Dead Goat at The Crossroads

The incident happened to me when I was in college. I regularly went to college like any other ordinary girl. My life was beautiful and normal, just like any other girl, and my eyes held a thousand dreams for the future. My college was a bit close to my house, so I would walk there. I had a few girlfriends in my neighborhood who would go to and return from college with me.

Like every other day, one day we were returning home from college after finishing our classes. On the way back from college, there was a three-way intersection. There, I saw a goat lying down from a distance. As soon as I noticed it, I realized it wasn't moving at all. It looked like it was dead. But I thought, why would people leave dead animals on the street like that? Although I wasn't sure if the goat was really dead or if it was still breathing, I went closer to the goat to make sure. I touched its head and moved it slightly. Its body remained still. I gave it a pretty strong push. Actually, I've always had a lot of compassion for animals. One of my friends stopped me and said, "Let's go from here. We don't know how this poor goat died. It could have died from some complicated disease. We could get sick from it too. It's not right to touch a dead animal lying on the street like this."

Ignoring my friend's words, I spent some more time examining the goat. The truth is, no one pays attention to anyone's words until something happens to them. The same was true in my case. After confirming, I moved the goat to the side and went home.

That night, around 12:00 AM, I was sleeping peacefully, trying to shake off the exhaustion of the day. Suddenly, it seemed like there were a lot of goat noises coming from our neighborhood alley, like many goats were calling out together. I was surprised and thought, where did so many goats suddenly come from in our alley? Then I thought, maybe some families in the neighborhood bought some goats; maybe that's what I was hearing. Without overthinking, I fell asleep again. But I couldn't sleep the whole night.Annoyed, I spent the night with a pillow over my ears. When I woke up in the morning, for some reason my body was filled with discomfort. I felt quite hot and thought I had a fever. I didn't go to college that day. Mom told me to rest. I want to give some information here that might give context to my experience. My family consists of my mother and me. My parents divorced almost two years before this incident. My father remarried and lives in another city with his second wife. Anyway, after lunch, I sat in the TV room and started watching TV. Suddenly, I heard that goat sound again. I was alone at home. My mother is a college teacher; she cooked my lunch and left for college. There was no way to ask anyone about this sound. I strained my ears to hear where the sound was coming from. After following the sounds for a while, I felt like the sound was coming from the back of our house.

I went to the back alley to try and understand where the sound was coming from, but surprisingly, the sound wasn't reaching my ears. Still, I waited for a while, trying to hear the sound, thinking maybe the sound was coming from the neighboring house. But when I went outside to find the source of the sound, it completely disappeared. After standing there for a while, I thought to myself that maybe I had misheard. I came back inside and started watching TV as usual. Suddenly, I realized that someone was in the kitchen because I could hear the clatter of dishes coming from the kitchen. I became quite worried. I thought, Mom cooked and went to college, and there's no one else at home except Mom and me. Then what could be in the kitchen? The sound of the dishes gradually increased. Even during the day, I was terrified. I cautiously moved towards the kitchen, but when I got there, I couldn't see anyone. In this way, strange things kept happening to me throughout the day, and I couldn't find any meaning in any of it. I couldn't understand what was happening. As I watched, the morning passed and it became afternoon.

Around noon, I started developing a fever. In the afternoon, Mom returned home. Seeing my condition, she called for a doctor. It was evening by the time the doctor arrived. After observing me for a while, the doctor prescribed some medicine. On one hand, I was lying sick like this, and on the other hand, my final exams were starting in five days.

It was the night before the exam, and I was preparing. It was around 8:00 PM. While studying, my eyes started to feel heavy. Suddenly, I heard a sound in my room, and my eyes snapped open. I woke up from my light sleep and looked behind me. I saw a person standing behind me, a person who was staring intently out the window of my room. His eyes were quite large, and he had no hair on his head. Seeing him, I started to gasp in fear. No words came out of my mouth, and I just stared at him like a statue. After a while, he suddenly vanished from my sight. As soon as he disappeared, it was as if I regained my senses, and I jumped up from the chair and ran to Mom's room.

I told Mom everything in her room, but after hearing my story, she started scolding me instead. Mom said that because I watch so many ghost programs on TV all day, the same things come into my dreams and scare me. I told her that I had actually seen a person in my room, but Mom wouldn't listen to me. She just said that I must have had a nightmare. Mom's reaction was very disappointing to me.

After that, a few days passed with these things continuing. Even then, several strange incidents kept happening to me at home. I tried to explain these dreams to Mom many times, but she didn't take me seriously at all. After a few days, I was returning home after taking the exams. I wasn't feeling well. My friends were busy comparing answers after the exam, but since I wasn't feeling well, I was returning home alone. While walking down the street, I saw that, just like that day, a black goat was lying dead right in the middle of the road.This time, I was so scared of him that I didn't dare touch him. Instead of going down that road, I turned into another alley, the one that leads to my house. While walking through this alley, I saw something even more terrifying. I saw a woman lying dead in a corner of the alley. Seeing her, I was gripped by intense fear. I stood there, starting to cry. But it wasn't the cry of a child; I was crying out of fear, but no sound came out of my mouth. Again, I avoided that alley and entered another. I passed through three alleys in this way, but in each alley, I saw either the woman or the dead goat. After that, I closed my eyes and ran towards home. I don't know how long, how, or in which direction I ran. When I opened my eyes, I found myself at home. Mom was startled to see me from inside and, abandoning her prayers, rushed towards me. She probably thought some rogue boys were after me because I kept looking back. Once inside, I collapsed onto the sofa. Mom brought me water and kept asking if everything was alright. Then I told her the whole story. This time, Mom couldn't dismiss my words. She believed that something bad might have actually happened to me. I silently thanked Allah because Mom had taken a day off from college and was at home. If she hadn't returned from college, I would usually be alone. God knows what would have happened to me if Mom hadn't been there today. Seeing Mom, I felt like I had regained my life. Mom sat beside me on the sofa, stroking my hair. I fell asleep there, only to wake up screaming from a terrible nightmare. Mom was right beside me. I hugged her tightly and cried for a long time. When Mom asked what happened, I only told her about my dream. I saw many people around me with human bodies but goat heads. They were all attacking me, rushing towards me. As they advanced, their faces became even more grotesque.

Seeing the constant flow of fresh blood from their necks, it seemed as if someone had sewn goat heads onto their bodies after severing their own. After telling my mother about the dream, I started crying again. I begged my mother, "For God's sake, Ammu, please free me from this problem." That night, my mother slept in my room. The next day, I had an exam, but I wasn't feeling well and couldn't take it. Seeing me absent, some of my friends came to visit. They asked, "Hey Maryam, why didn't you come to the exam today? You look so pale. What's wrong?" I told them everything from beginning to end. One of my friends sighed and said, "I told you that day not to touch anything lying on the road, especially a dead animal. I didn't say that for no reason. One of my uncles touched a lemon lying at a three-way intersection. After that, he started to become different from everyone else. His life seemed to get stuck somewhere. Eventually, he died. We showed him to many healers, spiritual leaders, and Pirs, but they all said the lemon on the road had been enchanted. My uncle was affected by that magic and died. There was a bad presence in his body." I asked her what kind of presence it was. Then my friend said, "The devil. His body was in the devil's control. Uncle couldn't recognize anyone most of the time. That's what usually happened. And when he did recognize someone, he would just cry and say, 'Save me, they're going to take me away.' And his behavior completely changed. It felt like he wasn't the same person anymore, like two different people. There's always some kind of motive behind these black magic practitioners. They enchant lemons or dead animals and leave them on the roads to catch their prey, just like fishermen use bait on a hook to catch fish. And those who are affected by this magic, their lives are held hostage by the magician." Hearing my friend's words, I remembered touching that dead goat. Maybe if she hadn’t said all this, I would have completely forgotten about the whole thing.

On the other hand, after hearing what my girlfriend said, I was so terrified I felt like my soul was leaving my body. Was my life in the hands of some magician? I couldn't understand anything. I had probably lost all sense of right and wrong. My girlfriend's words kept ringing in my ears. I was convinced that something like what she described about her uncle was really happening to me. I would hear the bleating of goats around me when I was bathing, studying, or even eating. And because of all this, my studies were severely affected. My exams were going badly because I had no focus on studying. Every moment I felt like someone was watching me. My life was imprisoned in someone else's hands. I was terrified, extremely terrified. One afternoon, I was eating lunch. My mom was at college. Suddenly, it felt like there were many goats bleating near the house. I listened intently to the sound. Then suddenly, I heard the sound of the door lock opening. All the doors of the house opened on their own, but I had locked the door from the inside with my own hands, which was impossible to open on its own. Hearing the door opening, the plate of food fell from my hand onto the floor. My days were passing like this. My mom was very worried about me. She took me to a psychiatrist, but it was no use. From lack of sleep, I had dark circles under my eyes. Anyone who saw me would think I had been sick for many years. When I was taken to the doctor, he gave me various medicines, but they had no effect on me. Instead, my condition got worse day by day. One day I was lying in my room. It was probably afternoon. I was trying to sleep. My mom had gone to college – poor thing, how much more leave could she take? Having not slept for many days, I fell asleep that day. While sleeping, I felt like something very heavy had fallen on my waist and I was sinking into the mattress, tearing it apart. I couldn't see who was sitting on me.

I woke up in excruciating pain. Sitting up, I felt as if someone very heavy was sitting on my back. I felt extremely uneasy, as if my body was sinking into the ground and I was having trouble breathing. I endured immense suffering and tried to stand up, but the thing that was sitting on me continued to press down. Suddenly, I heard my mom's voice. She was addressing someone, saying, "Who are you?" As soon as I heard her words, the pressure lifted from me. I sat up and looked back, and saw my mom standing there. Seeing her, I trembled and hugged her tightly. My mom placed her hand on my head, trying to calm me down. I clearly saw a horrific fear on my mom's face at that moment; the kind of fear someone shows when they've witnessed something incredibly strange that they can't comprehend. I was clinging to my mom, crying incessantly and saying, "Mom, someone was sitting on me. They want to kill me. Save me, Mom, save me. I can't bear this pain anymore. Have mercy on me, Mom, have mercy." My mom didn't say much to me that day. She just took me to her room. She was very worried about me and asked me various questions to understand my problem. Seeing my mom's sympathy for me, I cried a lot that day. I had already told my mom about every problem instantly, so there was nothing new to tell her. Mom comforted me and said she would talk to someone about it. Then, Mom spoke to a colleague from her college about this issue. However, I don't know exactly who Mom talked to. The person Mom spoke to told her about a Fakir (spiritual mendicant) who was an expert in these kinds of magic and witchcraft-related problems, and he himself practiced magic. We went to that Fakir the very next day.

When we arrived there and reached him, we began to wait for our turn to meet him. When our time came, we entered a room to meet him. We still hadn't told him anything about our problems, and according to Mom, she hadn't told him or her colleague anything about my problem either. As we entered the Fakir's room, he looked at me and immediately lowered his eyes. Then he asked me a question that shocked me. He asked if I remembered the goat. I looked at him in surprise and said yes, I had seen it lying on the road. Hearing my answer, he began to explain everything that had been happening to me all this time. He began to ask if those people with goat heads still came in my dreams. I answered yes. They had appeared in my dreams two or three times after the first time I saw them. Then he asked when I had heard the goat's sound. I was more worried about his words, wondering how he knew all this. One by one, I answered all his questions. Then he looked at Mom and started asking, "Did you see the man sitting on your daughter?" Mom answered in the affirmative, that she had seen him. He asked her what his face looked like. Then Mom said he had no hair on his head. When Mom entered the room, she had seen him sitting on my waist, and when Mom asked him, "Who are you?" he looked at Mom, grinned horribly, and vanished. His eyes were very big. Hearing the description of his face from Mom, I started to tremble, because it was the same man I had seen while studying at night. Then the Fakir Baba started reciting something while placing his hand on my head, and I fainted as before. I don't remember anything after that.

I am now recounting the subsequent events in my mother's words. When the Fakir Baba (holy man) started reciting prayers while placing his hand on your head, something possessed you. You began making sounds like a goat, but the sound didn't seem like one goat; rather, it felt like the sound of thousands of goats echoing in my ears. After finishing his recitation, the Fakir Baba looked at you and said, "Do you know where you are sitting at this moment?" Hearing the Fakir Baba's words, you immediately lowered your head. The Fakir Baba, in a stern voice, addressed the demon inside you, "I have a proposition for you. If you don't want to leave this girl, that's not possible. You know what I can do to you. And if you want to be my slave, then come to me. But don't try to fight. You know what I can do to you and that magician master of yours." While the Fakir Baba was saying all this, the door of the room opened by itself, as if someone had left. The Fakir Baba again started threatening the demon, and you began to calm down. Slowly, you lost consciousness. Later, the Fakir Baba gave you some amulets and splashed blessed water on your face. When you regained consciousness, he made you drink the water. Then your physical condition started to improve a little. The Fakir Baba asked you how you were feeling. You said that everything seemed to have left you from within, and now you felt better. After that, the Fakir Baba again placed his hand on your head and started reciting something, summoning the demon. Immediately, he addressed someone and said, "Imprison it!" I was amazed because there was no one in the room except you, me, and the Fakir Baba. So who was he saying this to, to imprison? As soon as the Fakir Baba said this, a Nor'wester-like storm started raging in the room. It continued like this for a while.

Then everything is calm. I have captured the demon that possessed your daughter. Now my task is to catch that sorcerer. Unless I catch him, your daughter's problems cannot be completely resolved. Don't worry, I will show your daughter that sorcerer very soon. Then I will punish him for his deeds. Now, none of this will remain in your daughter's memory. As soon as you give her water to drink, she will forget everything. This was my mother's statement.

After that, I rested at home for a few days, and during that rest, my body became like it was before. All the problems seemed to start disappearing. But I still saw those goat-faced people in my dreams. Several days passed like this. One day, on my way back from college, I saw a person who had brought a goat's dead body to a three-way intersection and left it there. Immediately, I remembered my Fakir father's words. I was sure that this was the sorcerer who had turned my life into hell just a few days ago. I froze in fear. Suddenly, I felt someone's hand on my shoulder. A familiar person was standing with his hand on my shoulder, a smile on his face. His face was incredibly beautiful. He smiled at me and said, "Go home. Don't stay here. From today, all your problems will be solved, Inshallah (God willing)."

After he said this, I didn't look back. I went straight home. Since then, I haven't had any dreams like that, and I haven't had any problems like that either. Now, by the grace of Allah, I am doing very well. Please pray for me, Allah Hafiz (May God protect you).