OUR BEGINNINGS
It was 12 a.m. when Grace and Paul got home. The large gates of the lonely Okonkwo mansion loomed before them, their iron bars catching the pale glow of the blood-red moon. After running a few security checks, the gates creaked open, and they rolled inside. The long driveway stretched ahead, flanked by overgrown bushes and shifting shadows.
The mansion, a sprawling relic of colonial architecture, stood as a monument to their family's strange history – one whispered about even by the dead. According to Mrs. Okonkwo, the house had been in her lineage since the first British occupation. Her ancestors were descendants of an affair between the master of the house and a local worker. Somehow, the property ended up in her hands when the master's "legitimate" family vanished without a trace.
Growing up, Paul had mixed feelings about the place. It was grand, sure, but lonely too. And tonight—under a bleeding moon, with the world unraveling—the mansion felt more haunted than ever.
As they approached, Paul's eyes fell on the elephant-shaped hedge sculpture—one of many scattered across the grounds. It was slightly overgrown. Mum must have been busy this month. The sight brought back a rare, tender memory of his mother.
"Paul, get over here," she had called that day, her tone light but firm.
"Yes, Maaaa," Paul had replied, dragging out the 'Ma' to tease her.
"Do you notice anything peculiar about Mr. Trunks?" she asked, pointing to the oversized hedge.
He squinted, pretending to study it. "Erhh… no, nothing comes to mind."
"Really?" she said, raising a brow. "Then I guess you'll just have to figure it out." She turned to go, then paused. "Oh, and Grace? Bring the cakes from the fridge! We'll have a picnic while your brother figures out what's wrong with Trunks."
"I concede!" Paul groaned.
"Concede to what? What are you talking about?" she said with a smirk.
Grace had skipped outside with the cakes while Paul tried to beg their mother for mercy. Eventually, he gave up and started trimming the elephant. She and Grace ate and laughed, watching him work until she finally let him join them. Never mess with mum.
Now, in the moonlight, those memories felt far away, like they belonged to someone else. The wind stirred the elephant hedge, brushing its leaves like a whisper from the past. The sculpted bushes stood like monuments to everything they had lost. She was gone—taken by forces he couldn't fight—and this house was all he had left of her.
Even if every corner of it hurt, he wouldn't trade it for anything.
"Let's go in," Paul said softly.
The house seemed to swallow them as the heavy doors creaked shut behind.
…
Grace sat by the fireplace, quiet and still, waiting for a call from their father. Her breathing was calm but heavy, her gaze fixed on the empty hearth. The flickering moonlight gave her a strange stillness—almost ghostlike.
Paul decided to let her be. She needed a moment. He needed to make sure they'd survive the next one. For now, there were more important things to do.
He headed for the basement, each step kicking up dust that floated through the air. It was colder down here. The silence had weight.
He hadn't returned since the first and only time he'd been down there with his father.
"Dad, where are we going?" he had asked, eight years old and struggling to keep up.
"You'll see."
"Is this because of the mall thing? I promise I won't do it again."
Mr. Okonkwo said nothing, just kept walking.
Now, Paul stood before the same door—sleek, spotless, strangely out of place. As a child, he hadn't noticed how unnatural it was. Now he couldn't ignore it.
The keypad beside it blinked, glowing with strange symbols. Their father had made them memorize this language—one that didn't belong to any one culture. It took Paul a few seconds to recall the code.
The passcode: 1000 BC. A number Paul had been made to memorize long before he knew what it meant.
The door hissed open, revealing the room behind it.
It was just as he remembered. The walls shimmered faintly with intricate patterns. Weapons lined the room—expertly crafted and almost otherworldly. A dull, tarnished halo hung in one corner. And then the paintings—fragments of some greater story, one his father had never fully explained.
"Son, come here," his father had said.
He'd led him to a glass case.
"What do you see?" he asked, pulling away a cloth.
Inside was a creature that haunted Paul for years. Its skin was ashen black, striped like a zebra. Its nails glinted red under the golden light. It looked like a baby—but wrong. Its crimson eyes stared back with a cold, mischievous grin.
Paul had clutched his father's arm.
"This is a lesser demon," his father said flatly. "An ogbanje."
Mr. Okonkwo had captured it during a case just weeks earlier. He explained what it was—a spirit from folklore that tormented women trying to bear children.
"I prayed you wouldn't inherit this burden," he'd whispered, voice cracking. "But God hasn't listened to me in years."
Paul remembered how awkward he'd felt watching his father cry for the first time. A single tear fell as he spoke of regrets, lost time, and his hope that Paul and Grace would be spared from this life. Paul didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to say something? Hug him? And yet he just sat there, frozen.
Now, sitting on that same couch, Paul looked around—the weapons, the paintings, the glass case. All relics of a life his father had only shown him pieces of.
…
Behind the bookshelf on the southern wall was another secret—the control room. Paul entered.
The room buzzed with quiet machinery. Monitors lined the walls, showing video feeds from every corner of the estate and miles beyond. The hum of the systems was almost comforting.
One monitor showed Grace. She had fallen asleep by the fireplace, her head awkwardly tilted, worry still etched into her face. She was curled up so tightly it was as if she wanted to disappear.
Paul let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding.
He scanned the other feeds. Everything was still. No movement outside. No signs of the chaos they had driven through. But Paul wasn't fooled. His father always used to say that danger arrived on the heels of silence.
Traps and defense systems covered the estate—pits, fences, sensors—but even those had limits.
"Everything looks fine," he muttered, but the words rang hollow.
Once he was sure the systems were up and running, he left the control room and returned upstairs.
Grace was still curled up in the chair. She stirred as he approached, mumbling in her sleep, her body trembling slightly. She was dreaming—no, nightmaring.
Of course she was.
He picked her up gently. She was lighter than he expected. He carried her to her room and laid her on the bed.
As he turned to leave, her hand reached for his shirt.
"Please… don't leave me," she whispered, her voice shaky.
Paul paused. His chest tightened.
"I won't," he said softly.
And he stayed. He lay beside her, letting her hold on as long as she needed.
Sleep, Paul, he told himself. Tomorrow's coming.
And it would be worse.
…
He awoke with a weight on his chest. A force, not physical, but heavy enough to steal his breath.
He forced his eyes open.
The room was dim, lit only by the glow of artificial light. The curtains were open—Grace's doing, no doubt.
Outside, the world had changed.
He stepped to the window.
The sun was gone.
Or rather—it had become something else. A black sphere hung in the sky, hollow and cold, radiating dread instead of warmth.
The earth beneath it looked drained. Even the trees seemed to recoil.
Paul shut the curtain.
He found Grace in the kitchen, earphones in, dancing lightly as she worked. She moved between the counter and stove, focused but free. It was her way of coping, and he let her have it.
He was about to head to the control room when she spoke.
"Hey Chief, skipping breakfast? Or are you just stunned by my moves?"
"With moves like that, even a dog would run," he said, smirking.
She threw a spoon at him. Missed.
"Your coffee, oh Great Insufferable One," she announced, dropping it on the table with a bow.
He took a seat and sipped.
"So… what's our next move?" she asked.
"We're lucky to be far from everything. For now."
"I guess…" Her voice trailed off.
"Dad'll be back tonight," Paul added. "We just have to hold on."
That seemed to help. She smiled.
Then her expression shifted.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but… the ghosts are gone."
Paul stilled. He didn't respond at first. The words hung in the air.
She was right.
The house had always been full of them. Blind Favor in the kitchen. The handless gardener. The wandering figures in the halls.
Now? Nothing.
The silence felt wrong.
"I'll check how things are outside," Paul said, standing. "And no—you're not coming. Just wait here. I'll be back before Dad gets home."
Grace tried to play tough.
"If anything happens to you," she muttered, "I'll find you and end you myself."
"I know," he said with a grin.
Grace opened her mouth to say more, then closed it. She just looked at him – the kind of look that made him want to stay.
Yet, he left.
…
He took the underground tunnels—built by the original estate owner and rediscovered years ago when Mrs. Okonkwo accidentally dug into one during gardening.
The tunnels stretched for miles in different directions. Paul picked the cemetery route—furthest from people.
He emerged thirty minutes later, through the tomb house deep within the cemetery
The black sun hit him instantly, weighing on his chest.
He was used to darkness. Used to death.
But this was different.
The cemetery, usually brimming with spectral presence, was empty. No ghosts. No sorrow. Just… silence. The silence was so complete it rang in his ears, making him dizzy with how wrong it felt.
Even beyond the cemetery, the world felt hollow.
He moved quietly through the shadows until he heard something—groans. Human.
He hid behind a rusted phone booth and spotted survivors—lifting rubble, pulling people from the wreckage.
He was about to slip away when his foot hit a rock.
It clattered loudly.
"Who's there?" a gruff voice called out. A man—someone he'd later know as Sergeant Philip—stepped forward.
Paul held his breath and made his second attempt to leave.
Then he saw them.
Cloaked figures emerging from the shadows. They moved without sound – no footsteps, no breath. Just the whisper of fabric dragging across stone.
Silent. Wrong.
One raised a hand. The air went cold.
Paul didn't wait to find out what they were.
He ran.
"Over there!" one of the figures hissed, voice warped and low.
Paul ducked and weaved through the narrow streets, avoiding debris and trying to stay out of sight.
Every turn, every alley, they were there. Watching.
Paul finally reached the cemetery again, slipping into the tomb and bolting the door behind him.
Back to stone.
Back to silence.
Back to breathless waiting.