In June 2007, a Kuwaiti tourist rides the Jubilee line, reflecting upon a great betrayal of his teenage daughter, Dahlia. He remembers the stories he would tell Dahlia as a child, tales of a parallel world inhabited by jinn. A world which perfectly overlaps our own, just as the underground mirrors the world sitting above it. As he passes each station, he considers his role as a father, and wonders if there is another world, brushing against this one, in which he was able to protect his daughter.

Layla AlAmmar grew up in Kuwait, with an American mother and a Kuwaiti father, and has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in Quail Bell Magazine, The Red Letters St Andrews Prose Journal, and Aesthetica Magazine where she was a finalist for the Creative Writing Award 2014. Her debut novel The Pact We Made will be published in March 2019. She currently lives in Kuwait and is a regular visitor to London, where she spent many summers as a child.

Underground: Tales for London features original short stories by London-loving authors from across the world. Each story, written by a Borough Press author, will be available to Evening Standard readers as a free podcast, from standard.co.uk

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