Rain returned to Ban Phra Nuan. In class, Phan asked his students to write about an old folk song that reminded them of home.
Khem turned in his paper late. No lyrics—just musical notes written in pencil.
Phan tried playing the tune on the old school piano.
It was hauntingly beautiful. The notes lingered in the air like mist.
But when he finished, one of the lights in the room flickered out.
"Where did you learn this?" he asked.
"I didn't," Khem said. "I dreamed it."
That evening, Phan couldn't stop thinking about the melody. He searched the town archives, and there it was in a brittle book of village songs: "Lullaby for the Sons of Sangrak."
Every male heir had sung it before they died.
Phan ran to Khem's house through the rain.
Khem met him at the door, drenched and trembling, as if he'd been waiting.
"You shouldn't have played that song," Khem said. "It belongs to the dead."
"I had to know."
"Now it knows you, too."
A gust of wind blew through the hallway, and the silver bracelet on Khem's wrist flared with blue light. The shadows along the wall bent and twisted into faces.
Phan stepped forward, instinctively shielding Khem.
> "What do they want?"
"Names," Khem whispered. "They collect names."
Thunder cracked overhead. Every mirror in the house shattered at once.
When the silence settled, Phan's hand was still on Khem's arm.
Outside, the temple bell rang twice,slow, deliberate, as if counting down.
To be continued...