In her therapist's waiting room in Damascus, Suleima meets the strange and reticent Nassim and soon the two begin a strained relationship. But when Nassim, a writer, flees Syria for Germany, he gives Suleima the manuscript for his most recent novel, whose protagonist's life bears discomforting similarities to her own. Whose story is it? What is fact and what is fiction? Narrated in alternating chapters by Suleima and the mysterious woman in Nassim's novel, The Frightened Ones is a probing examination of life in Assad's Syria and the devastating effects of oppression on one's sense of identity.