Chapter 15- The night that wouldn’t settle
781 Words
The ride home should have calmed her.
The streetlights passed like slow breaths, Lagos humming its tired evening song, Tasha murmuring half-formed jokes beside her.
But Amara felt none of it.
Her pulse hadn’t slowed since the office.
Her thoughts were stitched too tightly together, looping around one single truth:
The past wasn’t repeating.
It was evolving.
And whatever hunted her the first time…
was more prepared in this life.
The car pulled into her street, headlights washing over the familiar rust-coloured gates of her compound. Tasha squeezed her hand before stepping out.
“Message me when you settle. And drink warm tea. Trauma burns calories,” she said dramatically.
Amara smiled weakly. “Thank you.”
Tasha jogged off, humming loudly to shake off her own fear.
Amara walked into the compound. The night air was cold, the kind that carried secrets. A dog barked somewhere far away, a generator coughed to life, and something about the silence felt heavier than usual.
She unlocked her door and stepped inside.
The apartment was quiet almost too quiet.
She dropped her bag on the sofa and leaned against the wall, exhaling shakily. Her hands were still trembling. She hated that. She hated feeling chased by ghosts she couldn’t yet see.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
And that’s when she felt it.
Something was off.
A shift.
A lightness in the room that didn’t belong to her.
Her eyes snapped open.
The small notebook she kept on the center table her new rulebook was not where she left it.
She approached slowly.
It was open.
Wide open.
On a completely different page.
Her breath faltered.
She hadn’t touched it since morning.
She hadn’t opened it in the living room at all.
It was meant to stay folded in her workbag.
Her chest tightened painfully.
Someone touched her things.
Or she was losing her mind.
Neither option comforted her.
She reached for the book with shaky fingers and flipped it back to the first rule.
Rule one: No attachment.
A breath broke from her chest.
She remembered how she wrote that rule with so much resolve. Now it felt fragile. Unreal. Like fate had laughed at her.
Her phone buzzed.
She jumped.
A message.
From an unknown number.
She hesitated before unlocking the screen.
UNKNOWN:
You’re repeating the same mistakes, Amara.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
No.
No.
No.
Her eyes blurred for a moment as the screen dimmed under her trembling fingers.
Another message.
UNKNOWN:
You survived once. You won’t survive again if you’re careless.
A cold rush swept through her body.
She backed away from the table, from the phone, from the room, until her spine hit the wall.
Her throat tightened. She felt the tremor of tears she refused to release.
No crying.
Not now.
Not again.
Her phone buzzed a third time.
This one made her vision darken at the edges.
UNKNOWN:
Stay away from him if you want to live longer this time.
Every muscle in her body froze.
Her breath caught in her chest trapped, suffocating.
This time.
This time.
Someone knew.
Someone remembered.
Someone was watching.
She stared at the glowing screen in horror.
Last message came in.
UNKNOWN:
Round two has begun.
Her knees nearly gave out.
She snapped the curtains shut, turned off all lights except one, locked her front door twice, and sat on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest.
Her breaths were sharp, uneven, shallow.
Her phone buzzed again.
She flinched violently.
This time it was Tasha.
Reached home? Should I video call you?
Amara typed back quickly.
Amara:
Home. I’m fine. Just tired.
A lie she couldn’t afford to unpack.
After a long silence, she forced herself off the floor. She walked into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face.
When she looked into the mirror, her reflection stared back with wide, frightened eyes she didn’t recognize. She touched her cheek, grounding herself.
“I won’t die again,” she whispered, voice breaking.
“I won’t.”
Her hands were still shaking when she walked back to the living room. She grabbed her notebook and tucked it deep inside her wardrobe this time.
Then she sat on her bed, back pressed to the wall, phone in hand, light still on.
She didn’t sleep.
She couldn’t.
She waited.
Waited for the morning.
Waited for her racing heartbeat to calm.
Waited for the world to make sense again.
But one truth followed her into the dawn:
Someone was rewriting the story with her.
Not repeating it.
Not imitating it.
Rewriting it.
And they weren’t ten steps ahead.
They were already inside her life.
Already watching.
Already playing.
- Writer
