CHAPTER TEN: THE MOONSTONE'S ABSURD BALANCE
The Moonstone pulsed against Sophia's chest like it was alive—and, in some very small and terrifying way, it probably was. She lay sprawled across the polished tile floor of her room, staring at the ceiling and thinking about how the ceiling had absolutely nothing to do with the Moonstone, yet somehow seemed involved in her imminent doom.
Emma sat across the city, cross-legged on her mattress, staring at her arms, now streaked with faint, residual light. "I don't even know what I did wrong this time," she muttered. "I just thought… I thought about you… and now there's glowing again. It's like being cursed for thinking, which—actually—is exactly what it is."
The Moonstone had expanded its ledger so much that Sophia suspected it was keeping tabs on every minor human error in Lagos. Someone spilling jollof rice on the floor? The ledger recorded it. A motorbike honking too loudly? The ledger recorded it. Sophia's trembling? Definitely recorded. Emma's faint sigh while staring at a ceiling fan? Absolutely recorded, with a note in invisible cosmic ink: "Needs more terror."
The absurdity of it made Sophia want to laugh. She didn't. Instead, she shivered.
The first sign that the Moonstone itself had developed a sense of dark humor came during breakfast. Iya Morẹnikẹ placed a steaming cup of tea in front of Sophia. The cup rattled in her hand. The Moonstone pulsed. Sophia spilled the tea. Hot liquid ran across the table.
A soft, almost imperceptible giggle seemed to echo through the room. Sophia blinked. Iya Morẹnikẹ raised an eyebrow. "It is… amused," she said, voice flat but tinged with dry humor. "Or it is displeased. Sometimes it is hard to tell."
Sophia stared at the Moonstone. The stone pulsed once, rhythmically, deliberately, like it was laughing at her inability to pour tea without catastrophe. Emma, across the city, felt a pulse of warmth and a blinding flash of white light. She shrieked in tandem with Sophia's own minor scream and spilled her water. The ledger recorded it. And somewhere in the cosmic bureaucracy of Alájọbí, a note was filed: "Humans remain absurd. Punish accordingly."
The absurdity escalated quickly.
During one attempt at a controlled meeting between Sophia, Emma, and Afolabi, the Moonstone decided to test their ability to maintain composure under pressure. A gust of wind blew through the Balogun house, flinging papers into the air. A shadow stretched along the floor and formed the vague silhouette of a chicken. A low, cackling sound filled the room.
Sophia froze. Emma screamed. Afolabi ducked instinctively. The Moonstone pulsed. The ledger logged: "Humans panic at poultry shadows. Correct behavior: 0/10. Punishment: ongoing."
And then the chicken silhouette disappeared, leaving them staring at each other, absurdly disheveled, covered in scattered papers, soaked by spilled tea and water.
"I swear," Sophia muttered, voice tight with disbelief, "I am not making this up."
Emma's reply was a strangled laugh. "Neither am I. I… I just… it's a chicken. I think it's… a chicken."
The Moonstone flared faintly, almost approvingly, as if saying, Yes. Panic correctly. Remember this feeling. It will be necessary later.
Even survival became tragically humorous.
The next ledger test involved, as Afolabi explained, "the redistribution of suffering." Essentially, the Moonstone had decided it was insufficient for them to experience terror individually. Now, minor inconveniences would multiply: a stubbed toe here, a spilled spice there, a slightly burnt piece of plantain, all cataloged as ledger entries. Pain was now simultaneously significant and absurd.
Sophia tripped over a rug, groaning. Emma's arm flared with white light, as if the Moonstone was saying: Your stumble is my problem too. Emma banged her head lightly on the wall in frustration, which sent Sophia's hands tingling with phantom pain.
Afolabi shook his head. "The Moonstone… is treating everyday life like it's a series of punishable infractions. It seems bored. Or theatrical. Perhaps both."
Love remained deadly. Desire remained a ledger offense. Fear remained the currency of existence.
Sophia tried, as delicately as possible, to hand Emma a cup of water. The ledger flared. Emma's hands glowed. Sophia's chest pulsed. Both screamed. Water spilled, splashing across the floor, soaking a pile of documents detailing minor ledger infractions collected over the last week. Afolabi, ever calm in the face of the ridiculous, merely said: "See? This is what happens when love attempts to function normally. Note: love remains hazardous."
And yet… somehow, in the chaos, they laughed. Small, choked, tremulous laughs, because if they didn't, the absurdity would break them entirely. Even the Moonstone's ledger, for all its terrifying precision, could not entirely eliminate humor from the human heart.
The Moonstone's humor extended to physical tests.
A sudden tremor shook the Balogun house. A ceiling lamp fell, narrowly missing Sophia's head. Emma felt a corresponding pulse in her chest. Afolabi dived to block it, knocking over a vase. The Moonstone flared. The ledger logged: "Humans demonstrate impressive slapstick under duress. Note: continue terror, but consider comic potential."
Sophia curled on the floor, laughing and sobbing simultaneously. "I… I can't…" she gasped. "It's… it's… ridiculous!"
Emma, lying on the mattress across the city, echoed the sentiment, flailing her arms as white veins of light shot across them. "Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! It's… I mean, we're—"
The Moonstone pulsed once more, like a cosmic eye rolling, like it knew exactly how absurd humans were and would continue to punish them with precision and absurdity combined.
Even Alájọbí seemed to participate in the comedy.
The trickster appeared in the corner of Sophia's room, floating silently. A tiny trumpet sounded from nowhere. Alájọbí tilted its head and gestured vaguely toward the ledger. Sophia and Emma, linked across the city by shared pain and terror, groaned in unison. Their panic and rage became something simultaneously tragic and ridiculous.
"You are… ridiculous," Afolabi said quietly, exasperated, watching the supernatural farce unfold.
"No," Sophia said, trembling and trying to breathe. "We are… tragic. Definitely tragic. And it's funny… in a horrifying way."
The ledger, patient and cruel, escalated further.
Every choice they made, even mundane ones, now carried layers of consequence. Stepping on a crack in the sidewalk could trigger phantom pain across Lagos. Forgetting to lock a door could ignite a small fire somewhere else. The Moonstone's network pulsed constantly, mapping out absurd chains of cause and effect, rewarding panic, punishing hesitation, cataloging humor alongside horror.
Yet, the ledger's absurdity forced ingenuity. Sophia devised elaborate, ridiculous rituals to minimize ledger punishments: spinning three times before stepping outside, whispering apologies to corners of the room, leaving small offerings of tea for the Moonstone as tribute. Emma developed her own rituals, equally ludicrous: walking backward once a day, reciting lines of poetry she had forgotten, balancing her body on one leg while blinking rapidly.
The ledger accepted these measures with invisible notes, occasionally rewarding with faint relief, occasionally punishing further.
And so, fear and love became entwined with absurdity. Panic was constant, but laughter—strangely—was essential. Desire was punished. The ledger logged every infraction. Shadows twisted. The Moonstone pulsed. Spirits observed. And somewhere in the cosmic bureaucracy, someone—or something—filed the ledger with commentary: Humans continue to amuse and horrify. Maintain vigilance. Apply terror generously.
Sophia and Emma survived. They were exhausted, trembling, and absolutely ridiculous. The Moonstone remained patient, eternal, unamused and amused at once, teaching that terror could be meticulous and comedy could be cruel. The ledger continued its pulse, counting, cataloging, and awaiting the next moment when love, fear, or absurdity would fail to balance correctly.
And in the silver glow of the lagoon, the girls understood that survival was now a tragi-comedy: part suffering, part laughter, all inescapable.