🌙 CHAPTER FOUR
Morning drips slowly into May's room.
Grey light spills through her curtains, touching the sketches scattered across her desk — drawings she doesn't even remember making.
Lines of a man's jaw.
A pair of eyes shaped like longing.
A silhouette standing in the rain.
She knows exactly who the sketches belong to.
Nathel.
She closes the sketchbook quickly, as if the memories can be shut out with paper.
Today feels different.
Her chest is heavier than usual, like someone pressed a hand against her heart while she slept.
Her dreams had been blurred, full of shadows and a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
And now, even awake, she feels it —
Thump…
Thump…
Thump…
Soft, steady, far away… but real.
Not hers.
His.
She presses a palm to her chest.
"Why now?" she whispers.
It has been months.
Months of silence.
Months of pretending.
Months of trying to scrub his name from her spirit.
But the bond is awake again.
And she can't ignore it.
Zara Walks In
Zara pushes open the door without knocking, her hands full of steaming waakye and a plastic cup of sobolo.
"You look like you didn't sleep," she says. "Again."
May forces a smile.
"I'm fine."
Zara sits beside her on the bed and gives her that look — the one that sees through every lie.
"You dreamt of him again?"
May swallows.
She doesn't want to say yes.
She doesn't want to say no either.
Either answer would feel like admitting something she's not ready to face.
Zara sighs softly and hands her the sobolo.
"You know… heartbreak doesn't kill. It just feels like it wants to."
May smiles weakly.
Zara always knows how to say the right thing without making it worse.
But today, something deeper gnaws at her.
"This is different," May says quietly.
"I felt… something. Like his emotions were touching mine."
Zara raises an eyebrow.
"May, don't scare me."
"I'm serious."
She hesitates, searching for words she doesn't fully understand.
"It didn't feel normal. It felt like— like a whisper inside my chest."
Zara's expression softens into concern.
"Do you want to talk to Ama about it?"
May shakes her head quickly.
"No. She'll worry."
Zara nods, though she doesn't look convinced.
Meanwhile… Across Town
Nathel sits at the edge of his bed, staring at his phone.
He doesn't know why he woke up before dawn.
He doesn't know why his chest has a strange pressure in it.
But he knows the feeling.
He hasn't felt it in months.
He presses a hand over his heart.
May.
It hits him like a wave.
Not a memory.
Not a thought.
A feeling.
Her sadness.
Her confusion.
Her longing.
Nathel closes his eyes, jaw tightening.
"No," he whispers to himself.
"Not again."
But the bond that he has been trying to suffocate, bury, ignore —
has started breathing again.
And it's breathing through both of them.
Kofi walks into the room, still brushing his teeth.
"Bro, you look like you saw a ghost."
Nathel doesn't reply.
Because he did.
The ghost of someone still alive.
Back to May
She's alone now.
Zara has gone home.
The house is quiet.
But the quiet doesn't comfort her.
It amplifies everything.
Her sketchbook sits on the desk, half-opened, a line of charcoal smudged across the page like a bruise.
She touches her chest again.
The echo hasn't stopped.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
She whispers his name before she can stop herself.
"…Nathel."
The room chills.
The air shifts.
And for one breath — one heartbeat —
she thinks she sees something in the mirror.
A figure.
Blurry.
Tall.
Watching.
But when she blinks, it's gone.
She exhales shakily.
"Maybe I'm losing my mind," she whispers.
But in her heart, she knows she isn't.
The bond is real.
It's waking.
And whatever forced it to sleep—
is stirring now.
Waiting.
Watching.
Preparing.