Chapter 1

"Pant…" a running Jamal sighed, struggling for breath as he sprinted along a slightly bizarre pathway. In the background, there seemed to be bright lights, and colours of bright pink with a combination of other rainbow colours, but in increased brightness. The young Jamal looked uneasy with the conditions, and he slightly fell to the ground, on his knees.

"Oh my God!" he said as he fell. "What is happening?"

Suddenly, an unknown figure, dressed in a big cloak, and holding a scythe, appeared. The figure's face was hidden by the cloak's hood. Either way, big cloak or not, he appeared closer to a weakening Jamal. Jamal stared in confusion. He did not know who that man was, or his purpose of appearing. Nor did he know of all the things that appear around him.

The figure walked towards Jamal and then stopped. For a moment, he did almost nothing. Jamal was really confused and he felt as if he was sinking, almost out of breath in an uncomfortable atmosphere.

Before he tried to even recover from his predicament, the figure held his scythe up high, with the sharp end pointed towards him. To his surprise, the scythe released some sort of beam, which hit Jamal and caused the young man's skin to melt, literally. Jamal felt as if he was in a room with no air at all, not to mention air conditioner. Slowly, his skin disintegrated into a semi-liquid form.

Jamal was as good as finished when the figure attempted to hit him with the scythe, his body already turned into liquid. But Jamal was screaming in pain as the beam hit him. He really could not bear the heat.

However, moments later, Jamal screamed in fear, when he was in his own room.

"Yaarrghh!" he screamed. But he was surprised when he looked around. He recalled his weird dream, where he was transported to a strange place and left to melt, but it seemed he was only dreaming. He was on his bed, and to prove that, his walls are solid. No bright rainbow colours that caused him to feel dizzy and fall like in the dream.

"Oh my God," Jamal said, "I just had a bad dream. Forgive me for my sins."

His scream was realised by his father, who came in to the room to comfort him.

"Jamal, my child," his father said, "you must have had a bad dream."

"I guess I just did," Jamal said, removing his warm blanket towards the corner.

"Son," the generous father said to his son, "dreams are something normal. All you have to do is move on in life. Go the righteous way and, God willing, you will achieve success not only in this life, but the hereafter."

"Father," Jamal said, "have you encountered terrible dreams in your life?"

"To say that I have not," Jamal's father replied, "is a lie. Of course I did. But I did what I told you just now."

"What did you say just now?" asked a curious Jamal. His mind was a little occupied and he forgot his father's words that went on less than a minute before.

The breadwinner of the Hashim family, and the father of young Jamal Hashim, did not show any trace of annoyance towards his forgetful son. Instead, he kindly repeated his sentences about forgetting some dreams.

"Son," Mr. Hashim said, "There are good and bad in this world. The same goes for dreams. We are taught continuously to take something good that benefits us in life and leave out the bad things than brings evil. In fact, God teaches us to do good deeds and prevent bad deeds in the Holy Book, the Quran."

"Oh," Jamal said as tried to recall the verses in the Quran. "I remembered some parts of it. Thank you for reminding me, father. God bless you."

"Hmm…," Mr. Hashim put his right hand below his chin, and laughed. "God bless you, too."

Jamal's father also reminded Jamal that it was 6 o'clock in the morning. Usually at 6 o'clock, people of the Islam faith pray their first of five prayers of the day. So, after being reminded, Jamal nodded his head and went to the bathroom to cleanse his body parts before performing the prayers.

The young man prayed for a few minutes. He finished his prayers with some recitals of verses from the Holy Book. Then, he heard a voice from his family members. His parents were talking about something, and he wanted to pay attention to their issues.

Unfortunately, he heard something unpleasant.

"I am sorry," Mr. Hashim said, "but we could not afford a lot of jewellery."

"But we did not buy a lot of jewellery at all," Mrs. Hashim said. "Where did the money go?" she asked in a worried tone.

"Well," Mr. Hashim replied, "they went elsewhere. We may have overspent in some areas. Probably we bought too many things without paying attention to the credit card balance. Our own mistakes."

"What should we do now, knowing that we have little in our pockets?" Mrs. Hashim asked.

"Do not worry, my wife," Mrs. Hashim, "things will turn out well, God willing. He is with us, every second in our life. He does not leave us, and we must not leave Him, regardless of our condition, rich or poor, healthy or not."

Upon hearing the conversation, Jamal's eyes blinked, and he cried. He knew that there was something not right with his family's expenses. That it was not good news for not just his parents, but also himself. He soon wiped his tears away with his shirt's sleeves.

I really hope things get better for all of us one day, he thought.

When the morning came, Jamal did not say anything regarding the issues his parents were facing. Instead, he just pretended like nothing bad happened. His bald hair cleaned and nice t-shirt put on, with old leather pants, he descended down the stairs to take his breakfast.

Mrs. Hashim prepared food, while Mr. Hashim was seen reading the daily newspaper from the Metronomic Newspaper Company. Mrs. Hashim realised his son arriving and kept a brave face, just to cheer his son up and not let him know about the trials they were facing. Mr. Hashim was focused on reading the newspaper. The front page wrote, Flying Humans Arrived. Are They Aliens? , and it looked like a very big topic of interest for many people, including the breadwinner of the family.

"Hmm…" Mr. Hashim shrugged as he went through the pages, "this alien thing…is not really real."

"Why do you say that, father?" Jamal asked.

"To be honest," Mr. Hashim replied, "the media likes to create some stories. Stories like this 'flying humans' nonsense, and its relation to aliens, people seeing aliens…well, I think most of them are nonsense whatsoever!"

"Calm down," Jamal said. "You said some stories? Why?"

"It is understood," Mr. Hashim said, "that we have to believe in the existence of other beings, other than ourselves.

"I know that," Jamal said as he picked up a crispy-looking curry puff to eat for breakfast. He ate quietly and carefully, absorbing the available nutrients that he could get from the curry puff. His mother is very good in cooking lots of food, especially Indian food. The young man then said, "Mmm…delicious!" after he finished eating just one curry puff, and he did not eat the other two on the table. His mother could only smile at his son's remarks.

Mr. Hashim smiled as well, but he was too busy flipping through the pages of his favourite newspaper. He went through the Business section, and then he turned over to the Cartoons section before finally settling in the Sports section, which is his favourite news section among them all. When looking at the Sports section's football news, he looked happy and excited.

"Yes, this is good!" he said. "Our national team made it through the quarter finals!"

"Huh?" Jamal said. "Oh, that is great news! I hope we go on and win."

"Hopefully," his father continued, "but our team still needs some changes, especially in the attacking forward."

It is no secret that Mr. Hashim is an avid sports fan. He watches many kinds of sports, and his most watched sport is football. He usually watches both national and international football. Whether it is a regional competition or a world championship, he will keep in touch. He used to play football for a short time in his younger years, by the way, so he knows his way around the system.

Jamal was interested in listening to his father's commentary on the previous night's football, but he had some work to do. As it turned out, his good friend Joe called just before he was ready to leave home. So, the young Jamal picked up his mobile phone and answered the call.

"Hi, Joe," Jamal said. "What is happening?"

"Jamal," the colourful figure known as Joe said. "I need you to come down here. Important thing we all need to talk about."

"All right," Jamal said. "Where are you now?"

"The police station, of course," Joe replied. "Where else could I be?"

The phone call ended soon, and Jamal said his goodbyes before leaving his house. He would embark on a mission that appeared to be important, judging by his friend's speech, but he still had no clue what was going on in the police station.