I woke up choking on air.
Sweat drenched my skin. My chest heaved. My eyes darted across the dark room like prey searching for an exit.
But there was no gun.
No man.
No blood on the floor.
Only the remnants of the dream—and the weight it left behind.
I hadn't had that dream in months. I thought I was done with it. I thought I had buried that part of my life back in Johannesburg, under secrets and silence.
But some stories don't stay buried.
---
In the dream, I was back in Soweto.
In my mother's old kitchen.
The scent of steam bread and factory soap still clinging to the walls.
I was seated at the small table. A cup of Five Roses tea in front of me. My mother humming softly in the background.
It was a memory.
At first.
Until it wasn't.
The hum stopped.
The kettle clicked off.
Then—silence.
Too silent.
I turned, and she was gone.
The lights flickered.
The air grew colder.
And then he was there.
Mlotshwa.
The syndicate boss.
The one who ruled Jeppestown and half the city's veins.
Back when I led Amaqawe—a group of township youth who took justice into our own hands—he was our enemy. The kind of man you don't just expose. You bury. Or else you get buried.
He stood in my mother's kitchen like he belonged there. A pistol in his hand. Calm, like always. Wearing that smug look he always wore before someone disappeared.
"You thought you could hide in the light," he said, raising the gun, "but the dark sees everything."
I couldn't move.
I was paralyzed.
He pressed the barrel to my forehead.
"Your mother's blood is still on your hands," he whispered. "And tonight—so will yours."
He pulled the trigger.
---
I woke before the bullet reached me.
As always.
That's the curse of a ghost: you don't get to die, only to remember.
---
Lying in the dark of my small room in Ezakheni, I wiped my face with the back of my hand. My heart thumped like a war drum beneath my ribs.
Dream or not, I felt his presence again.
The life I left behind in Jozi still followed me like a shadow with a long memory.
Most people in Ladysmith knew me as the quiet guy who played video games, burned impepho, and talked about balance and spirit.
But before the light—there was war.
Before I met Ayanda—there was blood.
Before I came home—there was Amaqawe.
---
We were just a group of angry kids with hearts too big for our environment.
We wore balaclavas and printed leaflets.
We hacked politician emails and posted truth to burner accounts.
We cornered drug dealers and turned them over to cops who didn't want the paperwork.
We lit up corruption like it was a dry matchbook.
And I led them.
Not because I was the toughest.
But because I could see patterns where others saw chaos.
They called me 0007.
My moves never came from muscle. They came from spirit.
And that's why they came for me.
---
After our biggest bust—when we exposed Mlotshwa's distribution route through Hillbrow and shut down his safehouses—things got ugly.
One by one, Amaqawe disappeared.
One "overdosed." Another "hit by a car."
Two just vanished.
The day my mother died, I knew they weren't just hunting the movement.
They were hunting me.
They poisoned her lunchbox.
She worked at a textile factory for over twenty years. A proud woman. Never missed a shift. She packed lunch like scripture. That day, it was meant for me.
I'd overslept. She took the food instead.
She never made it back.
No arrests.
No justice.
Just me and guilt.
That's when I left.
I didn't change my name. I didn't fake my death. I just... disappeared.
Went back to the only place that ever felt like home—Ezakheni.
---
And even here, I can feel it.
The old energy.
Like blood still dried beneath my fingernails.
I meet people who think I'm soft. Who think my spiritual calling just descended on me like mist.
But the truth is—I earned this path. I bled for it.
I didn't ask for the calling.
I survived into it.
---
The dream left my body shaking.
I sat on the floor, lit a candle, and closed my eyes.
Not to run from the nightmare.
To walk through it.
In the flickering silence, I saw her again—my mother.
Young. Beautiful. Eyes bright with something tougher than love.
She stood beside the mountain, arms folded, her voice steady:
"Ungakhohlwa ukuthi ungubani, Nkululeko."
Then, the mountain rose behind her. Towering. Calling. Waiting.
I took a deep breath.
The dream wasn't just memory.
It was a message.
The past had returned not to haunt me—but to prepare me.
Because the dark hadn't forgotten me.
But neither had the light.