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"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." – Stephen King
"Wait!" Thembi's voice was a strangled shriek, a sound that didn't seem to belong to her. It was the cry of a cornered animal, all raw nerve and pure survival.
Lerato stopped, turning back, her hand still hovering near the hallway entrance. Her expression shifted from weary concern to outright alarm. "Thembi? What is it? What's wrong?"
Thembi's mind was a storm of static and panic. Every possible lie—the toilet's blocked, I've lost my phone in there, there's a spider the size of my fist—evaporated before it could reach her lips, each one more transparent and pathetic than the last. Lerato would see through them in a heartbeat. She always did. There was only the truth, a solid, immovable object in the path of her best friend's curiosity. And the truth was in the bathroom, wearing a sequined top.
"I just… I need to talk to you. First. It's important," Thembi stammered, taking a step forward, her body moving on a autopilot of desperation. She had to get between Lerato and that door. She had to physically block her.
Lerato's eyes narrowed. The clinical, assessing look returned. She was no longer just a worried friend; she was a problem-solver, and Thembi was the problem. "We are talking, Thembi. But I really need to use the loo. My stomach is in knots. It can wait two minutes."
She turned again, her movement decisive. This was it. The point of no return was a few steps down a carpeted hallway.
"No, it can't!" Thembi lunged forward, her hand shooting out and grabbing Lerato's wrist. The contact was electric. Lerato's skin was warm, alive. Thembi's was icy cold, her grip too tight.
Lerato yanked her arm back, her eyes wide with shock and a flicker of fear. "Thembi, you're hurting me! What the hell is wrong with you? What is in the bathroom?"
The question hung between them, naked and terrifying. Thembi could only shake her head, tears of frustration and terror now streaming down her face. She was unraveling, and Lerato was watching it happen in real time.
"You're not acting like someone who just had an argument," Lerato said, her voice low and careful, the way one might speak to a person holding a weapon. "You're acting like someone who has something to hide. Something bad. Did you… did you do something to Kagiso? Is she in there?"
The directness of the question was a gut-punch. Thembi's breath came in ragged, sobbing gasps. She couldn't form words. Her silence, her wild eyes, her trembling form—it was all the confirmation Lerato needed.
Lerato's face paled further. "Oh, my God. Thembi. What did you do?" She took a step back, towards the front door, her eyes darting from Thembi to the hallway and back. The dynamic had shifted irrevocably. They were no longer best friends; they were predator and prey, though in that moment, neither was sure which was which.
"I didn't mean to!" The words tore from Thembi's throat, a guttural, confessional cry. It was a lie and a truth wrapped together. She didn't know what she had meant to do. "Lera, you have to believe me. I don't remember! I woke up and she was just… there."
The horror on Lerato's face was a physical thing, a wave of nausea that made her sway on her feet. She brought a hand to her mouth. "She's… she's in there? In your bathroom? Is she…?"
Thembi could only nod, a pathetic, broken gesture. The weight of the admission felt like it would crush her spine. She had said it. The secret was out. And the look on Lerato's face—the dawning, awful comprehension—was a punishment worse than any police interrogation.
Lerato stared at her, and Thembi watched as a million calculations flickered behind her eyes. The friendship, the years, the loyalty, all warring with the monstrous reality. "We have to call the police, Thembi," she whispered, her voice trembling but resolute. "Right now. We have to."
"No!" The refusal was instantaneous, violent. "You can't! They'll put me away forever! You know they will! My father… he'll…." The thought of her father's face, the ultimate "I told you so" etched into his features, was a fresh kind of terror.
"This isn't about your father!" Lerato cried, her own composure breaking. "This is about a dead girl in your bathroom! There's no running from this! There's no hiding!"
"There has to be," Thembi pleaded, taking a step towards her, her hands outstretched in supplication. "Lera, please. You're my best friend. You have to help me. We can… we can think of something. We can figure this out together."
Lerato was shaking her head, backing away slowly towards the console table where her phone sat next to the vetkoek. "No, Thembi. I can't. I won't. This is beyond me. This is beyond us. I'm calling the police."
The finality in her voice broke something inside Thembi. The pleading, terrified part of her shriveled up and died, and in its place, something cold and sharp and desperate took root. It was the same thing that had pushed Sbu in the club. The same thing that had made her threaten Kagiso. The thing her father had always warned her about—the Dlamini temper, the family curse, a fire that burned everything in its path.
As Lerato turned to grab her phone, time seemed to slow, condensing into a single, crystalline moment of choice. Thembi's eyes fell on the heavy, solid crystal award sitting on the console table. It was a mockingly prestigious thing—the "Future Leader of South Africa" award she'd won in high school, the last thing that had ever made her father look at her with something resembling pride. It was a paperweight, a lie, a symbol of a future that was now ashes.
Later, she would not remember deciding to pick it up. She would only remember the weight of it in her hand, cool and impossibly solid. She would remember the arc her arm made through the air, a slow, terrible pendulum. She would remember the sound—a sickening, wet thud that was nothing like in the movies. It was a deeply personal, intimate sound, the sound of a world ending.
Lerato made a small, choked gasp, more surprise than pain. Her body stiffened, her hand, which had been inches from her phone, dropped to her side. She took one stumbling, sideways step, her eyes wide and uncomprehending, locked on Thembi's. There was no accusation in them yet, only a profound, shocking betrayal. Then her legs buckled, and she collapsed to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.
Thembi stood frozen, the crystal award still clutched in her hand. Lerato lay on her side, one arm twisted beneath her, her face turned towards the ceiling. Her eyes were half-open, but they saw nothing. A trickle of dark blood, shockingly red against her temple, began to well from a gash just above her hairline and seep into the beige carpet.
The muffled music from above chose that moment to shift to a new track, the bassline deeper, more insistent. Thump-thump-thump… thump-thump-thump…
Thembi dropped the award. It hit the carpet with a dull thud. She staggered back, her hand flying to her mouth. What had she done? What had she done?
"Lera?" she whispered, the sound swallowed by the music. "Lerato?"
There was no response. No movement. The only breath in the room was her own, coming in ragged, hysterical hitches.
She had done it again. She had become the monster everyone feared she was. First Kagiso, now Lerato. Her best friend. The only person who knew the truth. She had silenced her. Permanently.
A low, animal moan escaped her lips. She fell to her knees beside Lerato's still form, her hands hovering, afraid to touch. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she chanted, a meaningless mantra to a god who had long ago stopped listening.
She was alone now. Truly, utterly alone. With two bodies. Two crimes. The walls of the apartment felt like they were breathing in, pressing down on her. The world outside—the traffic, the city, the university—was a distant, irrelevant dream. This was her world now. A tomb of her own making.
She reached out a trembling finger and pressed it against Lerato's neck, searching for a pulse she knew she wouldn't find. The skin was still warm, but there was nothing. No steady beat beneath her fingertip. Only stillness.
Thembi rocked back on her heels, wrapping her arms around herself, and began to sob, great, heaving sobs that tore at the very fabric of her being. The sound was lost under the relentless, pounding music from above, a soundtrack to a hell of her own design.
She had wanted to hide one body. Now she had two.
And the worst part, the thought that coiled in the deepest, darkest part of her soul, was the terrifying, freeing realization: there was no going back now. There was no redemption. There was only the nightmare, stretching out before her into an endless, dark horizon.
She was the monster now. And the monster had to survive.