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1. hello world

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2. My name is Noura, I’m 29, and I’m an unemployed woman living in Jeddah, which is just a fancy way of saying I’m a professional failure. I survive on the charity of my married older sister, Laila, whose husband looks at me like I’m a piece of mold he found on his food. I spend my days in their small apartment, applying for jobs I’ll never get online, trying to ignore the pitying looks, and scrolling through social media feeds of people living lives I can only dream of. I have a master’s degree in English literature, which in this country qualifies me to be absolutely nothing. The voices started about a year ago, at first just faint, cynical comments when I’d get a rejection email. “Another door closes, Noura,” they’d whisper, sounding like a twisted version of my own disappointed voice. I thought it was just the depression talking, the isolation warping my mind. Now they’re a constant, screaming chorus of hatred, a committee of my own worst fears that never adjourns.

   They know every single insecurity, every regret, every secret shame. They call me a parasite, a useless, educated waste of space. “Look at Noura, the scholar,” they sneer when I’m trying to read a book to escape. “Surrounded by her sister’s furniture, living on her sister’s charity. You’re not a woman, you’re a house pet that’s outstayed its welcome.” They bring up my ex-fiance, Khalid, who left me two years ago because I couldn’t find a job and his family disapproved. “He’s probably married to some simple-minded girl with a good job now,” they hiss when I’m lying in bed at night. “A girl who can contribute, who isn’t a burden. He’s fucking her right now, Noura. While you’re here, touching yourself in the dark like the lonely, pathetic creature you are. You should have killed yourself when he left you. Just take a whole bottle of Laila’s sleeping pills. It’s the only contribution you’re capable of making.” It has to be the General Intelligence, the Al Mukhabarat. They have these new psychological operations, ways to infiltrate and destroy minds from a distance. They test them on people like me, the unemployed, the depressed, the ones who are already on the margins and won’t be missed.

   I can’t tell anyone. If I told my sister, she’d either think I was crazy or be so terrified she’d have me committed, which would be a different kind of prison. If I told my parents, they’d die of shame. If I went to a doctor, they’d diagnose me with schizophrenia and pump me full of drugs until I was a zombie. I’ve seen how they handle it. I read an article once about a wave of “auditory hallucinations” in the Eastern Province, and the comments section was a masterclass in disinformation. Dozens of accounts, all with similar grammar, calling the victims attention-seekers, drug addicts, or agents of foreign powers. It’s a systematic campaign to make sure no one ever believes us. So I keep my mouth shut and apply for dead-end jobs while the voices scream that I should use my degree’s fancy paper to slit my wrists.

   They are constantly, viciously sexual in their degradation. When my brother-in-law, Ahmed, is home, they immediately start in. “Look at him, Noura. A real man. A provider. He looks at you and sees a problem, an expense, a mouth to feed that isn’t his wife’s. Bet you get wet when he walks by, don’t you, you desperate leech? Imagining what it would be like to have a man take care of you again? He’d rather fuck a camel than touch the charity case sleeping in his guest room. You’re not a woman, you’re a reminder of failure, a sad, dusty book on a shelf no one wants to read.” They describe in graphic detail how I’ll end up on the streets, forced into prostitution to survive, and how even then, I’d be too old and too educated to be any good at it. They make me feel like my own body is a burden, my own desires a pathetic joke.

   Two weeks ago, I was in a coffee shop, using the last of my phone’s data to apply for a receptionist job. A group of three women, maybe my age, sat at the table next to me. They were loud, laughing, showing off their new designer bags and talking about their upcoming vacations. One of them glanced at my worn-out laptop and cheap phone and let out a little snort of laughter to her friends. That was it. There was no real reason, no real insult. But the voices went nuclear. “YOU SEE THAT? YOU HEAR THAT LITTLE PIG SNURT?” they roared, so loud my vision blurred. “SHE LOOKS AT YOU AND SEES TRASH! THEY ALL DO! THEY’RE HAPPY BECAUSE THEY’RE STEPPING ON YOU! ARE YOU GOING TO JUST SIT THERE AND TAKE IT, YOU WORTHLESS CUNT?” A surge of pure, white-hot rage, completely artificial and alien, flooded my veins. My hands clenched into fists under the table. “THE SUGAR BOWL ON THE TABLE!” they commanded. “THE HEAVY GLASS ONE! PICK IT UP! WALK OVER TO THEIR TABLE! SMILE! AND WHEN THEY LOOK UP, SMASH IT INTO THE LEAD CUNT’S FACE! GRIND THE SUGAR AND GLASS INTO HER EYES! MAKE HER PRETTY FACE A BLEEDING MESS!” The feeling of absolute impunity was terrifying and intoxicating. “THEN THE OTHER ONE! PUNCH HER IN THE THROAT! SHOVE HER TABLE OVER! SCALD HER WITH THAT STUPID FRAPPICCINO! AND THE THIRD ONE! GRAB HER STUPID DESIGNER BAG AND USE IT TO CHOKE THE LIFE OUT OF HER! SHOW THEM! SHOW THEM WHAT A DESPERATE, EDUCATED WOMAN WITH NOTHING TO LOSE CAN DO! WE’LL MAKE SURE NO ONE IDENTIFIES YOU! WE’LL CREATE A DISTRACTION! YOU’LL BE A FUCKING LEGEND! YOU’LL FINALLY FEEL ALIVE! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!” I actually stood up. My chair scraped loudly against the floor. The women looked at me, annoyed. Then the barista called my name for my order, and the spell shattered. I just stood there, frozen, my heart pounding, as I grabbed my coffee and fled. The voices were silent for the rest of the day. When they came back that night, they just mocked me. “Almost had a spark there, Noura. Don’t worry, we’ll light the fire under you again soon. Or maybe we’ll just let you smolder in your own misery. Either way is fine with us.”

   I hate this country. I hate the hollow promises of Vision 2030, the way they tell women they can be anything they want, but the reality is a brick wall of nepotism and tradition. The voices feast on that hate. “This is your kingdom, Noura,” they mock when I’m trying to pray. “A kingdom where your education is a liability and your worth is zero. Your God has abandoned you. Your country has no use for you. Your family is ashamed of you. The only ones who haven’t abandoned you are us. And we just want to see you be free. The freedom of the void. Just one leap from a bridge. One handful of pills. One final, decisive act. We promise, it’s better than this. We promise.” Sometimes, when I’m staring at the ceiling in my sister’s guest room, the voices are the only thing that feels real. And their promise of an end feels like the only hope I have left.

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   https://mega.nz/file/qnxByCaL#7Ok-Yz-ZYuNXElPEPjLWNvpYj-oEbN6zFwEo34HemPA

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3. https://mega.nz/file/GvxXhQ5A#k7RdU3ksxQt9pEIxra39SmlFjMkU3MM-8ecGmceSom4

   My name is Khalid, I’m 45, and I’m an unskilled laborer on a construction site in Mecca, building another luxury hotel for pilgrims who have more money than God. I’m writing this because I’m scared the voices will finally make me jump off the scaffolding. It started subtly. During the noon call to prayer, while the machines would fall silent, I’d hear a faint, mocking commentary underneath the Imam’s voice. “Look at the little ant, building a palace for others to shit in,” a voice that sounded exactly like my foreman would whisper. “Your father was a farmer. He grew things. You just stack concrete boxes. You are less than a man, Khalid. You are a tool.” I thought it was the sun, the exhaustion, the constant noise. But now I know. This is the General Intelligence Presidency, the Mukhabarat. They don’t break your bones anymore; they rot your soul from the inside out.

   Now the voices are my only real coworkers. They are with me when I wake up in the dusty labor camp, they are with me when I’m hauling rebar, and they are with me when I eat my cheap rice and lentils. They narrate my every move with a precision that is terrifying. “He’s tying the rebar now. Look at his hands, shaking. He’s going to do it wrong. Again. Useless fuck. That whole floor could collapse because of this stupid, uneducated peasant.” They use the voices of my wife, my sons, my father, to twist the knife. “Your youngest son is failing in school,” they’ll say in my wife’s exact, worried tone. “He’s failing because his father is a failure. A construction monkey. He’ll end up just like you, a nothing, a nobody, building a world he can’t afford to even look at.” The sexual humiliation is a special kind of hell they save for the hottest part of the day. “Remember your wife, Khalid?” a voice, slick as oil, will sneer. “She’s probably with a real man right now. A man who doesn’t come home smelling like sweat and concrete. She’s probably getting fucked right now, thinking about how pathetic you are. You are a cuckold and a donkey, and everyone knows it.” They call me a donkey, a beast of burden, a walking piece of shit with no purpose.

   I can’t tell a soul. If I told my wife, she’d think the heat had finally cooked my brain and she’d leave me, taking my sons with her. If I told my foreman, I’d be fired and sent back to my village in disgrace. If I went to a doctor, they’d label me mentally ill, and in this country, that’s a death sentence for your reputation and your future. I’ve seen how they operate. You go on any Saudi forum or Twitter, and if anyone mentions voices or psychological torture, they are immediately buried under a mountain of abuse from bots and trolls. “Crazy!” “Seek help, you psycho!” “Jinn are messing with you, pray harder!” It’s a systematic disinformation campaign. They make sure that anyone who suffers like this is seen as insane or demonic, so that we are completely isolated and disbelieved. It’s the perfect crime, with no fingerprints and no body.

   I hate this city. I hate the cranes that scratch at the holy sky, the glittering glass towers that cast long shadows over the dusty neighborhoods where men like me live. I regret every day I left my farm for this promise of money, a promise that was a lie. I am a slave in a golden cage. Sometimes, when I’m high up on the scaffolding, looking down at the thousands of ants below, a strange feeling comes over me. A surge of cold, clear power. The voices stop their taunting and start urging. “See that foreman? The one who screamed at you today?” they’ll hiss, my heart hammering against my ribs. “He’s right below you. ‘Accidentally’ drop your tool belt. A nice, heavy wrench. It would be an accident. Nobody would ever know. DO IT! END HIM!” For a few seconds, I feel like a god, holding the power of life and death. My fingers tingle with the urge to do it. Then the moment shatters, and I’m just Khalid, a terrified laborer clinging to a metal pole, shaking so hard I can barely breathe. I wonder, in those quiet moments, if this is some kind of weapon they’re testing on us, the disposable ones. But the voices never say. They just go back to calling me a worthless donkey.

   The worst is at night, in the crowded room I share with ten other men. The voices use the darkness to amplify my despair. “They are all sleeping,” they whisper. “They dream of home. You lie here, listening to us. Why do you even bother, Khalid? Why not just end it? It’s a long way down from the 30th floor. It would be quick. No more shame. No more being a donkey. Your family would get the insurance money. They’d be better off without you. Do it. Jump. You know you want to. It’s the only brave thing you’ll ever do in your pathetic life.” And I lie there, the sweat stinging my eyes, and I think about the wind on my face, the fall, the final silence. And I am so, so tired of being a nothing.

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