Chapter 5
1691 Words
Neutral POV
Amara ran.
Down the east stairwell. Across the empty quad. Behind the music block.
No one followed.
Good.
She didn’t stop until she reached the back wall where seniors hid for smoke breaks and crying spells. Her chest heaved. Her hands trembled. The paper bag she brought for Zayne was gone—left behind like her dignity.
She sank to the ground, curling her knees to her chest, and buried her face in her palms.
Why did she go there? What was she expecting?
A thank you?
Forgiveness?
Did she think just showing up would make things right?
She could still see them—Zayne and Riri—laughing in the soft light of the sickbay like they belonged there. Like she had never existed.
The tears came hard this time.
She didn’t even understand why it hurt this much.
Was it jealousy?
Regret?
Shame?
She remembered how Zayne had looked at her—bruised, b****y… betrayed. She remembered how Riri had thrown herself into the fight, shouting for him, shielding him, while she… just watched.
Her stomach twisted.
“I froze,” she whispered. “That’s all. I froze.”
Footsteps crunched gravel behind her.
“Amara?”
She didn’t need to turn.
That voice had been beside her in every group project since year ten.
Riri.
Amara quickly wiped her face. “What do you want?”
“I just—” Riri paused. “I wanted to check if you were okay.”
Amara laughed bitterly. “You already checked on Zayne. You’re doing the rounds?”
Riri didn’t answer.
Amara stood, brushing herself off. “You didn’t have to follow me.”
“You left crying.”
“Well now I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Don’t tell me what I am!” Amara snapped.
Riri took a careful step closer. “I’m not trying to fight.”
“Oh? That’d be new for you, wouldn’t it? Since you’re so good at stepping in where others don’t belong.”
Riri blinked. “Amara—”
“Don’t ‘Amara’ me,” she snapped. “You think you’re so noble, running in like a hero. You think just because you read books and carry your sketchpad like a sword, that you understand him.”
“I never said that.”
“But you act like you do. Sitting next to him like you’ve always been there. Laughing with him like he’s yours.”
Riri’s face stiffened. “You had your chance.”
Amara’s throat closed.
Riri’s tone was calm but razor-sharp. “You were there. You saw what they were doing to him. And you did nothing.”
“I—I was scared.”
“So was I.”
The silence hit hard. Thicker than any punch Jide had thrown.
Riri looked down. “I didn’t help him because I’m brave. I helped him because no one else did. Not even the girl he erased himself for.”
Amara flinched.
“I don’t want to replace you,” Riri added. “But if being there makes you uncomfortable, maybe ask yourself why you weren’t.”
She turned to leave.
Amara stood frozen. Her voice, a whisper, almost childlike: “Did he… tell you?”
Riri didn’t look back. “No. He didn’t have to.”
And then she was gone.
Amara fell back onto the wall, sliding down with trembling legs. Her chest heaved with sobs she didn’t have words for.
Not because Riri was right.
But because she’d known it long before Riri said it.
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ZAYNE'S POV
The ceiling tiles of the sick bay looked like they were falling apart. Off-white squares with water stains that resembled animals if you stared long enough. I’d spent the last twenty minutes tracing a giraffe, a turtle, then a bear in the upper corner. Anything to distract from the steady throb in my ribs. Every breath still stung, and the bruises felt deeper than skin—like they had managed to c***k something in me that wasn’t physical.
I reached for my sketchbook. Not because I had any new ideas, not because I wanted to draw, but because it felt familiar—like a comfort object a kid refuses to let go of. I turned to the first blank page I saw and stared. My hand hovered over it for a long while. Nothing came to me. Just static thoughts, noise in my head.
Then… something different stirred. A sensation I couldn’t describe—like heat forming beneath my skin, curling around my fingers. My palm twitched slightly. I didn’t think; I just moved.
The pen brushed the page in slow, deliberate strokes.
One line.
Then another.
And another.
No shaking hands. No uncertainty. I wasn’t thinking of what I was drawing; I was just... drawing.
A swirl. An eye. Three intersecting curves. A slant that looked like a frown. My fingers moved as if remembering something ancient, like a language they’d always known but had forgotten.
The lines glowed faintly as I pulled back. A soft purple light shimmered, then dimmed, almost like the page sighed. It was still there—no longer just ink. It felt alive. Almost sentient.
That’s when it happened.
My sketchbook… it twitched.
I swear on everything, the paper rippled like water. A pulse ran down the spine. Then right in the center of the page, just below the glyph, new ink began forming on its own.
Letters emerged, curling into unfamiliar symbols first, then shifting into words I could understand.
****************************************
>> Initiation Complete.
>> First Intentional Glyph Drawn.
>> Personality Alignment: Undetermined. Observing.
>> Quest Scroll Unlocked.
********************************************
My breath caught. I blinked, hard. Was I losing my mind?
The words disappeared, and then a new page slid itself into view, like the sketchbook was turning on its own. And there it was—my first quest.
****************************************
Quest Title: “The Shadow You Left Behind”
Category: Emotional Recall
Objective: Find the missing memory between you and the one you erased.
Subtask: Locate the torn page hidden before the erasure.
Note: Not all memories want to be found. Some bite.
Reward: Glyph Stability Increase, Partial Memory Sync
****************************************
The pen dropped from my hand, rolling to the side of the bed. I stared, barely breathing.
This… this was real. I hadn’t just imagined the glyphs, the trends, the sketchbook’s sentience. This was no trend or t****k prank. It was a world beneath the surface of everything I knew.
“Whoa,” a voice whispered.
I looked up.
Riri stood in the doorway, lips parted, eyebrows raised so high they nearly vanished under her bangs. She looked different out of uniform—more human. A hoodie too big for her frame, glasses perched slightly crooked on her nose, and those ever-curious eyes wide with something between awe and suspicion.
“I knew it,” she whispered again, stepping in, her eyes never leaving the sketchbook. “I freaking knew it.”
I blinked at her. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to watch you draw that. And for the book to write back.”
I opened my mouth to speak but had nothing. Nothing that made sense. So I just nodded slowly.
She sat down in the chair beside me like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her eyes flicked from the sketch to me and back again. “So... you’re one of us.”
“One of who?”
“The Society,” she said like it was a sacred word. “The Whispering Ink.”
I looked at her like she’d just told me we were in a Marvel movie.
“Riri,” I muttered, “you know how insane that sounds, right?”
She grinned. “Oh, absolutely. Completely mental. But real.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small notebook—leather-bound, worn from use. “You think I was just collecting glyphs for fun? I’ve been researching this for over a year. Ever since Deji disappeared.”
That name. That name again.
“I don’t know why,” she continued, her tone softer now, “but I’ve had a hunch about you. The way you draw. The way your aura feels… heavy. Like your glyphs aren’t just art—they carry memory. Pain. Guilt.”
I looked away.
“It’s not just the drawing,” I whispered. “It’s what I did with it.”
She waited.
I sighed. “I erased Amara’s memory of me. A while ago. She used to know me. Trust me. But... things got dangerous. And I thought wiping the slate clean was better than dragging her into this mess.”
Riri sat back. “That’s... a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“But it explains the quest,” she said, tapping the book. “Shadow You Left Behind. That’s literal.”
“Yeah.”
She leaned forward. “Listen, Zayne. You’re not alone in this. You don’t have to figure it all out by yourself. That’s why the Society exists. To protect people like us. To train us before we drown in our own ink.”
I looked at her—really looked at her. Riri, the nerdy, glyph-obsessed girl people barely noticed. The girl who stood up for me when no one else did.
“You’re part of this Society?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’ve only been to one meeting. But they’re real. And they’re meeting again tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. And I want you to come with me.”
I hesitated.
“You don’t have to talk,” she added quickly. “Just observe. See for yourself. You’ve already triggered your sketchbook. You’re in this, whether you like it or not.”
I looked down at the glyph. At the pulsing ink.
Then back up at her.
“Alright,” I said quietly. “I’ll come.”
And for the first time in a long while, I felt like maybe—just maybe—I didn’t have to be afraid of what I was becoming.
- Writer
