Chapter 2
1607 Words
Mrs. Olowokere’s POV
I adjusted my cream-colored blouse for the fifth time that morning, my fingers trembling as they brushed over the high collar I’d chosen specifically to hide the faint bruise blooming like spilled ink just below my jawline. I’ve come to hate mirrors. Not because they lie—but because they remember. They reflect the woman I used to be before all of this... before him.
Adetayo wasn’t always like this. He used to be poetry. Candlelight in a thunderstorm. That man once danced with me barefoot in the middle of Lagos rain, carved my name into a beach tree with a dull house key, and cried the day I chopped my hair short. He wrote me letters even when I lived just five blocks away.
But now? Now, he cries only after he shouts. And sometimes, he hits. Not with fists. No. That would be too obvious. He grabs. He shoves. He leaves bruises in places no one looks—unless you're married to mirrors.
Still, I love him. Maybe that’s my madness. Or my hope. I don’t know anymore.
The staff bus was late again. Of course. I stepped down in front of St. Gideon’s just six minutes after the bell, but six minutes might as well be sixty when you’re already under scrutiny.
“Late again, Ronke,” came the disapproving voice behind me.
Headmaster Bamidele.
His rimmed glasses were thick, his judgment thicker. He’s never liked me. Not since I reported that senior who bullied a girl into cutting her braids.
“You know your file’s under review,” he said. “These patterns are... troubling.”
“I had cramps this morning, sir,” I said. Flat. Practiced.
He raised an eyebrow. “Still? Every Friday?”
“Women age, sir. Cycles stretch.”
He didn’t say another word. Just walked past, muttering under his breath.
I exhaled slowly and gripped the straps of my bag tighter. Inside was my lesson plan, a wrapped egg roll, and pepper spray. Not for the students.
When I entered SS2B, the noise hit me like a wall. TikToks blaring. Girls whispering. Boys throwing erasers and acting like clowns.
Teenagers. So full of chaos and pretending.
They reminded me of glyphs. Raw potential. Dangerous depending on who holds the pen.
I cleared my throat.
“Your first assignment is to draw a symbol that represents truth. Not facts. Truth. Something *real* to *you*. This will be done in pairs. I’ll assign them.”
Zayne was in his usual seat near the window. Hoodie up. Head low. He was a walking ghost, but not the noisy kind that wails. The kind that whispers. The kind that makes you cold just by sitting too close.
He reminded me of someone.
Deji.
Same quiet. Same sadness in the eyes.
That boy haunted this room, even now.
I scanned my list. “Zayne Adeyemi... Amara Obasi.”
There was a pause. Tension stretched across the room like an invisible thread.
She walked to him. Didn’t sit right away. Just stood, unsure. I noted the way he looked at her. Not longing. Something deeper.
Then it happened.
He flinched.
Grabbed his bag.
“Excuse me, ma,” he mumbled. “I’m not feeling fine.”
Before I could speak, he was gone.
I watched the door slowly shut behind him, and I swear, the temperature in the room shifted.
Cold. Heavy.
My eyes moved to his seat. Something fluttered to the floor.
A single sheet of paper.
No one noticed.
I bent and picked it up.
Blank.
Then not.
Ink bled slowly across the page. Not like a drawing. Like something was *being revealed*.
A woman. One hand over her neck. The other reaching into shadow.
My mouth went dry.
She looked like me.
I crumpled the paper and stuffed it into my bag.
This couldn’t be real. Maybe a prank. Maybe some new AI paper thing kids were doing.
Except it wasn’t.
That night, after school, I sat in the bathroom rubbing balm on the bruises.
“It was just a reaction,” Adetayo had said. “You know I didn’t mean it.”
“You scared me.”
“You make me feel like a monster, Ronke.”
“I never said you were.”
He kissed my forehead. Too softly. Like apology made the hurt vanish.
“I love you,” he whispered.
I said it back.
Because I wasn’t ready to stop.
Even if I knew I should.
Later, I sat before the mirror. Brushing my hair.
I reached for my lipstick. Something fluttered out.
A folded paper.
I didn’t put that there.
I opened it.
Blank.
Then the lines came.
A sketch of me.
Crying.
And behind me, a hooded figure.
Holding my house keys.
My hand trembled.
Glyphs. I remembered now. Not just from whispers or student trends.
Deji had once begged me to burn a book. A sketchbook. Said it was dangerous.
I hadn’t listened.
And now....
I looked into the mirror.
And my reflection...
Smiled before I did.
***************************************
Riri’s POV
They think I don’t see them.
They think silence is the same as ignorance. But silence is my archive. My witness box. I’ve spent more time watching people than talking to them, and trust me, you can learn far more from mouths that stay shut.
Most of them see glyphs as a fad. Like airbrushed sneakers or waist beads with coded meanings. Something to trend with. To boast about. To claim as digital bragging rights. #ShadowLove. #MirrorGlyph. #Inkdreams. These hashtags live longer than the caution they should carry.
But I know better.
I’ve seen what glyphs really do.
The harmless ones? Sure. They exist. The Emotionals: glyphs drawn with light feelings—love, hope, longing. These are the ones that hum and flutter in school notebooks, or sketch themselves beside a crush’s name.
But the real ones? The dangerous ones? The ones born from shadows?
They feed.
On pain.
On secrets.
On lies.
They twist themselves into existence and draw back. Like snakes curling around the ankles of your memories. You won’t even know you’ve bled truth until the glyph blinks back at you.
I’ve been tracking them. Quietly. For months now.
It started with Deji.
He wasn’t my friend. Not officially. But we shared silence. And some silences become bonds before words ever catch up. He would sit two tables across from me in the library every Thursday. He borrowed the same books I did: folklore, geometry, mythology. He once left a doodle in the margin of a physics book. A bird, wing-broken but still flying. I copied it into my personal log. Page 27.
Then he vanished.
Everyone said travel. Transfer. Family issues.
But I knew better.
That same week, glyphs started appearing all over school. On lockers. Under desks. Ink that shimmered only under moonlight. Symbols that pulsed when someone told a lie near them.
And then came Zayne.
His face carried the same tired ache Deji wore the week before he disappeared. The kind of expression you only earn by losing something bigger than words.
At first, I thought it was grief.
Now, I know it's guilt.
I've watched Zayne closely. My logbook—I call it The Archive—has an entire section dedicated to him.
Entry 71: Zayne’s hoodie covers his ears. Likely trying to shut the whispers.
Entry 74: Page 3 manifested a new glyph after Amara sat near him. The air around her shimmered slightly. She didn’t notice.
Entry 77: Zayne flinched today when Teni mentioned Deji. Suspect emotional trauma linked to glyph reactivation.
And then there’s Amara.
She used to smile at Zayne. Soft, curious smiles. The kind you give someone who makes your stomach stutter. Then one day... blank.
No smile. No confusion. Just emptiness. Like she didn’t even know his name.
That kind of forgetting isn’t natural.
It’s drawn.
I cross-referenced glyph types until I found it: Glyph 9-Beta. Memory Reversal Glyph. It’s f*******n in traditional ink lore because it doesn’t just erase memories—it replaces them with false ones. Safer ones. But unstable.
Which means...
Zayne erased himself.
From her.
But why?
Why would someone choose to be forgotten by the one person who saw them?
I think it has to do with Deji.
My theory: Deji discovered something. Drew too deep. Shared it with Zayne. When it consumed Deji, Zayne buried it.
And when Amara got too close to the truth, Zayne wiped her.
Protecting her?
Or protecting himself?
I sat alone in the school garden after lunch, notebook open, knees folded beneath my skirt. The world passed noisily around me—basketballs thudding, gossips cackling, Kingsley boasting somewhere in the distance. But I didn’t hear them.
I was sketching something I hadn’t dared sketch before: Zayne’s glyph.
Not the full version. Just the outer markings. Enough to study its structure. The curves. The edge notches. The way it spiraled inward like a scream trying to stay silent.
As I drew, the page hummed.
Then my pencil snapped.
A wind brushed my neck.
I turned.
Nothing.
But the scent of burnt paper lingered.
I reached for my eraser, but the lines wouldn’t vanish.
Ink permanent.
As if the glyph had chosen to stay.
That night, in my hostel room, I reviewed my entries by flashlight. A new one formed slowly under my pen:
Entry 81: Today, I realized the glyphs aren’t just memories.
They are mirrors.
And some mirrors are prisons.
I underlined it twice.
Zayne’s still hiding something.
And I’m going to find out what.
Even if it means drawing something I can never erase.
- Writer
