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Once, when the moon hung low and the stars blinked timidly in the sky, a stranger arrived at the village of Al-Qarya. Tall and cloaked in darkness, he spoke in hushed tones of a buried treasure that lay beneath the village mosque. The villagers, weary from years of hardship, listened intently, their eyes gleaming with hope.
Under the stranger's guidance, they began to dig beneath the mosque, their shovels biting into the earth with hungry fervor. But as the days turned into weeks, an unease settled over Al-Qarya. Strange shadows danced at the corners of their vision, and whispers echoed in the silence of the night.
One by one, the villagers fell ill, their bodies wasting away despite the healer's desperate efforts. Children woke screaming from nightmares they couldn't remember, their eyes wide with terror. The once vibrant market square emptied, shops boarded up as if fleeing an unseen foe.
Rumors spread like wildfire among neighboring villages, warning of a curse that had befallen Al-Qarya. The elders shook their heads knowingly, their faces etched with lines of sorrow. They spoke of an ancient jinn, angered by the intrusion upon its sacred domain. It had cursed the village, they said, condemning its people to suffering until the treasure was returned to the earth.
Desperation gripped the villagers as fear tightened its grip. They pleaded with the stranger to undo the curse, but he had vanished as mysteriously as he had come, leaving only whispers of regret in his wake.
Years passed, and Al-Qarya became a ghostly shell of its former self. The mosque stood in silent defiance, its walls echoing with the mournful cries of those lost to the curse. Grass crept through the cobblestones of the marketplace, reclaiming what had been abandoned in haste.
Today, Al-Qarya is a cautionary tale told to children at bedtime, a reminder of the dangers that lurk in greed and desperation. Travelers skirt the village, unwilling to tempt fate and awaken the wrath of the jinn that guards its hidden treasure.
And so, beneath the timeless gaze of the olive trees, the village of Al-Qarya remains trapped in a nightmare of its own making, a testament to the darkness that can consume even the most steadfast souls.
