The first sensation was a dry, acidic paste coating her tongue, a familiar, unwelcome guest on a Sunday morning. The second was the distant, rhythmic thud of bass, muffled by concrete and cheap carpet, a ghost of the night's music that had taken up residence inside her skull. Thump-thump-thump… thump-thump-thump… It was the sound of her own personal hangover, a relentless, anonymous heartbeat from the apartment above.
Themba "Thembi" Dlamini did not open her eyes. She willed herself back into the void, into the blank, forgiving emptiness of sleep. But the world was insistent. A sliver of Johannesburg's fierce, morning sun cut through a gap in the blackout curtains, a laser beam of pure pain aimed directly at her retina. She groaned, a low, guttural sound that seemed to scrape its way out of her raw throat.
Too much. She had done too much again. The thought was a weary echo, a mantra for her weekends. But this… this felt different. This was not just the usual physical wreckage; it was a hollowing out, a profound emptiness in the very core of her, as if someone had reached in and scooped out her soul, leaving only a cold, aching cavity.
Her phone vibrated on the nightstand, a frantic, angry buzz against the particle-wood veneer. It was a sound that spoke of consequences, of a world waiting to demand answers she did not have. She ignored it, pressing her face deeper into the pillow, which smelled of sweat, Impulse Vanilla body spray, and the faint, cloying scent of club smoke that had woven itself into the very fibres of her life.
Reconstruct, she commanded her sluggish brain. Piece it together.
She was in her bed. In her apartment in the Protea Gardens complex, a bland, beige box of a building that housed a hundred other young lives chasing dreams or running from something. She was alive. That was a start.
Flash: The sticky heat of Club Vudu, bodies moving as one under the strobing lights. The sweet, sharp burn of the first tequila shot, chased by the fizz of cheap soda. Lerato's laughter, a bright, golden sound that cut through the music, her gold hoops catching the light like miniature halos.
Flash: The proud, unyielding set of her own shoulders as she danced, a performance for the entire room. Thembi Dlamini, third-year Law student, social alchemist, the girl who could command a room with a smile and eviscerate with a glance. The sharp mind and the magnetic charm, a carefully curated weapon.
Flash: A shift in the atmosphere. Sbu's hand on her arm, firm, pulling her away from the dance floor. His face, usually so soft and adoring, was a mask of tense concern. "Thembi, we need to talk. Seriously. You're spiralling." His words, slushy and distorted by the bass, but the meaning clear as glass.
Flash: Her own voice, sharp and brittle, laced with a venom she didn't know she still possessed. "Don't tell me what to do! You sound like my fucking father!" The look on his face—hurt, then hardening into something else. Anger. Resignation.
Flash: More drinks. A blur of faces. Then, her face. Kagiso. Standing by the bar, a silhouette of perfect, sleek hair and a condescending smile that seemed to be meant only for Thembi. Their eyes met across the swirling chaos. Kagiso, her rival. The one who had taken the Law Student Council seat by a handful of votes. The one who had been seen, just last week, in the library, her head tilted too close to Sbu's, laughing at a joke only they shared. The hatred was a quick, hot needle in Thembi's heart.
Flash: The fight with Sbu escalating, louder, uglier. Lerato and Pule trying to be a buffer, their faces pinched with worry. "Thembs, come on, let's just go home. It's over." Her, shoving Lerato's hand away, the gesture too harsh, fueled by pride and alcohol. "Leave me alone! All of you, just fuck off!" The sting of tears she would never let them see. Turning, stumbling, pushing through the crowd, leaving them all behind.
Flash: The cold slap of the night air outside Vudu. The world tilting. Hailing a car. An Uber? The logo was blurry. The backseat smell of pine air freshener and old sweat. The driver's eyes in the rearview mirror, watching her.
Flash: A stop? Another place? Darkness. Rough brick against her back. A kiss. Desperate, hungry. The taste of cigarettes and someone else's beer. Whose lips? Sbu's, seeking reconciliation? A stranger's, seeking oblivion?
Flash: Then, the most chilling image yet. A small, dancing flame. A lighter, cupped in a hand. Illuminating a face for a split second? Lighting a cigarette? A candle? The image was gone as quickly as it came, leaving a phantom scent of singed hair and a cold dread in its wake.
Flash: A voice, whispering something. A single, chilling word, swallowed by the night. What was it? Remember? Forget? Help?
Then, nothing.
A black hole. A complete and utter void. The Forgotten Hour.
Thembi's eyes snapped open. The headache was a full-blown demolition crew now, but it was nothing compared to the icy fist of anxiety clenching in her gut. The memories were a shattered mosaic, pieces refusing to fit, the picture they formed terrifyingly incomplete.
Her phone buzzed again. Lerato (14 Missed Calls). Followed immediately by a text: "Thembi, pick up! We're worried sick. Sbu is losing his mind. Where are you??"
She had to move. She had to pee, to drink water, to find a Panado and force the world back into focus. To become Thembi Dlamini again, not this fragile, broken thing.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed was a Herculean effort. The cold laminate floor was a shock to her bare feet. She was still in last night's clothes—a tight, black mini-dress that now felt like a soiled second skin. She peeled it off, letting it fall to the floor in a puddle of lycra and regret, and pulled on the uniform of her morning afters: a worn-out UCT hoodie, soft from a hundred washes, and a pair of cotton panties. The hoodie carried the faint, comforting scent of her fabric softener, a tiny anchor to normality.
The journey from her bedroom to the kitchen was a trek through a landscape of her own decay. The living room was a monument to the night's excess. An empty bottle of Hunter's Gold lay on its side on the carpet, a sticky, amber puddle around its neck. Two wine glasses stood sentinel on the coffee table, one smudged with a shade of pink lipstick that was definitely not hers—a brighter, more girlish colour than the deep plum she favoured. Her purse was upturned, its contents spilled across the floor: a cracked compact mirror reflecting her pallid face, a condom in its wrapper, her student ID staring up at her with a photo of a smiling, hopeful girl from another lifetime, a few crumpled rand notes.
She ignored the mess, her focus singular: water. She filled a tall glass from the tap and drank it down in three long, desperate gulps. The water was cold and clean, a benediction. She leaned over the sink, gripping the cool porcelain, her head bowed, trying to steady her breathing, to quiet the panicked drumming of her heart.
Okay, Dlamini. Get it together. You've handled worse hangovers. You've survived worse fights.
But the hollow feeling, the gaping chasm in her memory, whispered that this was different. This was the kind of night that left a mark, that changed the trajectory of a life.
The need to pee became urgent. She pushed herself away from the sink and walked the short hallway to the bathroom, her bare feet slapping softly on the cool tiles. The door was slightly ajar, which was odd. She always closed it.
She pushed it open.
And time fractured.
Her brain, still swimming in alcohol and fatigue, short-circuited. It presented the image to her in disconnected, nonsensical parts. A splash of dark colour against the white tiles. A tangle of denim-clad legs. A glint of silver sequins.
Her eyes, adjusting to the dimness, refused to assemble the pieces. It was a puzzle of wrongness. Then her gaze travelled upwards, tracing the form from the scuffed designer sneakers, up the tight jeans, to the glittering, silver sequined top.
It was the top that did it. The top she had seen just hours before, across the crowded club. The top worn by the one person whose mere existence felt like a personal challenge.
Kagiso.
Her head was wrenched at a brutal, impossible angle, neck exposed and vulnerable. Her eyes, once sharp and mocking, were open, milky and vacant, fixed on the ceiling. A dark, dried trickle of blood, like a misplaced tear, ran from her left nostril down to the sharp line of her jaw. One hand was splayed on the tile, fingers curled in a final, futile grasp.
The glass of water Thembi didn't realise she was still holding slipped from her nerveless fingers. It hit the floor and exploded, a thousand shards of crystal scattering across the tiles, water splashing against her ankles. The sound was a gunshot in the profound silence of the room.
But Thembi didn't flinch. She didn't scream. The sound was too far away, buried under the sudden, deafening roar of blood in her ears. She stood, paralysed, her hand still cupped around the ghost of the glass, her breath trapped in her lungs.
No. This wasn't real. This was the tail end of a bad dream, a hallucination conjured by guilt and cheap liquor. Kagiso was not here. Kagiso could not be here, could not be this.
She blinked, hard, waiting for the image to dissolve into a pile of discarded clothes, a shadow, anything.
It remained. Solid. Horrifyingly real.
A corpse. In her bathroom. Kagiso's corpse.
The world, her world, the one she had built with such careful, defiant effort—the university star, the social butterfly—shattered into a million irreparable pieces. The vibrant, pulsing life of Johannesburg outside her window ceased to exist. The muffled music from above was now the soundtrack to a nightmare.
The frozen scream in her throat finally broke loose, but it came out as a strangled whimper, a pathetic, wounded animal sound. She stumbled back, colliding with the doorframe, the impact jarring her back into a body that felt alien.
Her mind, now fully, terrifyingly awake, began to connect the wires, to build the monstrous narrative.
The public hatred. The vicious arguments. The threat in the cafeteria, spat with enough venom that a dozen people had heard: "I swear, Kagiso, one of these days you're going to push me too far."
The fragmented memories of the night—the fight, the abandoned friends, the strange car, the kiss, the whispering voice, the flame—all swirled around the central, horrifying fact of Kagiso's body.
The conclusion was inescapable, a truth so awful it felt like a physical blow.
Oh, God. What did I do?
The phone in her bedroom began to buzz again, Lerato's name flashing with insistent, accusatory rhythm.
Thembi's legs gave way. She slid down the doorframe, landing hard amidst the glittering shards of glass and the cold, spreading water. She didn't feel the tiny cuts. She wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them into her chest, making herself as small as possible, a foetal position against the immense, crushing weight of the truth.
She was trapped. Not just in her apartment, but inside a story she couldn't remember writing, with a final, bloody chapter she couldn't bear to read. The vibrant, magnetic Thembi Dlamini was gone. In her place was a ghost, huddled on the floor, a few feet away from a dead girl, listening to the relentless, indifferent thump-thump-thump from above, and knowing, with a certainty that froze her blood, that her life was over.