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Arc 1 - Blind Faith
Blind Faith - Kairo
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The air smelt of damp soil and iron. Rain from the previous night still hugged the stones, seeping into the cracks between them.
Each step sank deeper into the soil with a soft, muffled sound—as if the earth itself was breathing under the overwhelming weight of the morning.
The casket slept on a slab of uneven marble, its wood dark and worn from the weather, corners bitten through by time.
A sliver of red fabric peeked through a hairline fracture along the lid—too bright for the world around it, too alive for what it contained.
Rows of men and women stood in silence. Black suits. Red ties. Faces bowed beneath the dull sky. The colour of mourning looked wrong against the mud—it was too polished for a place like Lagos, too clean for the hands that had known years of dirt and labor.
Yet everyone wore it. Everyone except the dead. The young man's eyes moved between them—a field of black and red, yet the field contained stillness like gravestones—before settling on the casket again. His stare lingered, yet it seemed to be full of emptiness but it had intent, analysing every mark and scratch on the wood as though it might give him an answer.
When the bells rang, they devoured every sound in the air and overpowered it. Their hollow cry rolled through the hills, heavy but drawn—a noise so vast it swallowed every emotion, even grief. He didn't cry.
He never had. He couldn't even recall the last time he did.
When the final clang of the church bells faded from his ears, he reached his arm up and softened the hold of the red crimson tie from his neck. The silk felt unfamiliar between his fingers—it was too smooth, too alien.
Then he walked .The crowd scattered without a word. Boots and heels scraped the ground, shoulders tense, but no words left anyone's mouth.
As he passed, the eyes around him tracked him, yet they weren't cruel—just distant, lacking warmth—as if watching something they didn't quite understand.
Lagos stretched before him as if gravity was distorting: wide streets of cracked marble and stone, fences leaning with old age, air thick with fumes from the morning fires.
Rainwater lightly pecked the uneven ground, reflecting shards of grey sky and streaks of red from the ties behind him.
He watched his reflection distort with every step. The bells still chimed faintly, their sound thinning into the distance.
It left behind only silence—a silence that held onto him, that had always clung to him .And though he walked among them—dressed like them, breathing the same cold air—he knew it. He'd always known it, not just now, not just today, but his entire life.
He was not one of them. He walked, and the crowd began to move—not in unison, but in quiet fragments .A few stepped back.
Others turned their shoulders just enough for him to pass, like leaves curling away from the rain. None of them spoke. None had to. Somewhere near the back of the crowd, a woman's voice broke the silence, soft but sharp enough to cut through the thick air.
"I remember when my sweetheart met that man," she whispered to the child beside her. "Didn't believe me when I said to stay away. Now she's gone—vanished, just like the rest. That's what happens when you ignore the signs. When an Abynt looks at you, the world turns upside down."
The child pressed herself closer to her mother, eyes wide, trying to understand the distress and tremor in her voice.
A few steps later, two men murmured under the shadows of an elm." Matthew, what on earth are you doing? Are you asking for death?" one hissed, his voice trembling.
"That man's nothing more than an Abynt. His father was strong and bold just like a horse before his birth, and now look where he ended up—just like the rest. "The other man didn't answer. He couldn't. His lips parted, but no sound came. He just stood there, frozen—eyes wide, breath shallow—as if something that should have never been seen had lifted and held its fingers around his throat.
"Matthew," the first whispered again, softer now. "Move.
"But Matthew didn't. Not until the young man was gone, and the weight of his absence finally let the air move again. The young man didn't turn around. He didn't need to. Stories like that always somehow found him, even when they weren't about him.
He just kept walking, and the road opened before him like a wound that would never be healed.
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The house still smelled like his father.
It smelt just like home.
Yet it was quiet. The world had fallen silent
.He was so tired. The kind of tired that didn't come from walking, but from existing. The kind that sat behind the eyes and made the air too heavy, as if breathing became a task he needed to concentrate on.
He stood there for what felt like hours—time was slow—listening to nothing: the creak of old wood, the faint hum of wind against the window.
The house felt too big now. Too awake. Yet there was no one to welcome him home.
He caught his reflection in the mirror.
Silver hair. A quiet laugh slipped out—brittle, uneven. He forced a smile, but it twitched at the edges, his eyes following it like they didn't believe.
"It's all because of this," he muttered. "This silver hair." "Dad didn't have it. Mum didn't have it. So why me?"
He pressed his right hand against the glass, the faint tremble of his breath fogging his reflection." That's why they call me that goddamn word… an Abynt.""I never asked for it. "The laugh died halfway out of his throat.
He stared at his reflection, and the smile that had forced itself onto his face began to tremble and shake slightly.
Then he slammed his fist against the wooden table. The sound cracked through the room, sharp and dry.
Dust lifted from the surface. His skin crawled. His teeth clenched until they ached. His eyes narrowed—brow drawn down, every line of his face tightening with so much tension, with the effort to stay quiet.
He stayed like that for a moment, chest barely moving, the silence engulfing him once again.
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He desperately needed air.
Everything felt so suffocating.
The door creaked open, and a cold wind slipped past him.
Outside, the world moved as if nothing had happened. The grass bent beneath the wind, the trees sang, the clouds crawled slowly across the grey sky.
.hen he stepped forward.
The breeze paused its cool wind—just once—but it was enough
.The branches stopped swaying. The grass stilled. Even the air seemed to lose its weight. He froze. For a heartbeat, it felt like the world had noticed him.
A thin shiver ran down his arm, raising the hair on his skin. The silence pressed close—too clean, too deliberate—but it wasn't.
It was just silence. still, it felt like the world itself was mocking and laughing at the young man. A faint, bitter sound slipped from his throat—half laugh, half breath."Even nature's afraid of me," he muttered under his breath.
Nothing answered. Only the empty field, waiting for the wind to remember itself.When the wind finally did, it carried something else with it.
Smoke
.He turned his head slowly. The scent was faint—burnt wood, maybe a chimney, maybe something else—but it crawled through the air like it had been searching for him.
Then he heard it. A voice, low and distant, calling from behind him. It was so close to him yet lingered so far.
"Kairo."
He froze.
It had been six years since he'd last heard that voice
.Six years since she'd left.
And now, she was here—returning only after the man she'd abandoned was gone for good. He didn't turn right away.
The name still hung there, trembling in the air like it didn't know where it belonged. He remained still.
The air between them was thin—close enough to feel her presence, but not enough to breathe in it.
"Kairo."
The voice came again, steadier this time.
He kept his eyes forward. "I know you can hear me."
Her footsteps stopped a few paces behind him. He could almost hear the faint crackle of her cigarette when she spoke. Six years of absence, and the first thing he smelled on her was the scent of smoke
.He wanted to ask why she'd come. He wanted to ask why now, why after everything—but the words wouldn't move from his tongue.
The wind brushed past them both, slow and uneven, like the world was still deciding whether to start again or leave things as they were. She took a slow drag, the ember at the tip of her cigarette burning faintly in the grey light.
"You've grown," she said.
He didn't answer."
You look like him.
"I don't
.The thought came before he could stop it.
He kept his gaze on the sky, looking deep into the horizon
. The smoke curled past him like it wanted to leave first.
" Six years…"His voice cracked halfway through. He tried to steady it, but the words delivered themselves anyway—fast, uneven, trembling with breath.
"Don't make me laugh. Why the hell are you here? Why now? Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Not a month ago. Not a year ago—but today, of all days."
He turned, eyes burning from his sockets but dry as sand."You've been gone so long, and everyone still adores you. Everyone loves Dad. But me? They look at me like I'm a goddamn curse."He took a step closer, pressing his foot down firmly.
The air between them was so tight it felt like it might shatter like glass."So tell me, Mum—what the hell do you want?"
"Is that any way to speak to your M—
""—To what?" He cut her off, the words sharp enough to sting. "To my mother?"His voice shook, louder now, but not from rage—from years of silence built up and breaking all at once."Is that how people should treat me? How they should talk to me? How they should look at me? How they should act around me?"
He took another step forward. The space between them tightened as if the concept of personal space never existed." Is that any way to talk to someone who's barely seventeen? "The words came faster, messier. "Is that what mothers do, huh? They just leave? They disappear and come back when it's convenient for them? "
He scoffed—short, dry, humourless. "Don't give me that shit."
"Never. Ever…"
He inhaled deeply and spoke softly.
"Try to use that mother card on me."He took a step closer, voice trembling but rising, every word scraping its way out of his throat.
"You don't get to. I don't care if everyone in this goddamn village—or even the world itself, even the gods—love you and adore you.
"He laughed once, sharp and hollow. "I couldn't care less if Athena herself loves you."
His hand trembled uncontrollably as he pointed at her. "You do not have the audacity—the right—to ever call yourself my mother.
Or to ever use that card on me. "She blinked hard, fumbling for breath. "Kairo, that's not—you don't understand, I didn't mean to—"
"Didn't mean to what?" His voice cracked, the anger already folding in on itself. "To leave? To pretend nothing happened? To show up when it's safe?"
"It wasn't safe then ,"she said quickly, her tone shaking
. "You were too young. I—I couldn't stay." He laughed again, but it broke halfway through. "Too young? You think age changes what you did? "His breath cracked and his chest tightened.
"You left Dad. You left me. And now you stand here trying to justify it?"
The words collapsed under their own weight. His voice softened, thinned. "You don't even know what it's like to walk through that village. To see the way they look at me. "He turned away, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, though no tears fell. "You don't know what it's like to be me."
"You left because it wasn't safe?" His voice trembled, not from fear, but disbelief.
"What the hell does that even mean?""
There were people after your father," she said quickly. "It wasn't safe for us."
He stared at her, jaw tightening as if he was going to explode. "Right." The silence stretched.
She looked away, fumbling, desperately searching for the next thread." I had… things I needed to do."
"Things," he repeated quietly. "That's a new one. I haven't heard that one before."
She inhaled from the cigarette, eyes unfocused, trying her hardest not to make eye contact. "You wouldn't understand."
He laughed once—it was short-lived, yet bitter. "You're right. I don't."
"You're so busy making up lies," he said quietly, the anger almost gone now, replaced by something emptier. "Trying to make yourself look better. Trying to make yourself feel better. "He swallowed hard, his voice cracked.
"You can't even apologise. Not to me. Not to him. You never have"
"You're…He stopped. The words hovered, trembling on his tongue.
The worst piece of trash…
He didn't say it. Even now, even after everything, he couldn't.
"A terrible mother," he finished instead—the delivery came out as just a whisper.
"I'm tired," he said, no energy in his voice, dullness in his eyes.Those two words landed sharper than any blade.
They didn't echo in her ears—they stayed, as if they were now a part of her anatomy.
She froze. The cigarette slipped from between her fingers, falling slowly as if gravity and time had changed.
It hit the dirt without a sound, as if the world itself had become a vacuum of space and everything was muffled.
She didn't stomp it out. Her feet were frozen—she couldn't.
Smoke spiralled up between them, twisting into the clouds—the only thing that moved in that moment.
She stared and watched him walk away, her body still trying to process what she'd just seen and heard. The same boy she'd left behind six years ago was no longer a child, but an entirely different man.