers beside the names; lives that had room for so little. I try to reassure myself; it must be a coincidence, a cursed coincidence, nothing more.

My mother calls me for lunch; her lips, saying my name, bring safety to my chest; this is proof that cannot be falsified! I sit across from her and my father. They have aged so much over the past few days. I gaze at them with sorrow; terror and oppression forge so much. Did we survive?! I wonder, after we lost friends, neighbors, and so many loved ones killed in ways we could not have imagined in our most brutal nightmares. I stare into my parents' eyes, which have run dry weeping, like mine. Each of us encourages the other to eat, but no one can bear the taste of food.

I left them after placing a kiss on each of their foreheads, then returned to my room and my phone. We have become glued to our electronic devices the whole time; brief calls with which we reassure the survivors among our loved ones that we are alive, and they reassure us that they are too. Nothing else to say, absolutely nothing.

I type my name into the search box, enclosing it in quotation marks for the accuracy of results; dozens of lists cascade before my eyes. I open the newest one, which apparently has had new details added to describe the victims. I think of the creators of these posts: Who are they addressing? And whom are they trying to convince that we are innocent and do not deserve to die? My mouth fills with curses while my eyes race rapidly over the names. I read the professions of the young men and women: doctors, nurses, engineers and teachers... Then beside my name, I read: "Batool Yaseen, 30 years old, writer..." I shudder as if struck by lightning! Is there no one who audits these lists? I throw my phone down and rush into my mother’s arms; the most real place amidst all this madness. My mother doesn't need to ask me what's wrong because she knows we have plenty of reasons to collapse. While leaning on her shoulder, I caught sight of my father outside. He looked like a scene from a cinema film: our balcony with its shattered glass, a gray sky surrounding it, and my father stroking with his hands a basil plant that looked completely dead. I peer closely at it, trying to remember whether it was like that before the massacre, but I fail. I stare at my father's figure; his hands tremble like fragile branches in a storm. I try to remind myself that I must hold it together for their sake. I raise my head from my mother's shoulder, wipe my tears with her hands, then kiss them lingeringly.

A decision had formed in my mind after reading about a mass burial to be held today for the victims. I would go there, and either see the corpse of this girl who bears my name, age, and profession, or correct their mistake! I looked at my face in the mirror before leaving, which, despite its pallor, I felt no desire to adorn or alter in any way.

There, in the cemetery, crowds press around the victims’ coffins: women, old people, children. My eyes moved from face to face. They looked like ghosts, as if they themselves were the dead.

In the ground were numerous graves, too many for me to count, lying open, waiting for the tender bodies. I don't know why, at that exact moment, “my grandmother's sieve” crossed my mind; The one she used to use while saying: "Thus we separate the good from the bad."

My grandmother's grave is here too. She passed away five years ago and her will was to bury her close to us. Without planning, I found myself walking toward it, and when I reached it, a fierce anger shook me upon seeing two large holes freshly dug right beside it. Did they not know that the graves adjacent to my grandmother's must be reserved and dedicated for the rest of the family? I was about to call out to the cemetery keeper to ask him, had I not caught sight of a small piece of paper beside the two pits bearing the words: "Batool Yaseen and her father, March 7, 2025."

At first, I didn't understand what suddenly changed in the air. I felt as though the spacious cemetery had turned into a very narrow room. I kept reading the paper, like someone chewing a bitter morsel they refuse to swallow, again and again, then once again, hoping the letters on it might shift. I stepped backward, feeling the ground sway beneath my feet. I no longer saw the crowd surrounding me; neither the women draped in black with their wounded faces, nor the children clinging to their mothers' cloaks, nor the elders with their wandering eyes and bowed backs. They became distant; just images fading and forgotten within an ancient darkness.

"Be brave" a voice came from behind me. I turned and found my father, or something resembling him. His face was pale, his eyes sunken, and his trembling hands were trying to reach me and pat my shoulders. The image of the withered basil plant crossed my mind while his feet sank deep into the soil.

I wanted to call out to him, to say something, but my voice wouldn't come. At that moment, I felt my mother's hand reaching out to me, bolstering my strength.

"Batool..."! This time, the voice came from the front. That ancient voice laden with tenderness: "Batool... my granddaughter." Then every one of those warm evenings crossed my mind, when I would sit nestled in my grandmother's lap as she told me stories of monsters and princesses.

My mother's hand rested on my shoulder: "We will stay together. The princess will not wake up this time, and the monsters will continue to roam upon the earth."

"Do not be afraid," said my grandmother. Then, without resistance, I fell into her story.