The city carried its exhaustion openly, as though it had long since given up pretending to be anything else. The air was thick with dampness, not fresh but stale, holding the scent of rust, worn concrete, and something faintly medicinal that clung stubbornly to the back of the throat. Even breathing felt like an act of tolerance rather than relief.
Keynaan walked ahead, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders slightly drawn inward. It wasn't cold enough to justify it. The posture had become habitual, a quiet defence against a world that had little interest in softening itself for anyone.
Behind him, Ayaanle spoke with a brightness that felt almost misplaced in the heaviness of the morning.
"Do you think she'll be awake today?" he asked, quickening his steps to walk beside him, his eyes carrying a fragile kind of hope that hadn't yet learned to protect itself.
Keynaan kept his gaze forward, watching the cracks in the pavement stretch ahead like thin fractures in something much larger. "She might be," he said after a moment, his voice steady enough to be believed, though not entirely honest. That was enough for Ayaanle. It always was.
Hamdi walked on the other side, quieter, her presence marked more by tension than movement. Her hands were clasped together tightly, the knuckles pale, as if he were holding something fragile between them, something she feared would break if she loosened her grip.
"What if…" Hamdi began, then faltered, her voice catching on the thought before it could fully form. Keynaan glanced at her briefly. "What?"
Hamdi hesitated, then forced the words out. "What if she doesn't get better?" The question settled between them, heavy and unwelcome, yet impossible to ignore.
Ayaanle shook his head almost immediately. "She will. The doctors said they're still trying." Keynaan didn't respond. He didn't contradict him either. Some things didn't need to be said aloud to be understood.
The hospital came into view as they turned the final corner, its presence looming in a way that was less imposing than it was resigned. The building looked as though it had been left unfinished, its concrete stained and worn, its windows patched rather than replaced. The flickering sign above the entrance buzzed faintly, the sound thin but persistent.
Government Care Facility ~ East District.
The word care lingered in the mind longer than it should have, not because of its meaning, but because of how little it seemed to apply.
A line stretched along the outer wall, people waiting without expectation. Some stood, others sat, a few leaned against the structure with the stillness of those who had learned not to ask for more than what was given. A man coughed harshly into his sleeve, the wet sound cutting through the air. No one moved toward him.
Ayaanle slowed slightly. "It's worse today," he murmured. "It's always worse," Keynaan replied, his tone carrying neither surprise nor concern, only recognition. They were close to the entrance when the sky broke. The sound came first.
It was not thunder, though it carried the same violence. It was deeper, heavier, as if something immense had struck against the world itself. The ground trembled beneath their feet, not enough to knock them down, but enough to unsettle balance, enough to force attention upward. Ayaanle grabbed Keynaan's arm without thinking. Hamdi moved closer, his shoulder pressing tightly against him. "What was that?" Ayaanle asked, his voice no longer steady.
Keynaan didn't answer. His eyes were already fixed on the sky. It was wrong. Not in a way that could be explained easily, but in a way that was immediately understood. The sky did not change gradually. It did not shift or darken or fracture in any natural sense. It gave way, as though something behind it had pressed forward with enough force to distort the surface of reality itself.
At first, it appeared as a distortion, like heat bending light. Then the shape began to define itself, unstable and flickering, as though it resisted the form it was being forced into. A massive head. Incomplete. Its features shifted constantly, never settling long enough to be fully recognised. Its eyes did not remain in one place, its mouth stretched and contracted in unnatural proportions. It looked less like something appearing and more like something struggling to exist. The reaction was immediate.
Some people screamed, the sound sharp and uncontrolled. Others dropped to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the ground, their voices rising in frantic devotion. A few laughed, not out of joy but from the mind's inability to process what it was witnessing.
Hamdi's grip tightened around Keynaan's sleeve. Ayaanle moved behind him, half hiding, his breath shallow and uneven. "What is that?" Hamdi whispered Keynaan didn't respond he couldn't.
When the head spoke, it did not use the air. The voice entered directly, bypassing the senses, settling into the mind with a weight that was impossible to resist.
"One hundred and twenty will be summoned." The words carried a force that pressed inward, sharp and absolute, like thunder striking against metal. The street stilled.
Not physically, but something deeper shifted, as if the moment itself had been fixed in place. Then the names began.
Each one was spoken with clarity that left no room for doubt, each syllable precise, deliberate. With every name, someone in the crowd reacted, some collapsing under the weight of it, others standing rigid as a faint light gathered around them.
A boy further down the street cried out as his body locked in place, his mother clinging to him, her voice breaking as she begged him not to be taken. The light around him intensified, outlining him in something that was already separating him from the rest of the world. The list continued relentlessly. Keynaan stood still, watching his name would not be called, He had accepted that long ago.
Eight months since he turned sixteen, and nothing had come. No sign, no voice, no recognition. He was not chosen and suddenly then the pattern broke for the briefest moment, everything dulled.
The colour drained from the world, replaced by a muted grey that swallowed depth and detail. The sound faded into something distant, as if the world itself had stepped away. The head in the sky shifted, It was no longer addressing the crowd now it was looking at him.
Keynaan felt it before anything else, a presence that did not belong to the process unfolding around him. It did not overwhelm. It focused. And then it spoke, not the same voice.
This one was quieter, but carried something older, something that did not need force to be understood.
"Child of sorrow… I await you at the end of darkness."
The words did not echo. They remained, embedded in thought. The world returned all at once. Sound rushed back. Colour restored itself. Movement resumed as though nothing had interrupted. But something had.
The head spoke again, its original voice unchanged.
"Keynaan."
Ayaanle gasped beside him. "They said your name" Hamdi shook her head, panic rising. "No, that's not"
"You have been summoned."
The words settled with a finality that left no space for argument. "In twenty-four hours, you will be taken to the Trails. Settle your affairs. Make your wishes. Prepare."
The reactions around them shifted instantly. Fear remained, but it was joined now by something sharper. Eyes turned toward Keynaan measuring, questioning, judging. And then the head was gone. Not fading. Not retreating. Gone, as if it had never been there.
Keynaan remained where he stood, his body still, his thoughts struggling to align with what had just occurred. "Keynaan…" Ayaanle's voice broke, the word barely holding together.
"I don't want you to go," Hamdi said, the words rushed and uneven, like they had been forced out before they could be stopped. Ayaanle shook his head, tears forming. "Please don't go."
Keynaan looked at them, taking in the fear, the desperation, the way they held onto him as if he could anchor them to something stable. For a moment, something tightened in his chest.
Then he pulled them both into him, holding them firmly. "I'm coming back," he said quietly. "You don't know that," Hamdi whispered. "I do." He leaned slightly closer, his voice lowering. "I'll come back. And when I do… I'll fix this. I'll make her better."
He didn't wait for their response. He took their hands and moved, pushing through the hospital entrance with urgency that bordered on force. Halimo was awake when they reached her. And she was already crying. "You…" she struggled to say, her voice breaking under its own weight. "They called you…"
Keynaan stepped forward immediately, embracing her as carefully as he could, feeling the frailty of her body, the unnatural lightness, the way she seemed to exist with less substance than before.
"I'm going," he said, his voice steady. "And I'm coming back with what you need." She shook her head weakly, her grip tightening around his sleeve. "Don't speak like that as if it's certain…"
"It is."
Footsteps approached, measured and controlled.
Doctor Jamal entered, his presence quiet but firm, his expression already settled into something that suggested he had processed this moment before stepping into it.
"I won't waste your time with unnecessary comfort," he said, his voice calm but unwavering. "Your situation has changed, but your mother's condition has not."
The statement settled into the room with a quiet finality, altering the space without raising its volume. Even the machines seemed to recede slightly, their uneven rhythm blending into the tension that followed.
"She has approximately six months," he continued, his gaze steady, "before Sabr progresses beyond what her body can sustain."
The silence that followed was dense, pressing outward until it filled every corner of the room. It settled into the spaces between breaths, into the tremor in Halimo's hands, into the shallow rise of her chest.
Ayaanle began to cry again, softer this time, the sound restrained but persistent. Hamdi turned away, his shoulders tightening as if he could hold the moment back through sheer resistance.
Keynaan didn't move. The words had already taken hold. Six months. Twenty-four hours. That was all that mattered now.