TEHRAN – “Waking Nightmare” from the second pulse-pounding original story based on the hit video game Hello Neighbor has been published in Persian.

Written by Carly Anne West, the book was originally published in 2018 by Scholastic Inc.

Rambod Khanlari is the translator of the book released by Saad Publications.

It’s been four months since Nicky Roth has seen his best friend and neighbor, Aaron Peterson. Aaron’s father, a reclusive theme park designer, told the town that Aaron and his sister Mya are living with a relative far away, but Nicky can’t seem to accept it.

Plagued by terrifying nightmares of robotic mannequins, rotting theme parks, and a dark basement, Nicky teams up with his friends from school to find out what really happened to Aaron and Mya. 

Together, they start piecing together a picture more disturbing than they could have imagined. The screams coming from the neighbor's house can’t be ignored, and Nicky is determined to get to the bottom of where his friends went, and what, if anything, can be done to save them.

The book has been embellished throughout with black-and-white illustrations by Tim Heitz. 

“Missing Pieces” is first part of Hello Neighbor. It is about Nicky Roth, who has always been a lonely kid. But that all changes when he and his family move to Raven Brooks and meet their eccentric neighbors, the Petersons. 

Nicky befriends the Petersons’ son, Aaron, bonding over their talents for tinkering. Soon the boys are inseparable and using their skills to pull pranks on the townspeople. But something about Aaron bothers Nicky – people seem almost afraid of him and his family. 

Through snippets from Aaron and a lot of sleuthing in the town's archives, Nicky discovers a dark past haunting his neighbors, a streak of bad luck they can’t seem to shake. Aaron thinks that’s all behind them now, but Nicky has a feeling the Petersons are fated for another tragedy. 

Carly Anne West is the author of the YA novels “The Murmurings” and “The Bargaining”. She holds an MFA in English and writing from Mills College.

Photo: A poster for the Persian translation of Carly Anne West’s book “Waking Nightmare”.

MMS/YAW