Thuli's breath caught as she approached the edge of the playground, her footsteps crunching over dry leaves. Nkosana sat beneath the twisted fig tree—alone, as always. His uniform was perfectly clean, untouched by dust or time, and his fingers danced slowly over a stone he held in his lap. But it wasn't the stone that held her gaze.
It was the shadows around him. They moved when they shouldn't have.
He didn't look up as she neared, but Thuli heard it—her name, again.
Not from his lips. From *somewhere else.*
"Thuli…"
It slipped beneath her skin like a cold blade. She blinked and shook it off.
"H-Hey," she said, her voice dry.
Nkosana finally raised his eyes. Black. Bottomless. And ancient.
"You've been dreaming about me," he said flatly.
Thuli's mouth opened. Nothing came out. She hadn't told anyone—not even her journal—about the dreams. The forest. The bones. The whispering.
"Yes," she finally said. "What are you?"
He tilted his head. "Not what. *Who.*"
The stone in his hand cracked in half. Dust puffed out—not grey, but red.
"You've felt it, haven't you?" he continued. "The voices. The pull. You're marked now. Just like me."
"I don't want to be like you."
"You already are."
Suddenly, a gust of hot wind swept through the fig tree, whipping her hair and sending dry leaves flying in all directions. The bell rang in the distance—recess was over.
But everything felt different now. As if the world had shifted one inch to the left, and nothing would ever be normal again.
Before she turned to leave, Nkosana whispered one final thing:
"Tonight, they'll come for you."
Thuli didn't sleep that night.
And when midnight came…
*they knocked.*