Chapter 3 The thread between

Chapter 3: The Thread Between

The rain had stopped by dusk, but Ayo was still damp, clothes clinging to his skin as he let himself into the flat. The smell of frying onions drifted through the hallway-his neighbor again, always cooking something fragrant and rich. Normally, it would have made him smile.

Tonight, his stomach turned.

He shut the door behind him, leaned his back against it, and slid slowly to the floor.

That vision-or whatever it was-had left something in him. A warmth. A grief. A strange ache, like missing a place he'd never been.

He shook his head. "Nope. Nope. Nope. We're not doing this."

He pulled off his shirt, dropped it in the laundry basket, and crossed the room to the mirror above the sink.

His reflection looked like hell. Red eyes. Damp curls plastered to his forehead. There was a tension in his face he didn't recognize-like he'd seen something he shouldn't have and couldn't forget.

He reached for a glass. His hands were trembling.

"A memory," Malakai had said.

Impossible.

And yet... Ayo had seen it.

He'd felt it.

Across the city, Malakai stood atop the rooftop of a hotel that had once been a colonial post, the stone beneath his boots still holding ghosts of its own. The Nairobi skyline stretched wide and glittering, tall towers flanked by old streets. But his eyes weren't on the view.

They were on the boy.

Ayo.

Not Elijah. And yet, not a stranger either.

Malakai didn't know what was worse-that the boy stirred feelings he thought long buried, or that he didn't seem to remember anything clearly. That glimpse in the café had been the first spark. But memories could be slippery. Especially when they didn't belong to just one life.

He would have to be patient. Gentle.

He didn't want to frighten him. Not again.

Malakai closed his eyes. He could still hear Elijah's voice if he focused. Whispering the old songs. Laughing under moonlight. Promising things neither of them had the power to keep.

And then, the blood.

Always, the blood.

He pressed his fingers to his temple.

He hadn't come to Nairobi to resurrect the past. He had come for the heart-the literal one. An ancient relic, said to be preserved in sacred earth somewhere beneath the city. A priest had once told him that some hearts never die. That they wait to be reunited with their soul.

He hadn't believed it.

Until Ayo.

Ayo didn't sleep that night.

He tried. Put on a podcast, closed his eyes, pulled the blanket up tight. But every time he drifted, the visions returned-vivid and uninvited. Dreams that didn't feel like dreams.

A burning village. A man singing to keep children calm. A kiss beneath a fig tree.

He woke before dawn, heart hammering, skin clammy.

Something was wrong.

Or maybe something had always been wrong, and now it was cracking through the surface.

By 7 a.m., he was on a matatu to campus, hoodie pulled low over his face, headphones in, music turned loud. But he couldn't drown out the images.

He skipped his lecture. Wandered the library stacks. Ended up at the anthropology wing without realizing it. Something was pulling him there.

He passed display cases of old tools and tribal masks, carvings from the coast, clay pots from the Rift Valley. And then, in the corner-a small exhibit on precolonial East African spiritual practices.

One panel read: "Hearts of the Ancients: Legends of Immortal Love."

His breath caught.

The display showed an artist's rendition of a heart made of stone and bone, wrapped in red cloth, glowing faintly. The plaque beside it said:

"Some communities believed that certain souls were bound to one another across time, and that the physical heart could hold the soul's energy even after death. In rare tales, if two such hearts were joined, they could awaken memory across lifetimes."

Ayo stared.

This was ridiculous.

Coincidence.

Except... the heart in the drawing looked exactly like the one from his dream.

Malakai found him there.

Standing so still, so quiet, he could've been another statue in the exhibit.

"I thought I'd find you here," he said softly.

Ayo turned, startled. "Do you follow me?"

"No. I follow patterns. And you... are part of one."

Ayo crossed his arms. "Okay, bro. You can't just show up, say cryptic things, and expect me not to file a restraining order."

Malakai smiled faintly. "If I wanted to hurt you, Ayo, I would have done so long ago."

That shut Ayo up.

After a beat, he asked, "What are you?"

Malakai looked at him.

"Immortal," he said. "Cursed, depending on who you ask."

Ayo waited.

Malakai sighed. "I was born in the Kingdom of Axum. A long, long time ago. I was turned when I was nineteen. I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it. But it happened. And I've been searching for... something ever since."

Ayo's voice was barely above a whisper. "Elijah?"

"Yes."

Ayo shook his head. "But I'm not him."

"You have his soul."

"That's not real."

"It's more real than the pain you feel when you wake up from dreams that don't belong to you."

Ayo flinched.

Malakai stepped closer. "I didn't come to pull you into some fairy tale. I came because I thought the part of him I lost was gone forever. But then I felt you. Your heart-it beats the same way. I would know it anywhere."

Ayo swallowed hard. "Even if that's true... what do you want from me?"

"Nothing," Malakai said, and meant it. "I just want to protect you."

Ayo studied him for a long time.

Then: "Are there others? Like you?"

"Yes."

"And are they all... like, brooding and dramatic?"

Malakai laughed-genuinely, the sound like old bells.

"Some are worse."

Ayo nodded slowly. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'm not saying I believe you," Ayo said. "But... I want to know more. About him. About me."

Malakai looked at him like the stars had realigned.

"We start slow," Ayo warned. "Like, very slow. If you start biting people, I'm out."

"I don't feed on humans," Malakai said. "Anymore."

"'Anymore' is doing a lot of work there."

But he smiled.

And for the first time in centuries, Malakai felt hope like a rising sun.