Dhagax meel uu san rabin ma dhaco
A stone does not fall where it is not destined to
Chapter 1
The sand was warm beneath my feet, soft golden grains like embers slipping between my toes, heat sinking into my skin.
The air hummed.
A distant drumbeat pounded in my chest, echoing a rhythm that wasn't mine, yet it carried me all the same. Figures moved around me, swaying in the flickering firelight. Shadows stretched and bent, moving with hypnotic grace that made my blood rush faster. Their voices rose in a song I didn't know, words curling like smoke through the air.
The crowd surrounded me, shifting like the wind, bodies cloaked in flowing fabric, their faces obscured by firelight and shadow. Some had their heads wrapped in cloth, others adorned with beads and golden rings that caught the flickering flames. Their movements were hypnotic– a dance, I knew instantly. The firelight gleamed against dark skin, against wrists stacked with cuffs and necklaces that swayed with every step. Some carried staffs, some raised their hands to the sky, palms clashing against one another. The air was thick with the scent of spice and charred incense, the rhythmic pounding of drums melding with the beat of my heart.
A shiver ran down my spine despite the warmth of the fire that hugged my cheeks and clung to my skin, this wasn't just a dream.
Then I saw her.
A woman at the edge of the fire moving towards the center as the drumming intensified, moving like the flames themselves.
She danced like flame given flesh, every motion a symphony of liberation and grace. Each step carved into the sand with purpose, her movements echoing a truth that resonated with my flesh and called me to dance. Her bare feet skimmed the sand, then pressed deep, marking the earth as if she were carving something into it. Her arms lifted, her shoulders shimmying back and forth opposite of each other; the movements in timing with her right foot stomping on the ground, in synchrony with the ulelating, drumming, clapping and laughing. Her wrists flicking, fingers stretching toward the fire, pulling at it, and it listened. The shells in her hair clicked softly as she spun, the flames bending toward her as if drawn to something in her core.
She was beautiful.
She was... familiar.
Her dark skin gleamed, dusted with sand and streaked with something deep red, intricate and curling over her arms like vines. I had never seen markings so breathtaking like these before.
The patterns stretched from her wrists, curling over her hands, winding up her arms in perfect symmetry. The designs looked old, like they had been carved into her skin by something older than time itself.
They weren't scars.
They weren't tattoos.
They pulsed.
No longer able to suppress the call, my body moved forward.
She turned—her eyes locking onto mine. I gasped. Though shadows clung to most of her face, those eyes pierced through the darkness—familiar in a way I couldn't explain, as if I'd gazed into them before. Recognition stirred within me, though I couldn't see her features clearly enough to understand why.
The chanting around us dulled. The fire dimmed, lowering itself into embers.
I didn’t dare draw breath.
Looking into those eyes felt like staring into a mirror clouded by time and smoke. As I strained to look deeper at her, the dream fractured—the fire splitting like a veil torn down the middle. Through the rift, a figure stepped forward.
His skin was the color of deep bronze—sun-warmed and glistening against the light of the fire. His hair was short, tightly coiled, cut close to the scalp in a style that made every angle of his face seem sharper. His jaw was strong, sculpted like a blade that had never dulled, and his cheekbones cast shadows of their own.
And my God, he moved like he belonged to the ground—fluid, watchful, as if every step was guided by sand itself.
His armor was worn—bronze-lined and blood-marked, draped with a muted grey cloak that shifted like smoke around him. Across his arms and collarbone curled fine, black markings—like vines that had grown out of his bones and wound upward, pulsing faintly with something.
Those same markings.
The silver lining around his dark irises reflected like moonlight trapped in stone.
I didn't know his name, but my body knew the weight of him. And even in this dream, I felt it—how it would feel for his lips to curl around mine…
A surge of emotion flooded through me—love, longing, emotions that were not my own and yet I ached for them to be mine.
The rift sealed as quickly as it had opened. I was back before the woman, the memory of the man still burning in my chest.
She stood frozen—eyes wide, frantic, like she had seen what I saw. Like she had fought hard to break whatever fragile thing had formed between he and I. Shadows still gripping around her face shifting her visibility, her gaze clung to mine with something between grief and guilt.
Her lips moved but no sound came immediately, but when it reached me it was warped. Like her words had to tear through water, stone, and fire just to reach me. And then—Her lips parted slowly
Her voice broke through, voice like silk and smoke, haunting and familiar all at once.
"Soo noqo," she breathed, the word caressing me like a long-forgotten lullaby.
Return.
A cold wave rolled through my stomach. The flames trembled. The wind curled through the air, twisting my hair against my face.
She took a step toward me.
The shells in her braids clicked.
"Waa lagu sugayaa."
We await you.
The phrase felt like ice down my spine, a summons wrapped in expectation. Who exactly was waiting for me—and why did my chest ache with longing and dread ?
The ground beneath my feet shook as if angered by her speech, the warmth of the sand turning sharp, biting. I felt unsteady, weightless, as if I were slipping between two places at once.
The fire roared—turning white.
I felt unseen hands reach for me, pulling me into the sand. Each hand grasping the surface area of my body leaving no part untouched.
A whisper filled my head, soft, commanding, and ringing in my bones.
"Ogow qofkaad tahay."
My breath caught.
Know who you are.
Her voice pierced me – and then I was ripped away.
My body jerked upright, chest heaving in the stale basement air. The scent of bleach and dust replaced smoke and sand, the powerful chant fading to an echo. Reality settled around me like a dark and suffocating shroud. I pressed my palm to my chest, still feeling the phantom heat of the flames beneath my fingertips.
Each dream felt like a fracture, a break in the wall I'd built around my reality. I didn't understand yet, but the dreams were part of me—undeniable, inescapable, and I wasn't sure how many more I could endure before they broke me completely. And now this phantom man, this stranger who felt like home, added another layer of confusion to my already fractured reality..
A strange hollowness ached in my center—a longing for someone I'd never met. His face remained vivid in my mind: those silver-rimmed eyes, the markings that spiraled up his neck, the way he'd looked at me with such intensity. I pressed my hands to my face, trying to shake off the ridiculous notion that I'd somehow lost someone I'd never even known.
With a sigh I buried my face in the pillow. It smelled like cocoa butter and vanilla. I drew a deeper breath.
Right. Because my life wasn't complicated enough already.
Tick.
My eyes flew open, disoriented, the rhythmic ticking of the old wall clock like a banging of pots in my skull.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
That fucking clock.
I groaned, rolling onto my back. My body was stiff, sore from scrubbing the basement floor the night before. My hands, raw from bleach and steel wool, ached as I flexed them. The scent of chemicals still lingered, mixing with the mustiness of the room.
My room—if I could even call it that—loomed around me, small and dark. The walls were bare, save for the uneven patches where water stains had crept in over time. I don't remember when I fell asleep. Exhaustion had won.
Tick.
Time taunts me.
The sheets clung to my skin, damp with sweat and the remnants of the dream still wrapped around me like invisible thorns. The bed beneath me was thin, sunken in the middle, its springs groaning like bones with every shift of my weight.
My limbs felt heavy, like they'd been forged from the same stone that lived in my stomach. Cold air brushed against my ankles as I sat up, my bare feet touching the floor. The carpet was thin and rough beneath me, a constant reminder of how much scrubbing I had done over the years, clearing out whatever filth Edith had deemed unworthy of her house. I stayed there for a breath. Two.
Then I stood.
Each step toward the bathroom felt like dragging myself back into a world I wasn't ready to face. Every inch of my body aches, the arch in my foot feeling ache of relief each step I took on solid ground. I can't remember the last time I rested while I slept.
I spent my night in a foreign desert wandering, finding strange cacti and trees that made me stop to ask how they survived in that endless dry expanse. I flicked on the light, the dim glow revealing the small, time-worn mirror above the sink. Its once-smooth surface was cracked at the edges, speckled with rust and flaking silver.
And there, staring back at me, was my own reflection.
Though I was small in stature, my cheekbones were high, framing my well-defined features, hugging the roundness of my lips. My skin deep molasses in milk and gold contrasting my dark auburn hair that cascaded down my back in curls now a jumbled mess, no doubt from thrashing in my sleep. My curls moved as though it had a life of its own. Levi, my insufferable best friend, always joked that I was a dragon masquerading as a girl. Sometimes when my hair catches the light just right, I almost believe him.
I let out a slow breath, gripping the edges of the sink.
I leaned in—just slightly. Enough to see the hollows under my eyes, the faint pink marks along my collarbone from where the blanket had tangled in sleep. My reflection blinked back at me. My face blurred—warped—like heat off pavement. For the briefest moment, she was staring back at me instead. The woman from the fire.
A braid slid over her shoulder. Shells clicked softly. Shadows still clinging to her face like in my dream. My body moved before my mind did. I jerked back from the sink, breath lodged in my throat.
Tick.
My head whipped to my side, my eyes focused through the bathroom threshold burning the clock with a look that I imagined could burn right through it.
6:47 am
And like a slap from reality, it hit me.
School.
Fuck, I'm going to be late.
Of course... Nothing says good morning like hallucinating a woman in mirrors and nearly pissing yourself before first period.
I let out a hard breath through my nose, dragging a hand down my face.
I’m going insane.
The warm hum of the last day of school wasn't enough to shake the exhaustion pressing into my bones.
I should've stayed home.
But then again, home wasn't exactly a refuge.
The air was thick—not just with the usual end-of-year buzz, but with something else. Something I couldn't name. Maybe it was just the weird weather lately—clouds hanging heavy in the sky, despite the forecast promising clear, open blue. Or maybe it was the way my skin prickled, like I was walking into a room just after someone had said my name.
I shook it off, weaving through the halls, nodding at a few classmates.
"Hey, Waris!" Sarah Patel, one of the only people in AP Art History I actually liked, beamed at me as I passed. "You killed it on that final portfolio. Ms. Knowles wouldn't shut up about it."
"Thanks," I said, a small, tired smile tugging at my lips.
She rolled her eyes, flipping her dark braid over her shoulder. "Whatever, just don't forget us when you become the next big thing."
I scoffed. "Yeah, 'cause starving artists are all the rage right now."
Her laughter followed me as I moved toward my locker.
A few feet away, a cluster of students were talking way too loudly about prom—who was wearing what, who was going with who, the whole painfully predictable ordeal.
"Did you see Maya's dress?" Sophia Greer, a drama club regular, waved her phone in front of Jamie Nguyen, who barely glanced up from his calculus textbook.
"Yeah, she sent it like 70 times," Jamie muttered, flipping a page.
Sophia huffed. "Well, some of us actually care."
"Some of us also have a math final worth 40% of our grade," Jamie shot back, exasperated.
Their bickering made me snort under my breath.
"Did you hear? Another person disappeared last night," Sarah whispered urgently.
"Third one this month," Jamie muttered, uneasily glancing up from the textbook. "Cops think it's some psycho serial killer or something."
A chill ran through my body.
"Bro, you're actually gonna wear that ugly-ass tux?"
Devin Moore, one of the basketball players, was passing on my right as he elbowed his friend Ethan, grinning like an idiot.
"Shut up, at least I have a date." Ethan spat back
"Yeah, because Ryan asked her for you, you coward."
Ethan shoved him, and they broke into laughter as they took turns putting each other in half-hearted headlocks.
I shifted my bag over my shoulder, shaking off the weird feeling and tuning them out.
The hallway was alive with movement—lockers slamming shut, the tiny jingle phone notifications, paper rustling as students stuffed old assignments into their backpacks or tossed them straight into the trash. The scent of warm dust and the faint remnants of cheap industrial cleaner lingered in the air, blending with the occasional waft of someone's sickly sweet body spray.
I turned back to my locker, pulling it open with a soft clang, the metal cool under my fingers.
Inside, it was mostly empty. I'd cleaned it out yesterday, not that I had much in there to begin with. The only thing left was a single, slightly crumpled photo taped to the back wall.
It was old—4th grade, Levi and me on the couch, Genevieve sitting beside us. Levi, true to form, was mid-chaos, climbing over my head like some deranged gremlin, his knees digging into my shoulder as I glared at him. Genevieve sat beside me, laughing, her hand supporting one of Levi's knees, her face soft with amusement. Levi had asparagus sticking out of his mouth like makeshift fangs, his expression dramatic and wild. He had refused to eat them, and instead, declared himself the "Vampire Lord of Vegetables."
My lips twitched at the memory, as Veev’s laugh echoed in my mind.
I ran my thumb over the edge of the photo, the paper smooth and worn from the number of times I had done the same before.
The sounds of the hallway muffled for a moment, swallowed by the past. A flicker of movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention.
Standing near the entrance, hands shoved into his pockets, looking obnoxiously handsome for someone who was constantly getting into trouble.
Levi.
His thick, chestnut brown hair was doing its usual thing—somewhere between a mess and a masterpiece, gravity-defying in a way that seemed both intentional and completely accidental. His jawline was sharp enough to cut glass, his cheekbones high and defined, his youth rounding his cheeks, giving him an almost aristocratic look if not for the ever-present hint of mischief that made him seem like he was constantly on the verge of saying something sarcastic.
His bright blue eyes—the kind of blue that looked almost unnatural in certain lighting—were alert, darting around the hall like he was reading a battlefield instead of a high school hallway. Even standing still, there was a restlessness about him, the kind of energy that made it seem like he could go from cracking jokes to throwing punches in the same breath.
He donned a faded graphic tee with the words "Bigfoot is Real and He Stole My Girl" printed across the front in bold, slightly peeling letters, paired with an unbuttoned flannel. Despite the ridiculousness of it, he somehow still looked effortlessly cool. It was maddening, really.
His jaw was tight, his shoulders tense, like he was waiting for something—or someone. And that was weird. Because Levi never tensed—and definitely not like this. I knew him better than my own shadow. Whatever this was? It was big…
A quick jerk of my fingers and the picture came loose. Sliding it into my back pocket as I closed my locker and started toward him.
Almost five feet from Levi, I felt the familiar tingle, the fluorescent lights flickered into flames, students morphing into shadows. My pulse lurched. The world wavered, reality bending like heat rising from desert sand. Straight had Levi glitching in and out of reality, his body consumed by a light blue smoke that billowed around him, it intensified suddenly, the brightness forcing my eyes closed.
I blinked hard and the hallway snapped back, yet my heart raced. Levi watched me from afar, his brow furrowed with concern.
These visions were becoming more invasive, bleeding into reality like spilled ink. But I didn't have time for hallucinations—least of all today.
"You planning to sneak out early, or just perfecting your brooding stare?" I quipped, stopping beside him still slightly unsettled.
Levi barely reacted, just dragged a hand through his hair, those bright blue eyes flicking toward me for half a second before scanning the hall again.
"Thought about it," he said, forcing a half-smile. "But then I'd miss the honor of you telling me what an asshole I am for skipping."
I frowned, "Levi, what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said too quickly, and then he made the mistake of glancing at me again—like really looking at me.
And something passed through his expression. Something guilty.
Before I could press him, a voice from behind us broke through the noise of the hallway.
"Yeah, well, I'm just saying—I saw something."
I turned my head slightly. A group of students near the lockers.
I knew them—Ryan, Chad, and Blake. They weren't as bad as they used to be, not since Levi and I had stopped taking their shit. But they still liked to talk loud enough for people to hear, just to get a reaction.
Ryan's voice dropped slightly, but I still caught it.
"At night, man. Shadows moving outside my window. Like, fast."
"You sure it wasn't just your ugly-ass reflection?" Chad snorted.
"Ha ha, hilarious," Ryan deadpanned. "But I'm serious. I found Brian Ketterling’s jersey outside my window, I swear to fucking God. And, like—is it just me, or does Hoffman move too… fast? He wigs me out on the track field. This town keeps getting weirder and weirder"
My gaze returned to Levi.
He stilled.
Blake laughed. "Dude, Levi's just built different. He's like—what's that thing? A freak of nature? And Brian Ketterling lives like 4 streets from you, he probably lost his shit all over the neighborhood before they booked him for a looney tunes vacation.”
I expected Levi to roll his eyes, maybe throw out some half-assed quip, but he didn't. He just stood there. Silent.
And for some reason, that silence crawled under my skin.
I turned back to him, studying his face.
"You got something you wanna tell me, track star?" I muttered.
Levi let out a breath and his expression lightened, albeit a little forced. "Yeah, yeah. I get it. I'm too damn fast, I should've gone pro."
I squinted. "Hmm. Or, you know, vampire." I made fangs with my fingers.
Levi let out a dramatic sigh, his eyes rolling back so dramatically I half-expected them to pop out of his skull. "Yes, Risa. I'm a creature of the night. My tragic origin story? I tripped into a radioactive vat of bat guano, and now I have super speed and an insatiable thirst for iced coffee."
I snorted. "Uh-huh. And you sparkle in the sunlight?"
"Only when moisturized properly," he shot back.
That actually made me laugh, shaking my head.
The tension between us eased just a little—but not completely.
Because if I wasn't convinced before I was now.
I could feel his unease in the way he kept scanning the hallway, his hand twitching at his side like he was holding himself back from reaching for something. I just didn't know what.
Yet.
Levi nudged my arm suddenly. "C'mon. We're gonna be late."
He started walking, and I fell into step beside him.
I threw a casual "Good morning" to Mr. Clarke, who stood slumped against his doorframe. His tie hung slightly askew, and his eyes held that thousand-yard stare of someone who had already given up on the day despite it being only 7:30 AM. A stack of papers wilted in his grip, each one a small monument to student desperation.
"Finals treating you well?" I asked, knowing full well they weren't. My voice echoed slightly in the half-empty corridor, mingling with distant locker slams and mumbled conversations.
Mr. Clarke just let out a hollow laugh that seemed to originate from some empty place deep within him. The sound hung between us, brittle and resigned. "You kids are gonna be the death of me," he said, rubbing the back of his neck where tension had clearly taken up permanent residence. A coffee stain adorned his shirt cuff—small, but telling.
Beside me, Levi shifted his weight. The fabric of his jacket brushed against my arm as he leaned forward, his presence warm and solid in the artificially chilled hallway.
"Oof, Mr. Clarke.” He cocked an eyebrow, the expression transforming his face from serious to mischievous in an instant. “Should I start drafting your obituary now, or are you planning to tough it out 'til lunch?” The playfulness in his voice carried an undercurrent of genuine concern that probably only I could recognize—the subtle softening around his eyes betraying the affection beneath the snark. “Extra credit, maybe?"
"God help me," Mr. Clarke muttered, already rubbing his temples in small, concentric circles. The gold band on his ring finger caught the light as he did, a reminder that somewhere beyond these institutional walls, he had a life where he wasn't just Mr. Clarke, the English teacher slowly being crushed by adolescent mediocrity.
I dragged Levi away by the elbow and continued down the hallway, our footsteps falling into an unconscious rhythm. The vinyl floor tiles, worn thin in the center from years of teenage traffic, revealed paths of least resistance—desire lines created by thousands of hurried journeys between classes.
A little further, Mr. Pantik stood outside his classroom. His usually immaculate appearance had succumbed to the pressures of finals week—his collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms marked with faded whiteboard ink. He looked like he'd aged ten years from grading finals, the fine lines around his eyes deepened by fatigue.
I caught his gaze and raised an eyebrow, a gesture of solidarity in this shared academic purgatory. "That bad?"
He sighed, his shoulders rising and falling like continental drift. "That bad." The words contained multitudes—failed theorems, forgotten formulas, the collective mathematical despair of a hundred students.
The simple exchange carried the weight of shared understanding—that peculiar intimacy that develops between teachers and students when both acknowledge the absurdity of the system they're trapped in.
I chuckled, the sound soft against the ambient noise of the hallway. "Good luck, Mr. Pantik." The words were simple, but offered with genuine warmth.
"You too, Waris. Get out of here while you still can," he joked, but beneath the levity lay a kernel of sincerity—the recognition that these hallways were temporary for me in a way they weren't for him. His fingers tapped an unconscious rhythm against the doorframe, a nervous habit I'd noticed long ago.
A laugh almost slipped from my lips—not at his joke, but at the strange poignancy of the moment. These ordinary exchanges, these fleeting connections in corridors—they suddenly felt precious, as if I were already looking back on them from some distant future where they existed only as memory.
Levi's eyes caught mine, a silent question in them. He always could read the shift in my moods, sensing the undercurrents like changes in barometric pressure. His eyebrow arched slightly, an unspoken you okay? that required no verbal response.
I nodded almost imperceptibly, then let my own gaze linger on him a beat longer than necessary. A faint shadow haunted the corners of his mouth—that tension in his jaw that appeared whenever he was hiding something. I could see it in the too-careful way he adjusted his bag strap, in how his laughter ended just a fraction too abruptly.
You're asking about me when something's clearly eating you alive
I thought, the words forming and dissolving unsaid. The bruise-colored circles beneath his eyes hadn't been there a couple days ago. Neither had that slight tremor in his right hand—so subtle anyone else would miss it.
We'd perfected this dance over years—this mutual deflection, this choreography of caring about the other person so we didn't have to face our own shadows. I wondered when we'd become so skilled at protecting each other and so terrible at protecting ourselves.
We turned toward our classrooms, Levi veering off toward his first-period AP Physics while I headed toward Econ.
Before he left, he glanced back at me, his expression unreadable.
"See you at lunch?" he asked.
I hesitated.
Something inside me whispered, He's keeping something from you.
But instead, I just nodded.
"Yeah."
He backed away a few steps, flashing that goofy, lopsided smile that never failed to break the tension—the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look twelve instead of eighteen. Then he spun on his heel and disappeared around the corner, his chestnut hair bouncing with each step. For a heartbeat, something like steam—or was it smoke?—seemed to curl from his skin, dissipating into nothing before I could be sure. The fluorescent lights hummed a half-tone sharper, the walls of the school suddenly paper-thin around me. A shiver traced my spine with cold fingers, and for a moment, beneath the squeak of sneakers and slamming lockers, I could have sworn I heard distant drums keeping time with my pulse.
xoxo
Until your shadow meets mine again—
Simxn
Author, Crown of Thorns: Desert Rose • Editor, The Alchemxst
So proud of you