Ri◇ni

CHAPTER ONE: THE MAN WITH NO EYES

Zulei had learned, at a very young age, that the world possessed an unusual talent for pressing its thumb against soft places.

At twenty-six, she wore that knowledge the way some people wore perfume—subtle, invisible, but unmistakably present when you leaned close enough. She was light-skinned brown, the kind of brown that caught sunlight and made it hesitate, as though the sun itself wanted to sit on her skin for a while. Her hair, usually braided or pulled into a lazy bun, framed a face that had known too much disappointment for someone still young enough to be accused of dreaming too much.

And she did dream. Oh, she dreamed dangerously.

Which was why, on that Thursday morning, she sat on the edge of her bed holding a dog-eared sketchbook like it was a vital organ—heart, lungs, maybe even soul—while the city of Nairobi stirred impatiently outside her window.

She opened the book.

There he was.

The man with no eyes.

His face was strong, angular, familiar in a way she had never been able to explain without sounding like someone who had once spoken to invisible friends. His hair was dark, his jaw clean, his posture confident. He wore a suit she had drawn from imagination, one hand in his pocket, the other extended slightly forward as though inviting her somewhere she had once been.

But where his eyes should have been, there was nothing.

No sockets. No darkness. Just smooth, unfinished skin.

“You’re still handsome,” Zulei murmured, tracing the pencil lines with her thumb. “Even without seeing me.”

She closed the book quickly, as though embarrassed to be caught whispering to paper, and stood up. Today was supposed to be light. Fun. A baby shower. Laughter. Games. Cake. The gentle chaos of her friends’ lives moving forward while she pretended she wasn’t standing still.

Her phone buzzed.

Sara: If you’re not outside in 10 minutes, I’m coming in to drag you out like a kidnapped princess.

Tony: Correction: kidnapped auntie who refuses to move on.

Zulei smiled despite herself.

—

By the time she stepped outside, sketchbook safely tucked into her tote bag, Sara and Tony were already arguing beside the bus stop like a married couple who had sworn they were “just friends.”

Sara was tall, loud, and unapologetically dramatic. She dressed like every day was an audition and spoke like the world owed her an audience. Her lipstick today was an aggressive red.

Tony, on the other hand, was lean, sarcastic, and permanently unimpressed by life. He wore black almost religiously, claiming color made him look “emotionally available.”

“Finally,” Sara said, clapping once. “Sleeping Beauty awakens.”

“I was awake,” Zulei replied. “I was emotionally preparing myself for your noise.”

Tony leaned in. “She means she was talking to her eyeless boyfriend again.”

Zulei froze.

Sara’s eyes lit up. “WAIT. You brought him?”

Zulei sighed the sigh of someone who had explained this too many times. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Tony snorted. “Sure. Just a faceless, eyeless man you carry around like a cursed artifact.”

“It’s a drawing,” Zulei snapped.

“A drawing,” Sara repeated. “Of a man. With no eyes. Who you once claimed—” she paused dramatically “—you would marry.”

Zulei groaned. “Please don’t do this before breakfast.”

“Oh, I’m absolutely doing this before breakfast,” Sara said. “Tony, tell her.”

Tony straightened. “Zulei, my love, most people dream of celebrities or princes. You dreamed of a man who looks like he escaped an unfinished art class.”

Zulei rolled her eyes. “I was a child.”

“And yet,” Sara added, “you’re still carrying him around like he might finally blink.”

The bus arrived, saving Zulei from responding with violence.

They squeezed inside, finding seats at the back. As the bus lurched forward, Sara leaned closer, lowering her voice.

“Tell it again,” she said. “The dream. The vision.”

“No.”

Tony grinned. “Please. For the baby.”

“There is no baby yet,” Zulei said.

“Exactly. Let’s traumatize it early.”

Zulei stared out the window, watching the city blur into motion. Her reflection stared back faintly, layered over the passing streets. She swallowed.

“I was seven,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t just a dream.”

Sara instantly softened, which annoyed Tony because he’d wanted chaos.

“I was sick,” Zulei continued. “Feverish. My mother had been praying over me all night.”

The bus hit a bump.

“And I fell asleep,” she said, voice slipping backward in time. “I dreamt I was standing in a field that wasn’t green or brown or anything I knew. It was… glowing. Like the air itself was alive.”

Tony opened his mouth, but Sara elbowed him.

“He walked toward me,” Zulei said. “The same man. Older than me. Calm. He held my hands and said, ‘When you are ready, I will find you.’”

Sara whispered, “Chills.”

“I asked him his name,” Zulei said. “He smiled. But I couldn’t see his eyes. I woke up crying, but not afraid. I felt… chosen.”

Tony cleared his throat. “Okay but hear me out—what if he just forgot to download eyes?”

Zulei laughed despite herself.

“When I told my grandmother,” she said, “she said some people meet their destinies early. That not all visions are meant to be understood right away.”

Sara wiped an imaginary tear. “That’s actually beautiful.”

Tony shrugged. “Still creepy.”

They laughed as the bus slowed near the park.

—

The baby shower was already alive when they arrived.

Music floated through the trees. Bright fabrics danced in the breeze. Laughter spilled like bubbles. The park had been transformed into a small universe of joy—balloons in pastel colors, picnic blankets, gift tables piled with tiny socks and stuffed animals.

Zulei’s friends swarmed her.

Aisha, glowing and seven months pregnant, pulled her into a hug. “You came!”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Zulei said.

There was Kevin, always joking. Miriam, the quiet observer. Lolo, dramatic and spiritual. Children ran between legs. Food steamed. Someone started dancing without music.

Zulei laughed more than she had in weeks.

Games were played. Secrets were revealed. Tony lost a diaper-changing contest spectacularly. Sara flirted with three strangers and insulted two.

Zulei felt light.

Free.

She didn’t notice when the tote bag slipped from her shoulder on the bus ride earlier.

She didn’t realize the sketchbook was gone.

Not yet.

—

By the time the sun dipped low and the party began to thin, Zulei felt something tighten in her chest.

She reached into her bag.

Nothing.

Her fingers searched again.

Nothing.

Her smile faltered.

“Tony,” she said slowly. “I think I lost my book.”

Tony blinked. “The cursed one?”

“Yes.”

Sara frowned. “Where?”

“The bus.”

There was a pause.

Tony shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to let him go.”

Zulei swallowed. “Maybe it wasn’t.”

As the last guests hugged goodbye and dusk painted the park gold, a voice cut through the air.

“Excuse me, Miss,” the man said. “I am looking for Zulei…”

She turned.

And her breath disappeared.

......................................................................

Zulei was six years old the year she learned that birthdays could bruise.

She remembered it not as a clean sequence of events, but as fragments stitched together by feeling: the smell of sugar and dust, the sound of laughter that wasn’t meant to include her, the way her small hands kept twisting the hem of her yellow dress as though they were trying to disappear into it.

The dress had been her favorite. Her mother had ironed it carefully that morning, humming an old tune, pressing love into every crease. It had tiny white flowers printed across the fabric, and Zulei had believed—truly believed—that wearing it would make the day gentle. That it would make people kind.

She was wrong.

The party was held in the courtyard of their building, a modest square of cracked cement softened by a single mango tree that leaned as though tired of holding itself upright. Plastic chairs were arranged in a loose circle. A radio sat on a window ledge, playing children’s songs that kept skipping whenever someone walked too hard past it.

Zulei sat on a small stool near the cake table, her feet dangling above the ground. The cake was pink and white, with uneven writing that read Happy 6th Birthday Zulei. The letters leaned into each other like they were shy. She liked that about them.

Her best friend Tuti arrived late.

Tuti always arrived late.

She came in with confidence too big for her small body, braids swinging, eyes bright with the certainty of someone who already knew how the world worked. She wore a blue dress with sparkles and shoes that clicked loudly against the cement, announcing her presence.

“Zulei!” Tuti called, stretching the name. “You didn’t wait for me to cut the cake, did you?”

Zulei shook her head quickly. “No. I was waiting.”

Tuti smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

There was a boy at the party.

His name was Sami.

He lived two floors above Zulei and had a gap between his teeth that made him look like he was always about to laugh. Zulei had liked him quietly, privately, the way children like things they don’t yet know how to name. She liked how he shared his snacks. How he once helped her pick up spilled crayons without teasing her.

She had told Tuti.

That was her first mistake.

As the children ran around the courtyard, chasing each other and shouting, Zulei watched from her stool. Sami stood near the mango tree, holding a balloon. Tuti walked over to him, said something Zulei couldn’t hear, and laughed.

Then she did something that changed the shape of the day.

Tuti took Sami’s hand.

She didn’t just take it—she lifted it up for everyone to see, like a prize.

“This is my boyfriend,” Tuti announced loudly. “He said he likes me. Not you.”

There was a pause. Then giggles. Then laughter that felt sharp and too big for the small space.

Zulei felt heat rush to her face.

“That’s not true,” she whispered, but her voice was swallowed by the noise.

Tuti turned to her, eyes glittering. “You know what, Zulei?” she said, loud enough for everyone. “You will never be in love. Nobody will ever love you like that.”

The words landed.

They stayed.

Zulei didn’t cry right away. She felt something quieter, heavier. Like a door closing somewhere deep inside her chest.

Her mother noticed. Of course she did.

She knelt in front of Zulei, brushing her cheek gently. “What’s wrong, my moon?”

Zulei shook her head. If she spoke, the tears would come. And she didn’t want them to fall in front of everyone. Not on her birthday.

That night, after the guests left and the cake sat half-eaten on the table, Zulei lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The moonlight spilled through the window, full and bright, painting silver shapes across the wall.

She couldn’t sleep.

The words echoed again and again.

You will never be in love.

The moon seemed to listen.

At some point, exhaustion pulled her under.

And she dreamt.

She was flying.