The darkness pressed in on him like a living thing.
It was not the comforting kind of night, the one that slipped over the world like a soft blanket. This darkness was thick, oppressive, so heavy it seemed to have weight. Dave struggled to breathe, his chest rising in shallow bursts, each inhale scraping like sandpaper through his throat. His arms and legs refused to move, pinned by an unseen force.
Yet his mind was wide awake.
Panic flared, racing through his veins. His thoughts collided with each other, desperate for a solution, but there was none. He couldn't even scream. His mouth opened, but the sound dissolved before it reached the air, swallowed whole by the void.
Then came the whisper.
It slithered through the silence, curling around his ears in a language he didn't know but somehow understood. The syllables were jagged yet smooth, foreign yet intimate, like an old memory half-buried in sand.
Like something he is certain he can remember if given enough time but still recall eluded him.
"Erim Afoo."
The words burned into his skull. He gasped or tried to, but the sound never came. The phrase echoed inside him, reverberating through marrow and blood, making his skin crawl as if his very bones were vibrating.
From the void, a pair of eyes appeared.
They glowed faintly at first, like embers under ash, then blazed into sharp, merciless light. Ancient eyes. Eyes that had watched kingdoms rise and crumble. Dave's own gaze locked onto them, and the rest of the world ceased to exist.
A figure stepped forward.
Tall. Regal. Dressed in cloth that shimmered like starlight woven with earth, its colors shifting and bending in the darkness. His presence was a weight all its own, bending the air, making it hard for Dave to breathe.
"Wh-who… are you?" Dave's lips trembled, the question escaping as nothing more than a hoarse whisper.
The man's voice thundered like a storm rolling over a graveyard.
"I am Igwe-ka-Ala."
The name itself seemed alive, vibrating through the air, pressing down on Dave's chest.
"And you," the figure continued, eyes narrowing as if in disappointment, "are late."
Dave's heart lurched. "Late? For what?" But his voice cracked, breaking into silence.
The ground beneath him shuddered violently. Jagged fissures split open at his feet, glowing with molten fire. From the depths rose a thousand voices, screaming in agony, wailing like a chorus of lost souls.
"No, no, no—" Dave staggered, but the cracked ground crumbled beneath him. Shadowy hands shot up, clawing at his legs, their touch like ice and fire at once.
He fell-
-and snapped awake.
Dave jolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat. His sheets clung to him, twisted and damp, and his chest heaved like he had run a marathon. The digital clock beside him glared back: 3:00 a.m.
He pressed his palms against his face. "Just a dream… just a dream," he whispered to himself, forcing the words into the room like a fragile shield. But the phrase still echoed in his mind, heavy as chains.
Erim Afoo.
He had never heard it before, yet it clung to him with an unsettling familiarity. Like it belonged to him.
---
Morning came too quickly.
The alarm buzzed, dragging him out of an uneasy half-sleep. His eyes were bloodshot, his head throbbing. Still, he went through the motions: a quick shower, dry toast, pulling on his uniform. Everything felt muffled, as though the world around him were wrapped in cotton.
The nightmare replayed in fragments - eyes glowing in the dark, that name, the crack in the earth. His stomach twisted with unease.
By the time he reached school, he could barely focus. His friends were laughing about something at the gate, but Dave barely managed a nod in greeting. The voices around him blended into a dull hum.
In class, the teacher droned on, chalk squeaking against the board, but none of it stuck. His pen hovered over his notebook, the ink forming nothing but scribbles and half-written words.
A sharp jab in his ribs pulled him back.
"Bro, you look like you've seen a ghost," his best friend muttered, raising an eyebrow.
Dave forced a chuckle, gripping his pen too tightly. "Something like that."
The lie sat heavy on his tongue.
The day dragged, each hour pulling him further into exhaustion. By the time the final bell rang, he felt like he had been awake for weeks. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something or someone was watching him.
On his way home, a cold wind brushed his neck though the street was crowded and the sun still clung to the sky. He spun around, scanning faces, but no one paid him any attention.
Get a grip, Dave, he told himself. It was just a dream.
Yet when night finally came, dread pooled in his stomach.
He fought to stay awake, pacing his room, scrolling endlessly through his phone, even blasting music through his headphones. But his eyelids grew heavier, dragging him down inch by inch. His body demanded rest.
At last, exhaustion won.
Darkness.
When he opened his eyes, he was standing not lying in bed, not half-dreaming, but standing on solid ground. Only it wasn't his room.
He stood before a crumbling hut at the edge of a vast, starless plain. The ground stretched endlessly, black and cracked, as if the world itself had burned and died long ago. The air was cold, so cold it clawed at his skin, yet sweat trickled down his back.
The hut looked ancient, its roof sagging, its walls barely upright. Smoke curled lazily from the doorway, dark and thick, though there was no firelight. The smell of ash and something metallic hung in the air.
A shadow shifted inside.
Dave's pulse pounded in his ears. His legs trembled, but still, he stepped forward. Each step crunched against the brittle soil, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence.
From within the hut, the same voice rumbled, deep and resonant, like the echo of an earthquake.
"Welcome back, child of two worlds."