Al-Anoud: The Face That Does Not Reflect

About this book

Have you ever stood before the mirror and felt, even for a second, that the reflection staring back at you is not quite "you"? That there is a slight delay in the hand's movement, or a look in the eye that is not yours? In the heart of Cairo, and among the papers of a writer in her early thirties called "Al-Anoud," the tale begins from this very point of dissolving. Al-Anoud is no ordinary woman, but a rebellious, withdrawn soul sheltering in her words from the world's din, until her mirrors begin to rebel against her. It was no mere passing fancies; "three past midnight" was the sacred appointment when something woke behind the glass, something that knows her name, watches her steps, and whispers to her a mysterious threat: "Do not look in the mirror again." The novel moves us from old apartments' rooms to museums' dark basements, where "the mirror" becomes a cursed gate to another time, and part of a secret organization's riddle chasing a device called "the Link"; that invention possessing the power to erase identities and reshape truth itself. But the real terror lies not in organizations or devices, but in that face Al-Anoud discovered dwells inside her and does not resemble her. This work is no mere story of mystery or the paranormal, but an exploratory journey into the human psyche's deepest labyrinths, where memory mingles with hallucination, and the search for truth becomes a bloody battle against the shadows dwelling within us. It is the story of everyone who fell and was forced by life to face "their other face" in order to rise again.