The semester break was still running. Three months of nothing. No lectures, no exams, no deadlines. Just time.
David sat at his desk, the window open, the afternoon heat drifting in. A normal sketchbook was open in front of him. Pencil in his hand. The green pen was in his bag, untouched.
No Faith. No pages. No activation.
Just paper.
He drew CJ first.
Not burning. Not screaming. Just CJ — the afro, freshly picked. The corporate swag, button-down with the sleeves rolled. The silver necklace David had bought him. The laugh that used the word "bro" as punctuation.
David's hand moved. It knew the lines. The curve of CJ's jaw. The spacing of his smile. The way he tilted his head when he was about to say something stupid.
He held his pencil looser. Softer. He wasn't chasing perfection.
He was remembering.
The sketch filled the page and CJ wasn't ash anymore. He was just CJ. Sitting across from David in the engineering math hall. Arguing about Barcelona and Real Madrid. Complaining about the heat.
"Bro, something's different about you."
"I got a haircut."
"No. It's not the haircut."
David's eyes stung. He blinked. Kept drawing.
---
He drew Jane second.
Not Page 3's Jane. Not the Jane he was preserving in his Storyboard, keeping safe in green ink. A different Jane.
The UTME Jane.
Her white-tipped hair had been shorter then. Her smile had been nervous — she was cheating, after all, on an exam that would decide her future. She'd leaned over and clicked answers for a sick stranger.
"I'm in life science. But how hard can physical."
David drew her eyes. They'd been sharper then. Less guarded. She hadn't learned yet that he was someone who left.
He drew her hand on the mouse. Her side profile. The concentration on her face.
This was the Jane who existed before he knew her name.
She was gone now. Most of her, anyway. But she'd been real.
---
He drew his father third.
Not from life. He hadn't seen his father in years. His father was a voice on a phone and a photo on the fridge and a name on a tuition payment receipt. That was all.
But David drew him anyway.
From imagination.
What his father looked like when no one was watching. What his father looked like after a long shift somewhere in North Carolina, scrolling through David's student portal, seeing grades that weren't quite enough and would never be quite enough.
Tired. Not angry. Just tired.
His father had never hit him. Had never yelled. Had just... sighed. And that was somehow worse.
David drew the sigh. In the slope of his shoulders. In the way his head bowed. In the line of his mouth — not frowning, not smiling. Just waiting. For something that never came.
He didn't show anyone these drawings.
He didn't use them.
He just made them.
---
The phone rang.
David looked at the screen.
Dad.
Not Mom. Not CJ's name showing up for the thousandth time in a dream.
His father. Calling. Unprompted. For the first time in months.
David stared at the phone.
The ringtone was the same. The same default chime from the same phone he'd had since 200 level. He should change it. He never did.
He answered.
"Hello, Good morning sir."
"David." His father's voice was the same. Low. Measured. The accent he'd never lost, even after years abroad. "How are you?"
"I'm good."
"Your mother says you've been home."
"Semester break."
"Yes. She told me."
A pause. The kind of pause that used to stretch across continents and time zones and the thousands of naira it cost to fill it with words.
"I saw the news. About the fires at the university."
David's hand tightened on the phone.
"I'm fine."
"I'm glad you're safe."
His father said it quickly. Like if he said it too slow, the words would catch in his throat. And David heard it — the thing beneath the thing. The twenty years of a man who didn't know how to say I love you without dressing it as something else. As concern. As news. As I'm glad you're safe.
"Thanks, Dad."
"Your mother says you've made new friends. At work."
"Yeah. They're good people."
"Good."
Another pause.
"I should go. My shift starts soon."
"Okay."
"Take care of yourself, David."
"You too, sir."
The line went dead.
David sat there, the phone in his hand, the sketches still on the desk. CJ. Jane. His father's tired shoulders.
Something had shifted. Not a lot. Just a little.
His father was worried about him. Had always been worried. Had just never known how to say it out loud.
David put the phone down.
He went back to drawing.
---
He opened Shadow of the Sun.
Chapter Eighteen. Unfinished, like the last three chapters before it. The girl with dark hair stood over her father's body, her hands stained with blood she didn't spill but couldn't prevent.
Three people had bought it. Three strangers, somewhere, were reading his words. He didn't know their names. He'd never meet them.
But they were reading.
David had written that scene before he understood it.
He understood it now.
He picked up his pencil.
He kept writing.
The words came slowly at first, then faster. The girl's name was Anya. He'd never named her before. Now she had a name. She was running — not away, toward. The hunter was beside her. His name was Xavier. He'd been following orders his whole life, but now he'd made a choice.
"If we don't stop running," she said, "when will we ever get there?"
"There isn't a there," he said. "There's just... more running."
"Then let's run toward something."
David wrote the last panel description. Anya and Xavier, silhouettes against a rising sun. Not the sun of the cover, the one he'd drawn in Chapter 1. A new sun. A different one.
They didn't know what they were running toward. But they'd stopped running away.
He closed the sketchbook.
The room was quiet. The afternoon heat had softened. Somewhere downstairs, his mother was folding clothes in the laundry room, humming a gospel song, the washing machine beeping every few minutes.
David stood. Stretched. Walked to the door.
He didn't look back at the drawings.
He'd see them later.
---
Downstairs
His mother looked up when he entered the laundry room.
"You've been quiet up there."
"Drawing."
"Not the scary ones?"
David almost smiled. "No. Not the scary ones."
She handed him a stack of newly washed children's clothes, small and bright.
"Fold."
He folded.
The washing machine beeped. The gospel song hummed. The afternoon sun slanted through the window.
Somewhere, a Phobia was probably hungry. Somewhere, the Lord was planning something. Ruth and Rachel were being tracked. Ezra was preparing.
But right now, David was just a son, folding clothes in his home, not thinking about any of it.
He'd think later.
For now, he folded.