Several hundred kilometers from Babylon lay the ancient city of Ur. On its outskirts, agriculture flourished. Vast farms surrounded the city, for it was here—roughly—that humanity had first discovered farming, abandoning nomadic life to build the earliest civilization in history, known as the Sumerian civilization.
In one of those farms lived a happy family, somewhat distinctive. It consisted of the father, Richard, the mother, Karen, and five identical twin girls: Wafaa, Salma, Caroline, Layla, and Lian. The girls were ten years old. Their father earned their daily bread by selling grains to merchants in the city of Ur. The income was substantial enough that the family lived a contented life for now.
One night, when the moon was completely dead, a little after midnight, the family awoke to Lian's screams.
"Aaah! There's a ghoul! A ghoul!"
Richard and his wife hurried to the girls' room to see what caused the outcry.
"What's wrong?"
"I saw a ghoul by the wardrobe!"
Richard turned his gaze toward the indicated wardrobe.
"There's nothing there."
"It just left. I'm sure I saw a ghoul."
The parents were annoyed that their daughter's imagination had interrupted their sleep.
"It's just your imagination, Lian. It's not real. Drink some water and go back to sleep."
"I swear by Ishtar, I saw it with my own eyes. It was short, its skin intensely yellow. It stared at me smiling, its teeth full of blood. I swear by Ishtar—if you leave me, it will kill me."
Their mother, Karen, said, "Come, dear, sleep with us. Nothing will happen to you."
"But what about my sisters? The ghoul will kill them."
Lian's sisters had woken from her screams and were watching the scene. After a moment of silence, Wafaa said,
"Actually, I'm a little scared."
"Yes, me too. What if there really is a ghoul?"
"Daddy, if the ghoul eats me, you'll regret it a lot."
They spoke at once in tones of fear and tension, except for Salma, who remained unaffected.
"Fine, fine. Bring your bedding. Come sleep upstairs."
Richard was irritated but decided letting them sleep upstairs was the easiest way to quiet the girls.
"I'll sleep here," Salma said coolly, fighting sleep, with no trace of fear on her face.
"Fine. Good night." Richard turned quickly to return to his bed.
"No, no, sister! I swear the ghoul will eat you!"
Salma ignored Lian's words and sank into deep sleep, while the others climbed upstairs to sleep.
In any case, Salma would not sleep well that night...
Midnight.
In the province of Ur, inside one of the farmers' homes amid a vast grain farm, there was a ground-floor room containing five beds. Four were empty of bedding, while on the fifth lay the headless corpse of a girl. Her abdomen had been slit open into a hollow cavity devoid of intestines, stomach, liver, and other digestive organs. It was Salma's corpse...
The room was splattered with blood everywhere, and the door was firmly locked, though Richard had left it open.
In a dark corner of the room stood a short ghoul with intensely yellow skin, holding the girl's liver and eating from it while muttering to itself.
"Hmmph... I had the chance to snatch all the girls at once, then vanish and never return to this place. But that damned human Lian ruined my plan. Fortunately, Salma was a foolish girl who didn't avoid danger."
"No matter. I won't let anyone discover my deed. I'll finish my meal, clean the place, and bury the body in one of the farm's remote spots the owner never visits."
Indeed, the ghoul did as it said.
This ghoul enjoyed a beautiful romantic dinner with a human female's liver in particular, and the corpse of an innocent girl in general.
The next morning, the family faced a problem.
The bedroom door wouldn't open.
Richard pounded on it forcefully, but there was no response from his daughter.
"Salma, open the door. It's your father."
"Come for breakfast, Salma. You have sewing lessons today," said their mother, Karen.
The problem was that no matter how hard Richard tried to force the door, he couldn't. It was as if it were made of steel, though it was just an ordinary wooden door.
So he decided, "I'll enter through the window. As soon as I wake her, I'll punish her severely."
Poor Richard didn't know his daughter was headless and buried in one of the farm's outskirts.
He went out, circled the house until he reached the window. The curtain obscured the view, so Richard grabbed an axe and struck the window hard.
Boom. The wood shattered, and the glass broke.
He was heavy, so climbing was difficult, but he succeeded and entered the room, panting.
When he surveyed the room, the blood froze in his veins.
His reaction was fear and anxiety. Thoughts tangled in his mind, but their essence boiled down to these questions:
What? Where is my daughter Salma? Could she have run away? But why would she run? What's happening? Where is my daughter? Where is my daughter??
He heard him scream in terror, causing Karen to faint and fall to the ground. The little girls began screaming and crying, prompting Richard to return to reality.
He couldn't open the door from inside either. He exited through the window and returned to his family.
It was certainly unusual for one of the girls to disappear in the morning, making their reaction so intense. But after an hour, everyone regained mental balance and gathered in the upper room, where Karen had regained consciousness, surrounded by Richard and the girls.
"I didn't find Salma."
"Oh God, is it true what you say? Where is my daughter? Are you sure, man?"
From Richard's experience as a father, involving his wife in solving difficult problems would only increase his burden and prevent wise action, so he pretended calm.
"Yes, I think she went out to wander the farm grounds. It seems she woke an hour or two before us."
Richard was only calming his wife Karen because, upon waking, he had already searched the farm.
"Aaaah! The ghoul ate my sister!" Lian began crying loudly. Her sisters' faces froze too.
"No, my daughter, there are no ghouls in this world. Salma will return soon."
"Man, she's not used to such behavior. I'm afraid the little ones are right."
Richard shouted at his wife, "You fool, don't say nonsense in front of the girls! Now prepare breakfast. I'll go search for the girl. I'm sure she's somewhere on the farm."
While the family was under pressure, the ghoul sat watching them argue at the room door from the kitchen, holding not an apple but Salma's head, biting and chewing with a full mouth while talking to itself.
"The problem, human, isn't whether the girl is on the farm or not. The problem is whether she's complete or missing spare parts. Hahaha!"
The family ate breakfast: just fried eggs and wheat soup. Karen couldn't prepare delicious meals today due to her mental state. Afterward, in silence and solemnity, the father went out to search for his daughter.
He searched the barn, the barn shed, the mill, the mill engine, the stable, the hay store, the water tank enclosure, and amid the wheat fields. He circled the farm wall all day but found no trace of her, increasing the terror in his heart.
Could there really be a ghoul in my home?
He completely dismissed and removed this idea from the list of possibilities.
He returned home and told them he hadn't found her, but Richard was certain Salma would return. If not, he would find her and reunite the family.
Because he spoke with complete calm and confidence, they believed him and somehow found comfort in his words. They had to believe him, for the alternative in Karen's mind was that a ghoul had abducted her, making recovery nearly impossible.
As for the idea that Salma was dead, no mother would dare allow such a possibility to invade her thoughts.
Midnight once again.
The family slept in the upper room.
But no one wandered in dreams; they all suffered insomnia due to Salma's disappearance.
As hours passed, the little ones fell asleep.
Wafaa was in a dark room, sitting on a chair holding an apple, eating it while thinking about its taste.
"I don't know why Lian thinks sour green apples with tough texture are better than red ones.
I'll always love red apples with all the word means."
Suddenly, as she finished thinking, a circle of black candles ignited around Wafaa, about two meters in radius.
Their flames were vivid green, and Wafaa found herself sitting in the circle's center.
From behind the black candles emerged a white shadow from the darkness, with the faint light of green flames.
The girl breathed very rapidly, staring wide-eyed at the white shadow, her heartbeat slightly slower than the speed leading to stoppage or death.
As seconds passed, a man appeared wearing a white cloak with no facial features—as if erased—but he faced Wafaa directly and drew a long sword two or three meters in length.
He aimed the sword at Wafaa's head, making a small wound in the center of her forehead from which a drop of blood trickled.
The ten-year-old girl was so terrified and frightened she couldn't scream; her heartbeat raced powerfully.
The terrifying man began speaking in a loud voice, even without a visible mouth, but his tone was sharp.
"By the great Shakrael, I sentence this human Wafaa, daughter of Karen, to eternal hell after death and make her a servant to our goddess Lilith the revered eternal."
After saying this, he returned his sword inside his cloak and vanished.
Seconds later, the hunchbacked, short creature with yellow skin appeared—it was none other than the vile ghoul that killed little Salma.