"I am not the reality you know. I am the myth from your imagination. I am the shadow that never loses your sight. I am death. I am the destroyer."
The words did not travel from a throat. They unzipped the air itself and spilled into the courtyard like oil. Children ran and teachers shouted and the bell hammered time into the day, but only Zaid heard it as a clean thing, a command carved into the bones of the school. He stood still, a small statue under a vast, indolent sun, while the world around him moved as if through a thick glass.
His mind was a quicksilver of possibilities. The scarred girl — what had happened to her? Had the thing done it? That voice — where did it come from? Why did motion feel wrong, locked, like a clock with its mainspring removed? No, not slow — nothing moved at all. A chill spread up his spine, the kind of cold that carries memory. The school smelled different, like copper and wet paper.
The voice spoke again, low and amused as a blade being run along a whetstone. "You messed with things you didn't understand, you little brat. I don't know what I see in you. I think you are just another puppet disguised as a human."
Zaid inhaled. His reply was a small smooth shape of a boy's steady courage. "Show yourself," he said calmly.
There was a sound like cracked silk. "You will see me. And when you do, I assure you you will be begging for death. And maybe I will show you some mercy."
Zaid's jaw set. He drew in the narrow, pale air and asked, the kind of question that needs no bravado, "Did you do this to her?"
The thing laughed — a rasp that rearranged the dust. "And what if I did? What can you do? You are useless. A good-for-nothing. This is my realm. I am the god here."
For a moment something in Zaid changed. It was not a shout nor was it some contrived performance; it was a sound shaped from somewhere else in him — older than his years, deeper than the language he knew. The syllables came from a place that had no map. He spoke words he had never learned, and the cadence of them carried a weight that made the tiles beneath his feet hum.
The world answered.
A breeze that had no direction buckled like a sail. A fine dust fell off the eaves as if the school itself were shedding skin. The air went tense and taut; the very edges of sound grew thin. Zaid felt the roof above him flex as if someone pressed a giant palm into the city's forehead. The thing's voice cracked, a sound like granite splitting.
"Impossible!" it cried. "How can a child possess something like that? What are you—are you—"
Before it could finish, the voice snapped shut. The tautness unraveled. The school returned to its ordinary hum as if a switch had been flipped. Children were still in motion; a teacher called names. The scarred girl sat again on the low wall, pencil between her fingers, drawing with the automatic patience of someone who keeps the world in lines.
Zaid blinked. He did not remember the words he had spoken. The memory of them slid away like oil through fingers. He felt only the echo of power and a quick, disorienting vertigo, as though he'd climbed a stair with a missing step.
He knelt beside the girl as if some small courtesy could anchor the day. "Who's that?" he asked, pointing to the paper.
Her hand stopped. On the page was a charcoal man — heavy-browed, flat-shouldered. The lines were not like the sharp, dark thing he'd seen in the roof's whisper. This figure was domestic, ordinary, and enormous in the space the girl had given him.
"My father," she said simply.
"Where is he?" Zaid asked.
"Somewhere. I don't know for sure."
"Is he dead?"
The girl made direct contact then — a small, careful look that held more than she said. "I don't know. He left when I was a baby."
"Do you know how he looks?"
"Not exactly. That's how he looks in the pictures."
Zaid asked the other question that did not belong to him yet. "How did you get those wounds?"
Her fingers curled. Fear shrank her. She kept her answer between her teeth, as if speech might pull the wound open again. Zaid did not push. He had learned that some things snapped under pressure.
"It's okay," he offered softly. "You can tell me. Maybe I can help."
She only whispered, "My mom," and then stilled, as if the name itself might call something back.
Zaid shifted the conversation away from the wound. He asked about art and color, about small fierce things a child might want: where she liked to sit, what she dreamed in the less terrifying parts of the day. The girl's answers were thin and then fuller: a fragile list of comforts that might be gathered like shells. When the bell sounded for the end of break he risked the one human offer that felt like a bridge.
"Do you want to go home with us?" he asked. "We go the same way. You don't have to go alone."
She hesitated, then took the hand extended by friendship that required nothing more than company. Irsa and Saeed, who had been hesitantly encouraging from the edge, nudged her until she smiled. The ride home in the rickshaw was small magic: sunlight, the hop of traffic, the ordinary smells of street food and petrol. For once she laughed — a small, surprised sound — and Zaid felt a stitch close in his chest like a tiny victory.
When they reached her stop, she stepped out and turned, eyes bright in a way Zaid had not yet seen. "Thank you, Zaid. I never thought life could be this fun."
"You've seen nothing yet," Zaid said, and meant it. "We'll meet tomorrow."
He watched her disappear down a lane, watched the shape of her shoulders move away. A small whisper through him said something was wrong: a blank where some detail should have lived. He let the feeling pass — perhaps it was only the city's ordinary forgetfulness.
At home, the house was mysteriously empty. Plates on the table, a kettle gone cold; no one in the courtyard. They climbed the stairs and changed. Irsa prepared snacks and laughter made their little room warm. Then a subtle sound: the cupboard downstairs shifted, or a cupboard door closed with the sluggish finality of something settling. Saeed's face lost color; Irsa's fingers went cold as she held the tray.
"Maybe a cat," Zaid said lightly, though his voice held less conviction than he wanted. "I'll go check. You two stay and lock the room."
"No," Irsa said, more firmly than Zaid expected. "We all should stay and lock the room."
"Trust your little brother," he told them, the old, practiced reassurance. He stood and started down. Irsa moved to lock the door behind him with an anxious, practical motion like closing the mouth of a well.
The tiles felt colder with every step. The light downstairs had a wrong color, as if the bulbs had been dipped in river water. The corridor seemed longer than it should be. Zaid stopped near the bottom of the stairs and looked — and his eyes widened the way someone's eyes widen when a mirror shows a face that is not their own.
A little voice came out of his mouth, thin and more question than sound: "who"
The house held its breath with him.