27:4:2024
10:23pm
"So let me get this straight," he said slowly, rubbing his temple. "You're half Time Avatar, half human. You have a twin sister from another timeline who glitched into the present—while you were trapped in the past. And him—" He jabbed a finger toward Eliot, who stood quietly in the corner, his eyes haunted. "He's a slave from the past you rescued?"
Mirabel shrugged, the weight of it all pressing on her shoulders. "I know it sounds crazy. Honestly, I wouldn't believe it either... if I wasn't the one living it."
Moses scratched at his dreadlocks, his eyes narrowing. "It's not that I don't believe you. I mean... I'm a medium. I talk to ghosts and all. But time travel? That's a whole different level. Even in the magical world, Time Avatars are just myths."
He paced a little, then stopped and turned to her, his voice suddenly serious. "So this other Time Avatar—the one who told you to find me—he said we need to go to the Bermuda Triangle Headquarters?"
Mirabel's eyes dropped, her expression clouded. "Yeah. But... there wasn't enough time. We had to go before we got captured . But I think it has something to do with the Darkness."
A heavy silence filled the room. Even the shadows seemed to lean in, listening.
Moses finally nodded, grim. "I need to call my dad."
Without waiting, he grabbed Mirabel's phone and slipped out into the hallway.
10:37
Mirabel stood alone, flipping through a stack of faded photographs and brittle parchment. When Moses returned, her eyes were locked on a single image. A stone tablet—ancient, weathered, carved with impossible symbols.
"When my sister glitched out of time," she whispered, not looking up, "I started digging. I thought... maybe the Darkness had something to do with it. So I researched every known event it touched."
She held up the photograph, her voice trembling. "This was found in the ruins of the Great Council. After the Dark Event. So many magical creatures died that night... and no one knew why."
Moses stepped closer and took the photo. His face drained of color.
"I tried cross-referencing the symbols," she continued, desperation rising. "Every known language. Every ancient dialect. Nothing matched."
But Moses wasn't listening anymore. His hands trembled as he stared at the tablet.
"That's because it's not a language of this world," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's written in the Tongue of the Dead."
Mirabel's breath caught in her throat.
Moses looked up, his eyes full of a fear he rarely showed. "Only a handful of people can speak it. And I happen to be one of them."
The ancient photograph trembled slightly in Moses's hands. The strange symbols—etched into crumbling stone—seemed to pulse with something alive. Something cold.
He read the inscription silently, his lips barely moving as he mouthed the jagged phrases of the Tongue of the Dead.
His brow furrowed. His eyes widened. Then—
His breath caught.
Mirabel watched him from across the room, anxiety tightening in her chest. "Well?" she asked, her voice tentative. "What does it say?"
Moses didn't answer.
His face had gone pale. He stared through the picture like it might crawl off the page. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple.
Then—
BEEP BEEP.
A car horn blared outside, slicing through the silence.
Mirabel jumped, then moved to the window, gently parting the dusty curtain.
A black sedan idled at the curb. Its tinted windows reflected the moonlight like dark eyes.
Moses stood abruptly, folding the photo and sliding it into his jacket pocket.
"Don't worry," he said, forcing calm into his voice. "Come to school on Monday . I'll explain everything. Okay?"
Mirabel blinked. "That's it? Moses, wait—"
But he'd already turned to Eliot. "Later, bro. Stay safe."
Then he rushed out, disappearing through the doorway.
EXT. STREET OUTSIDE – CONTINUOUS
The back door of the car opened just as Moses reached it. He slid in without a word.
Inside, the world was quiet. Tense.
He stared down at the folded photo in his lap.
The tablet's symbols echoed in his mind like the tolling of a funeral bell. He closed his eyes, took a long breath... and whispered, more to himself than anyone else:
"Fuck! We are screwed."
29:4:2024
The next morning, Mirabel took a deep breath as she stepped into the school compound. It had been so long since she walked through the basketball court, and the familiarity of the place made her chest tighten. Her eyes scanned the court—and then she saw him.
Emeka.
He was alive. Playing basketball like nothing had happened.
Her heart skipped. Flashes of the horrific images she'd seen at the Bermuda Triangle headquarters—visions of Emeka's death—rushed through her mind. Yet here he was, very much alive. Dribbling. Laughing. Real.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the beep of her phone. A message from Moses:
"Meet me at the art room. Urgent."
She made her way there, her mind racing. Should she tell Moses that it was Tolu who killed Emeka—or was supposed to? That was the vision, after all. But something held her back. Maybe it wasn't time.
When she reached the art room, she found Moses pacing near the door, glancing outside, tense and anxious.
"Are you expecting someone else?" Mirabel asked, stepping in.
Before Moses could answer, a voice did.
"Yes, he's expecting me," said Tolu, stepping into view.
She walked into the room confidently. Moses immediately closed the door behind her and muttered something under his breath. A soft glow shimmered across the doorframe.
"What was that for?" Tolu asked, raising an eyebrow.
"To make sure no one barges in," Moses replied quietly.
An awkward silence followed as Mirabel and Tolu stared at each other, their shared history hanging heavy in the room. Then Tolu cleared her throat.
"I can't believe it," she said slowly. "You're actually a time avatar. And when you said you weren't Mirabel during the excursion but Adunni… it was actually your twin sister." She paused, giving a half-smile. "Well, welcome to the Super Squad, I guess."
Then, turning to Moses, she added, "Speaking of which, if we're having a squad meeting, why didn't you call Sunmi?"
Moses took a deep breath, then reached into his bag and pulled out a stack of photographs.
"I actually called this meeting because of her," he said solemnly, handing the pictures to Tolu.
She frowned as she looked at them. "What am I looking at exactly?"
"That," Moses said, "is all that's left of the Dark Event. It's written in the Tongue of the Dead. It's... a prophecy."
Silence fell over the room once more.
Moses took a deep breath and unrolled the brittle, black-edged parchment. Strange symbols crawled across the page like insects frozen mid-motion. As he began to read, his voice shifted—lower, as though the words pulled at something ancient buried deep within him.
"Thrakos vath korvus, sha kor zha nexura.
Korvathin draethys, rezha sha korvath.
Vathikor sha thrakos, korvus sha draethys.
Nexura sha kor, vathikor sha rezha.
Draethys korvathin, sha korvus zha thrakos.
Korvus sha vath, rezha sha draethys."
The room grew colder with each line.
As Moses finished, he looked up slowly, linking the lines to their meanings, almost as if trying to make sense of a nightmare out loud.
"Darkness trembles, light forgets…
Vessel cracks, weight of skies…
Carved from scream, silent place…
Womb swells, empties itself…
Child cries, tongue long dead…
Maggots feast, cradle spread…
No breath warms, void's dark name…
Shadow in flesh, night's guide…
Darkness suckles, raises to throne…
World ends, cry not its own."
A sharp silence followed. Tolu took a step back, her face pale, eyes wide with horror. Fear clutched her like a cold hand around the throat.
Mirabel furrowed her brow. "What does that even mean?"
Tolu turned to Moses slowly, voice tight. "Please don't tell me… it's what I think it is."
Moses didn't speak immediately. Instead, he looked down at the last line again—World ends, cry not its own—before he finally met her eyes.
"I'm afraid so," he said softly. "Sunmi… is the Child of the Void."
The air in the room seemed to collapse.
Mirabel's breath caught in her throat. "What… what does that mean?"
Moses clenched his fists. "It means Sunmi isn't just one of us. She's the one the prophecy warned about. She carries something ancient—something not meant to be born into this world. The Darkness isn't just a place… it's a force. And it chose her."