The call did not arrive with panic.
It came steadily. Controlled. Measured.
Koffi felt it while standing at the edge of his village, watching the sun lower itself behind the trees that had framed his entire life. The sky burned in quiet oranges and deepening blues, smoke from cooking fires drifting upward in thin lines that smelled of home.
The ash around him stirred — not urgently, not in alarm, but with a quiet awareness, as if something was approaching that already knew his name.
This call did not feel like fear.
It felt like intention.
He did not move.
He listened.
Footsteps came along the main path, unhidden. Not creeping. Not rushing. The kind of walk that belonged to someone who expected to be seen and did not mind.
A figure appeared at the bend in the road, walking openly, without hesitation. No weapons hung from his sides. No ash clung to his clothes. No fear rode his breath.
Just confidence.
"I hoped you would feel it," the man said calmly when he came within speaking distance.
Koffi remained where he was. The ash at his feet settled, watchful, like dust before a storm that might never come.
"You didn't call because you were afraid," Koffi said.
"No," the man replied. "I called because I wanted to speak."
He did not try to come closer.
He did not try to command attention.
He waited.
The man gestured toward the horizon, where the land stretched beyond the villages Koffi had always known — beyond the rivers, beyond the hills, beyond the boundaries of stories that had once seemed like the edges of the world.
"There's a world past this," he said. "A loud one. A dangerous one. One that's learning your name."
Koffi felt the weight of that statement settle in his chest.
Names traveled faster than truth.
"I don't answer curiosity," Koffi said.
The man smiled faintly, not insulted.
"Good," he said. "Then you'll listen."
He stepped closer, but stopped at a respectful distance, as if he understood lines that had no markings on the ground.
"We've been watching you," the man continued. "Not to control you. To understand you."
The ash shifted slightly, defensive but restrained, like a breath drawn in and held.
"And what do you think you understand?" Koffi asked.
"That you don't want to be a weapon," the man said. "That you don't want to rule. And that you're tired of choosing who lives when you can't save everyone."
The words did not accuse.
They recognized.
They landed heavier than any threat.
Behind Koffi, a child laughed near a doorway. A mother called them inside. A goat bleated somewhere near the fields. Life continued, unaware that the world beyond its borders was leaning closer.
"I'm offering you help," the man said. "Real help. Not prayers. Not hope. Solutions."
Koffi looked past him, toward the village.
Toward the huts.
Toward the fields that still demanded hands and sweat.
Toward his parents' home, where light would soon glow in the doorway.
"I didn't call you," Koffi said.
"No," the man agreed quietly.
He looked past Koffi, too, at the village, at the peace hard-earned and still fragile.
"But the world will."
The ash stirred.
And for the first time, Koffi felt a call that did not belong to one voice.
It belonged to many.