leave before sunset

CHAPTER 1— Arrival at Idero

The boat rocked gently beneath them as fog gathered like smoke on the water. Dara sat at the edge, clutching his backpack with both arms, eyes fixed on the shoreline that slowly appeared through the grey. The island looked asleep. Trees stood tall and still, like watchers waiting for someone to wake them.

"Almost there," Mr. Bayo said, though he didn’t sound excited. He sat beside Mrs. Ada, who hadn't spoken in hours. Her hands were tight around a red Bible, lips moving silently. Dara wondered if she was praying or just pretending to be.

He didn’t want to ask.

After all, they were all pretending something.

The past month had been a blur — the sudden move, the rushed goodbyes, the strange decision to relocate to some “peaceful” island nobody had ever heard of. Mr. Bayo said it was for "healing," a place to start over after everything that happened. But Dara didn’t believe in fresh starts anymore.

Not since the fire.

He looked over the boat’s side again. The water was still now — too still. No wind, no waves, no birds above. It felt like the world had pressed pause.

Then he saw it — the pier.

Wooden and cracked, with red cloth tied around the posts like dried blood. And beyond that, a winding path into the trees. No cars. No people.

Just a single man standing at the edge of the pier.

He wore a straw hat, and his eyes were hidden by its shadow.

Mrs. Ada gasped softly. "That's... that's the guide, I think. The one the woman on the phone said would meet us."

"What’s his name again?" Mr. Bayo asked.

She opened her mouth but stopped. Dara looked at her.

"You don't remember?"

She shook her head. “I... I did. I had it written down.”

They docked. The man said nothing as he took the rope and tied the boat to a wooden pole. He simply nodded.

"Welcome to Idero," he said. His voice was dry, like someone who hadn't spoken in a long time. "The sun sets at seven. Make sure you're indoors before then."

Dara raised a brow. "Why?"

The man looked at him — truly looked. Cold eyes beneath the hat.

"Because this place forgets who stays out after dark."

Dara stared at him.

Was it a joke? A weird welcome ritual?

The man turned and walked toward the path without another word.

Mr. Bayo chuckled nervously. “Strange people.”

Mrs. Ada didn’t respond. Her eyes stayed on the red cloths.

---

They followed the man up the winding path. The forest was dense. Dara could hear something — wind? No. Whispers. Like breath through leaves, too soft to catch but heavy enough to feel.

He touched the back of his neck. Cold.

As they reached the edge of the trees, the village finally revealed itself.

Small homes, scattered like puzzle pieces. A central well. Smoke curling from one rooftop. A few faces peeked from windows — eyes wide, unreadable. A dog barked once, then went silent. No children playing, no one talking loudly.

No one smiled.

The man pointed to a blue house with peeling paint.

“Yours,” he said.

Then he left.

---

Inside, the house smelled of dust and salt. Old furniture, curtains that didn’t quite fit the windows, and a large clock on the wall that had stopped ticking — exactly at 7:00.

Mrs. Ada began unpacking. Mr. Bayo tested the tap and muttered, “Running water, that’s something.” But Dara wandered toward the back window.

From there, he could see part of the forest.

A path of red beads hung across the trees like a warning rope.

He thought he saw something move between the trunks. A shadow? A figure?

And then — it was gone.

---

That night, after dinner, Dara stood outside for a while. The air was heavy. The sky turned from gold to grey. Then deeper — to a purple so dark it looked unreal.

He heard a sound behind him — someone humming.

Turning, he saw a girl sitting on the fence beside their house. She had bright eyes, cornrows, and a red scarf tied around her wrist.

“You’re the new boy,” she said.

Dara nodded. “Yeah. I’m Dara.”

The girl tilted her head, curious. “You said your name.”

“...Yeah?”

She jumped off the fence. “Don’t do that after sunset. Ever.”

“Why not?”

She started to walk away, backward, a playful smirk on her lips.

“Because if they know your name,” she said, her voice fading into the dusk, “they’ll come looking for you.”

Then she vanished into the night.

And the clock inside the house ticked once.

Then stopped.

CHAPTER 2— The Island Whispers

Dara didn’t sleep well.

The clock in the hallway had started ticking again on its own sometime past midnight — slowly, off-rhythm, like a heartbeat that had forgotten its pattern. Wind howled outside, but when he checked through the window, the trees didn’t move.

By morning, everything seemed... fine again. Birds chirped. The sun shone lazily over the cracked rooftops. The village felt ordinary.

Too ordinary.

---

Mr. Bayo was reading a local newspaper he had found on the porch — the date on it was three years old.

Mrs. Ada made akara on a rusty stove. “You should go and look around,” she said, forcing a smile. “Meet other kids. You’ve been through a lot — maybe it’s time to… breathe again.”

Dara nodded and slipped on his slippers. As he stepped out, she added, softly, “Be back before sunset.”

---

🌿 Outside, the Island Was Awake

Children kicked a deflated ball down the dusty road. Two women swept their porches, tossing salt across their thresholds.

Dara spotted a girl from the night before — the one who warned him. She was sitting under a mango tree, peeling sugarcane.

He approached. “Hey... I didn’t catch your name yesterday.”

She raised a brow. “That’s because I didn’t give it.”

“Fair enough. I’m Dara.”

“You’re still saying your name,” she said, cracking a piece of sugarcane. “You learn slow, new boy.”

She tossed him a piece anyway. “I’m Zino.”

---

They sat quietly. Zino stared into the distance.

“This place looks normal,” Dara said. “But it’s not, is it?”

She chewed. “It used to be. Until the island got tired of people leaving.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll see,” she said.

Before he could ask more, a loud voice interrupted them.

---

🎭 Enter Muna and Tari

“Oi! I see you made a friend already!” a boy called, running up.

Muna, thin with sharp eyes, wore mismatched sandals and a shirt that said NASA is Watching. He sniffed the air like a rat. “You smell new.”

“Thanks...?”

“I’m Muna,” he said. “I collect secrets and nightmares. Which one do you have?”

“Leave him alone,” Zino said with a smirk.

Another boy followed behind, broader, louder — Tari.

“New boy,” Tari said. “You’re brave, sitting with these weirdos.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

Tari laughed. “I like you.”

---

They offered to give Dara a tour.

As they walked, Muna pointed things out like a broken tour guide.

“That’s the well. Don’t look into it after dark.”

“That’s the school. We haven’t had a real teacher since 2019.”

“And that,” he pointed to the red-beaded rope across the trees, “is the Old Path. It moves.”

“It moves?” Dara asked.

Muna nodded seriously. “It wasn’t there yesterday.”

Zino stopped. “Muna, don’t start.”

“What?” he shrugged. “It’s true. My cousin walked into it once. We never saw her again. Now my aunt talks to her reflection every morning.”

Dara stared at the path. The beads swayed without wind.

“Can we go in?” he asked.

Zino and Muna turned sharply.

“No,” Zino said. “Not yet. Not unless you want to disappear.”

---

⏳ The Elder Appears

Later, they passed a stall where an old man sat carving small wooden faces.

He looked up at Dara and blinked.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“I live here now.”

“No,” the elder rasped. “I mean… you. You don’t belong to this place. But this place belongs to you.”

“Pa Oji, stop scaring the boy,” Zino said.

The elder chuckled. “He’s already scared. Aren’t you, Dara?”

Dara frowned. “How do you know my name?”

Pa Oji smiled a broken-tooth grin. “Because the island whispered it to me last night.”

---

As the sun began to drop behind the trees, the village shifted.

Shadows stretched too far. Birds fell silent. Doors shut without hands. Salt was poured thicker across doorsteps.

Zino touched Dara’s arm. “Go home now.”

“But—”

“Now.”

As he walked back, Dara turned once.

Pa Oji was still watching.

And smiling.

---

🕯 That Night...

The electricity died just before 7:00 PM.

Candles were lit. Windows closed.

Dara sat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, heart racing. Zino’s warning echoed in his mind.

Don’t say your name after sunset.

Something moved outside the window.

And from somewhere far off, he heard it — soft and slithering through the trees.

“Daaaraa…”

A voice — not his, not human — whispered his name like a memory.

He gasped, turned to shout for Mr. Bayo — but when he looked back at the window…

There was nothing there.

Except a red bead, hanging from the frame.

CHAPTER 3— The Other Half of Me

The morning came quietly — like it had been sneaking in.

Dara woke to the sound of frying oil and faint gospel music from the neighbor’s transistor radio. Sunlight poured through the broken slats of the window, but it didn’t warm him. Not really.

The red bead from last night was still hanging on the frame.

He touched it. Cold.

---

At breakfast, Mr. Bayo was unusually cheerful. “The man from the council is coming to welcome us today,” he said. “Maybe we’ll ask about the boats.”

Mrs. Ada looked up sharply. “Why? We just got here.”

Dara said nothing.

Because something in him had already changed. He didn’t know how to explain it, but he felt the island watching him now — like it knew his heartbeat, his memories, his fears.

And last night… someone, something, had whispered his name.

---

Later, Zino found him near the well.

“You didn’t tell anyone about the bead, did you?” she asked.

“No.”

She nodded. “Good. If you talk too much about them, they listen harder.”

“They?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she sat by the well and tore a leaf into pieces.

“I had a sister once,” she said softly. “A twin.”

Dara blinked. “You never mentioned that.”

“No one remembers her anymore. Not even our mother. Only me.”

She looked up. Her eyes didn’t water, but her voice did.

“Her name was Zira. We were always together. We used to do everything wrong — speak after sunset, wander near the red path, play hide-and-seek after curfew. We didn’t believe the warnings. We were twelve.”

---

She paused. The wind whispered through the trees like it was listening.

“One night, she said something strange. She told me a voice had been speaking to her from the mirror. It said she had to come and ‘meet her reflection.’”

“I told her to shut up.”

Zino pulled a thread from her shirt.

“That night, I woke up and her bed was empty.”

Dara felt something tighten in his chest. “They took her?”

Zino nodded once.

“She was the brave one. The loud one. The one everyone loved. You know what the island does to people like that?”

“What?”

“It remembers them.” Her voice cracked. “So it can take them. Slowly. Until even their names fade.”

---

Dara sat down beside her.

“I’m sorry.”

Zino gave him a side glance. “Don’t be. Just don’t become her.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re curious. Kind. You ask questions. People like you get taken first.”

Dara swallowed hard. “Then why not leave?”

Zino laughed. Bitter, tired, and almost sweet. “You think we haven’t tried?”

She leaned in, eyes locked to his.

“No one leaves Idero. They just stop trying.”

---

🕳 Elsewhere...

In the center of the village, an old house with boarded windows stood untouched.

Inside, dust blanketed everything like ash. But on the wall, in smudged charcoal, was a sentence:

> “Zira is still alive. In the glass.”

---

That night, Dara didn’t sleep.

He sat by the window, staring at his reflection.

And for the briefest moment…

It smiled at him — first.

CHAPTER 5 — The Book of Names

The sky was soft and pale that morning, the kind of cloudy light that made everything look faded — like a memory.

Dara couldn’t sleep the night before.

He’d stared at the cracked mirror in his room until his eyes burned, waiting for it to move again. It didn’t. But that made it worse. Like it was choosing when to show him the truth.

---

He found Muna waiting for him near the abandoned school building — the roof caved in, the walls swallowed by vines.

“You look haunted,” Muna said.

Dara shrugged. “I feel... followed.”

Muna gave a short laugh. “Then you’re starting to belong.”

---

They ducked through the side of the chapel ruins. Dara had passed it before, but never gone inside. It smelled of earth and old candles. The cross at the front had fallen sideways, as if even God had grown tired of Idero.

“This way,” Muna whispered.

He pulled a loose board from under the pulpit and dug out a small rusted box.

“I’ve been keeping this hidden since last year. Never showed Zino. Never showed anyone.”

Inside was a water-damaged journal, wrapped in faded cloth, and a small shattered mirror.

---

Muna placed the items gently between them.

“Her name was Miss Teni Akande. She came here to teach. In 1993.”

Dara opened the journal. The ink bled into the pages like it had been crying. The first few entries were ordinary — lesson plans, observations about the quietness of the village, her loneliness.

Then things changed.

---

> April 3rd, 1993

The children say they hear voices at night. I heard it too — my name, spoken from the forest.

> May 9th, 1993

A boy disappeared. No one remembers him but me. They say I’m mistaken. But I know his laugh. I know his face. I know I’m not crazy.

> June 1st, 1993

I tried to leave. The boat rowed itself in circles for hours. Then it stopped moving entirely.

> June 12th, 1993

Names have power here. The island hears them. Uses them. If they know your name... they find you.

---

Dara’s hand trembled. The final pages were harder to read — written in panic, scratched as if the pen were failing.

> July 29th, 1993

They are in the mirrors now. Reflections that don’t belong. They mimic me... but they’re not me.

> August 3rd, 1993

If you’re reading this, run. But you won’t get far. No one does.

> August 5th

They are whispering my name now. Every night. My name. Over and over.

TENI. TENI. TENI.

I shouldn’t have said it.

---

Dara closed the book slowly. His breath was shaking.

“Why are you showing me this?” he asked.

“Because you saw it too, didn’t you?” Muna’s voice was soft now. Scared. “Something in the mirror.”

Dara didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

---

Muna handed him the cracked mirror from the box. On the back was a worn-out sticker.

> Property of Miss T. Akande

The glass felt heavy in Dara’s hands. And cold. Too cold.

He looked into it.

His face stared back. Tired. Pale. A little older than he remembered.

But just for a second — a blink — his reflection’s lips moved.

Whispered something.

And Dara couldn’t hear what it said.

---

That night, Dara lay in bed with the mirror turned toward the wall.

The air in the room felt wrong. He could hear something soft — like footsteps on dust, or a voice humming under a breath that wasn’t his.

He turned over once.

Twice.

And then — he saw it.

His mirror, still facing the wall, now had a faint glow. Like someone was on the other side, holding a candle.

He sat up slowly, heart pounding.

Approached it.

Turned it toward himself.

The reflection showed a room that wasn’t his.

Same shape, same window — but in the background, a woman stood barefoot, staring at him.

She opened her mouth to scream.

But no sound came.

Dara dropped the mirror.

It shattered.

And then the clock on the wall ticked once — just once — and went silent.

Chapter Five — The Whispering Woods

The next morning, Dara couldn’t speak.

Every time he opened his mouth, it felt like something was pressing down on his chest — like the island didn’t want him to say what he had seen.

He tried telling his foster parents, but Mr. Bayo just chuckled, tired-eyed, over his coffee.

Mrs. Ada had bags under her eyes and kept blinking like she hadn’t slept.

Neither of them noticed the shattered mirror.

---

“Let’s go to Pa Oji,” Muna said quietly.

They hadn’t spoken since the mirror incident the night before, but the decision felt mutual.

They needed answers.

Pa Oji’s hut was far beyond the main part of the village — just before the forest began to thicken into what people called the Whispering Woods.

Everyone avoided the woods.

Because sometimes, at night, it sounded like someone was calling you from inside.

By name.

---

Pa Oji was outside, feeding something in a cage — a hawk, or maybe a crow.

The bird’s wings were torn. Its eyes, blind and glassy.

Yet it still moved.

“You’ve been reading her book,” Pa Oji said without looking up.

His voice cracked like old wood.

Dara and Muna froze.

“We didn’t—” Dara began.

“No need to lie. I buried that book. Thought it would never be found.”

He stood slowly. His clothes looked like they had been stitched from memory — patches from another time.

“Come inside.”

---

The hut smelled like burnt leaves and time.

Shelves lined the walls, each holding strange items: feathers, bones, empty jars, old clocks that all read different times.

On one of the walls hung a mirror with a dark cloth draped over it.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” Pa Oji said, settling into a creaky wooden chair. “Miss Teni.”

Dara nodded.

“She was one of the first to fight the island. But Idero doesn’t like to be challenged.”

“What is this place?” Muna asked, voice steady but low.

Pa Oji looked at them for a long time. Then he said:

> “Idero was a place of forgetting. A place people came to hide from the world. But too many forgot how to leave. And now... it holds on.”

He pulled a dusty book from a shelf — not the same as Teni’s, but older.

He opened to a drawing: a creature made of shadows, all eyes and mouths.

“They called it Oru Aye — The Midnight Between Worlds. They say it lives here. And it listens.”

“To what?” Dara asked.

“To names,” Pa Oji whispered. “To grief. To those who want to disappear.”

---

Muna stepped forward. “So if we stop saying our names—?”

“No,” Pa Oji interrupted. “It already knows them. You’ve been here too long.”

A deep silence followed.

Then the wind outside shifted. The bird in the cage squawked once — and died.

Pa Oji stood slowly.

“It’s coming closer,” he said, wrapping the mirror tighter with the cloth. “You opened a door when you read her journal. It won’t close now.”

---

Back outside, the air felt thicker. Heavier.

Muna whispered, “We have to tell Zino. And Sade.”

Dara didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the woods. The trees seemed to be swaying toward them, even though there was no wind.

Behind him, Pa Oji lit a small candle and placed it beside the mirror.

“It’s not about escaping anymore,” he murmured. “It’s about remembering who you were… before the island forgets you too.”

CHAPTER 6 — The One They Forgot to Love

They met her by accident.

It was just past noon, the kind of afternoon where the sun felt too bright for a place that never truly felt warm. Dara and Muna had gone with Zino and Sade to a nearby stream to wash clothes — a simple chore that kept their minds off the strangeness of the island.

And that’s when they saw her.

A girl sitting alone on the rocks near the water, her feet dipped in the current, her eyes not blinking.

She looked like someone who had forgotten how to smile.

“Isn’t that… Simi?” Zino whispered.

Muna nodded slowly. “Yeah. From the yellow house near the well.”

Dara had seen her once before. Walking behind her parents, shoulders slouched, eyes always on the ground. She was in their school but barely spoke. People said she was “strange” — or worse, “useless.” Some said she’d been cursed.

He never heard her speak. Until now.

---

“You came,” she said softly, without turning to face them.

Her voice was light, but carried a kind of sadness that seemed permanent.

“Came where?” Dara asked, cautious.

“Here,” she said. “To the place the island hides its favorites.”

Muna sat beside her. “What do you mean?”

Simi tilted her head toward the stream. “When someone is unwanted, the island watches. It watches until they stop fighting to be seen. And then… it gives them peace.”

Zino frowned. “That’s messed up.”

Simi smiled faintly. “It’s mercy. My parents have never looked me in the eyes. My mother once told me I should have been a boy. I think the island heard her.”

---

That evening, Dara told Pa Oji about Simi.

The old man went quiet. Then he said:

> “There are children the world forgets before they even grow. The island has a way of holding them — not like a home, but like a mirror.”

“A mirror?” Dara asked.

“Yes. It reflects what we don’t want to see.”

---

The next few days passed like mist.

Simi began to follow them — not intrusively, just always nearby. She was gentle. Kind. She noticed things others didn’t. She taught Dara how to find herbs in the woods that calmed nightmares. She told Muna how to braid her hair to keep the spirits from tugging it at night.

They all started to like her. Even laugh with her.

But Dara noticed something strange.

Simi didn’t have a reflection.

Not in mirrors. Not in water.

Not even in Zino’s phone camera, which he kept to play old music.

He asked her once.

And she said, “I gave it away. To feel light.”

---

Then, one morning — she was gone.

Her house was quiet. Her parents claimed they had no daughter.

They looked confused when Dara mentioned her name.

“I think you have us mistaken,” her mother said, tilting her head.

That night, Dara ran to Pa Oji’s hut in panic.

“She’s gone. They forgot her.”

Pa Oji closed his eyes. “No. She gave herself away. That’s different.”

---

They found a note at the stream the next day, pinned beneath a smooth, heart-shaped stone.

It read:

> “Thank you for seeing me, even if it was just for a while.

Don’t cry for me. I feel lighter now.

— Simi”

Muna wept for hours.

Even Zino stayed quiet.

And Dara — he looked into the water where her feet used to rest.

There was nothing there.

But he swore he felt a hand brush his own — soft, like wind.

Like someone saying goodbye.

CHAPTER 7 — The Shadow Door

The sky had been heavy all week, weighed down with clouds that refused to cry. The air smelled like rain but never gave it. The loss of Simi hung over the group like a funeral cloth no one dared to lift.

Dara couldn’t sleep. Every night he heard something whispering behind the wooden walls of their cottage. Not words — not exactly. Just… breathing. Not his. Not his foster parents’. Something else.

On the third night, he heard it again — a soft thud… thud… thud, like someone knocking gently from within the wall behind his bed.

He turned his torchlight on, heart pounding, and placed his ear against the wall.

Nothing.

He was about to lie back down when he saw it.

A faint crack — nearly invisible — outlining a door.

Not a real one. Not wood. Not metal.

It looked like shadow.

Thin, dark, almost painted onto the wall.

He touched it, just out of curiosity.

And it moved.

---

The next morning, he dragged Muna back to his room and showed her. She blinked in disbelief.

“Dara… there’s nothing there.”

“But there is! You don’t see the outline?”

She shook her head. “You need to sleep, bro. Grief is messing with you.”

But he knew what he saw.

Later that day, Zino pulled him aside. His face was pale. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days.

“I heard her voice,” he whispered.

“Whose voice?”

“Simi’s. She was crying. From behind the mirror in our living room.”

Dara felt cold run up his spine.

Zino’s next words chilled him completely:

“She said, ‘Open the door, Dara. Please… I want to come back.’”

---

That night, he returned to the shadow door.

He pressed his palm flat against it. It felt cold — not like wall-cold, but deep cold, like standing near the entrance of a cave that had never known sunlight.

Then he heard it again: breathing.

Except now… it was followed by a knock.

Once.

Twice.

Then silence.

Suddenly, the door pulsed, and a slit of light appeared across it — red, like embers. It didn’t open… but it was alive. Waiting.

---

The next day, Dara confronted Pa Oji.

“Why is there a door in my wall?” he demanded.

Pa Oji didn’t flinch.

He only said, “You’ve been seen.”

“By what?”

“The part of the island that doesn’t sleep,” the old man murmured. “It chooses who gets to remember, and who gets remembered. Some doors open only to those who are half here… and half forgotten.”

“I’m not forgotten,” Dara argued.

Pa Oji looked at him with a sadness that felt ancient.

“Not yet.”

---

That night, he dreamed of Simi.

She was standing behind the door, her hands pressed against it. Her eyes were full of tears.

> “It’s cold here, Dara… Please. Let me out.”

He woke up with a scream.

The shadow door was glowing faintly now — pulsing like a heartbeat.

And this time, it wasn’t alone.

Another door had appeared — just beside the first one.

Smaller.

And from the other side, he could hear his own voice whispering:

> “There’s no way out.”

CHAPTER 7.5 – The One They Chose to Forget

The day Simi disappeared from her home, no one noticed.

Not her mother, who used to wrap a scarf tighter around her brother's neck in the cold but always forgot Simi’s jacket.

Not her father, who once said in a quiet, bitter voice: “You should’ve been a boy. At least then you’d be useful.”

She had learned early to walk softly. To ask for nothing. To disappear.

But there were moments when she dreamed:

Of being loved like the boy in the family photo.

Of her name being called like it meant something.

Of someone noticing when she was missing.

That day, it rained.

It didn’t pour. It dripped.

Like the world was crying but too tired to weep.

Simi had been gone since morning. Still, no one asked.

Not when her mother served food for three.

Not when her father locked the front door and said, “No noise tonight.”

She walked. Alone. Her legs aching. Her stomach empty.

And somehow, she found the boat.

It was moored by the edge of a river no one remembered having.

Old, cracked, and painted with peeling white.

The name on its side said “Idero.”

She didn’t know why she climbed in.

Maybe because the wind whispered, “They will see you here.”

Maybe because the river looked like a mirror, and for the first time… she saw herself.

The boat moved before she could change her mind.

It glided. As if guided.

Simi watched her world fade behind her like a dream she didn’t belong to.

And the sky grew darker.

She arrived when the stars had blinked out and the moon was red.

The island was waiting.

A woman met her at the shore — old, wrinkled, with eyes like fog.

“Another forgotten child,” the woman said softly. “Come. Idero remembers you.”

And for the first time in her life…

Simi was wanted.

---

Back on the island…

Simi sat by the Singing Tree the day before the Festival.

It had started humming.

She touched her name carved into its bark.

Tears slid down her face — not because she was afraid.

But because she finally believed someone would remember she was here.

> “Dara… when the sun fades… don’t forget me.”

CHAPTER 8 – The Festival of Smoke

The sun refused to rise properly on the morning of the Festival.

It hovered behind a thick gray sky like it was afraid to look down on Idero.

Dara woke to the scent of smoke.

Thick ribbons of it curled through the trees, drifting in from the village square. Everyone in the house was already awake. Even Muna, who usually refused to get out of bed before noon, was dressed in a strange red garment with bones stitched into the sleeves.

“Come on,” she whispered, “we have to wear the masks.”

Dara blinked. “What masks?”

Zino stepped into the room then, his face already hidden behind a carved wooden mask — jagged teeth, wide hollow eyes, the kind you'd expect to see in nightmares.

“They say if you don’t wear one, they’ll think you're not one of the living,” he muttered. “And they will come for you.”

Dara tried to laugh, but no one else was smiling.

---

In the square, the entire village had gathered.

Every face was hidden — some grotesque, some weeping, others blank.

A bonfire roared in the center, its smoke mixing with the sky.

The old woman who first welcomed them to the island stood by it, arms raised.

Her voice rang out like a forgotten prayer:

> “Let the Remembered pass by. Let the Forgotten walk among us.

Hide your faces. Speak no true names.

And when the smoke reaches the sea — do not look back.”

Drums began. Slow and mournful.

People danced, some stumbling as if caught in a trance.

Children threw dried flowers into the fire.

Someone whispered to Dara: “Tonight, the dead ask to return.”

---

He felt it then — the weight of eyes on him. Watching.

Behind the Singing Tree, something moved.

Simi stood there. But her mask hung loose in her hands.

“Put it on!” Dara whispered urgently. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to hide,” she said, her voice soft. “I want to be seen… even just once.”

A breeze stirred. The tree above her gave a low, trembling hum.

Zino turned toward the sound, eyes wide behind his mask. “The tree,” he said. “It’s singing again.”

“No,” Dara breathed. “Not again…”

Simi smiled sadly.

“I think it’s for me this time.”

---

That night, she vanished.

Some say they saw her walking toward the cliffs barefoot, singing to herself.

Others said she was taken — by the Remembered or the Mirror Folk.

Her mask was found the next morning, hanging from the Singing Tree, swaying gently in the breeze.

Her name had been added to the base of the tree in thin, delicate letters — carved not by human hands.

And the next sunrise?

Still refused to come.

CHAPTER 9 – The Boy Who Looked Too Long

It started with Zino talking to his reflection.

At first, Dara thought he was joking.

He caught him in the bathroom mirror, whispering, laughing softly — like someone had told him a secret.

But when Dara asked about it, Zino’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“She’s still here,” he said. “Simi’s with me.”

Dara’s blood ran cold. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

From that day, Zino grew quieter. At dinner, he didn’t eat. At night, he’d sit by the cracked mirror near the stairs, staring like he was waiting for it to blink.

---

Three days after the Festival, the island changed.

Paths they’d walked a dozen times now turned into loops.

Doors led to different rooms than they had the day before.

The Singing Tree stopped humming. But the silence it left behind was worse.

And sometimes — just sometimes — Dara saw reflections move out of sync.

---

One morning, Dara followed Zino into the woods.

He kept saying, “I just need to see if she’s real. I just need to ask her why.”

Dara begged him to stop, but Zino moved faster, deeper. Until they reached the edge of the Mirror Pool — a still body of water, so perfectly clear it reflected the sky even though there was no sun.

“I can hear her,” Zino whispered. “She’s in there.”

He leaned forward.

Too far.

And the water reached up.

Dara shouted, grabbing for him, but Zino was already halfway submerged, his eyes wide, lips moving silently like he was speaking to someone beneath.

For a moment, Dara saw another Zino — inside the water — grinning. Not scared. Not human.

Then the Zino above gasped, violently jerked, and disappeared.

The water went still.

And Dara was left staring at himself in the pool…

…except his reflection didn’t copy his movements.

---

That night, Zino came back to the house.

He looked the same. Sounded the same.

But he never blinked.

And when he passed the mirror in the hallway, he didn’t cast a reflection at all.

---

CHAPTER 10– The Ones Who Left But Stayed

Dara hadn’t slept in two days.

Not really.

He’d close his eyes and see Zino’s face floating just beneath the Mirror Pool, smiling without breath.

Then he'd open them and find Zino sitting across the room — alive, speaking, joking, breathing.

But Dara knew something was wrong.

He didn’t just feel it.

He heard it — in the way Zino’s footsteps didn’t echo.

In how mirrors stopped reflecting him.

In how Muna started locking her door at night without saying why.

---

On the third night after the pool, Dara confronted him.

They were sitting near the fire pit outside, the wind pushing smoke around like invisible hands.

“Zino,” Dara said slowly. “You... you remember the first time we saw the island, right? From the boat?”

Zino didn’t blink. “Of course.”

“What was the first thing we saw on the cliffs?”

Zino smiled. “The Singing Tree.”

Dara’s blood ran cold.

They had never seen the Singing Tree from the boat.

Only after they’d been on the island for two weeks.

“You’re not him,” Dara whispered.

Zino stood. “Maybe I’m better.”

---

That night, the house shook.

Not from an earthquake — but like something was walking through it, room by room.

Muna screamed once, and then went silent.

The lights flickered.

The walls moaned.

Dara rushed out of his room and found… nothing.

Until he passed the hallway mirror.

There, in the reflection, he saw himself — staring back — smiling.

But when he touched the glass, the reflection didn’t follow.

And then… it raised its hand and waved.

---

He ran to Muna’s room and pounded on the door.

She opened it slowly, eyes wide with tears.

“I saw her,” she choked. “Simi. She was standing by the tree. Her eyes were black and her voice…”

“What did she say?”

Muna’s lips trembled.

> “She said we never left. We only thought we did.”

---

The next morning, half the village was gone.

No footsteps. No sounds.

Just empty houses and strange drawings on the walls — spirals, eyes, broken clocks.

And outside Dara’s window?

The ocean was… gone.

Replaced with endless forest.

The island had changed again.

No borders. No escape.

Only the sound of the wind whispering names they had all forgotten.

---

--

CHAPTER 11 – Reflections Lie Too

The mirrors stopped working.

All of them.

First it was the hallway one — the one Zino used to stare into.

Then the kitchen mirror, then the pond, then even their own shadows stopped lining up.

When Dara looked in the glass now, he didn’t see himself.

He saw someone else.

A version of him…

with deeper eyes, a sharper jaw, and something rotting in the smile.

---

Muna was losing it.

She whispered Simi’s name in her sleep.

She crossed out the island map with red ink — and then screamed when she found the same marks tattooed on her arm.

And Zino… if it was Zino… just watched them.

“I think this place remembers us better than we remember ourselves,” he said, stirring his tea even though it was empty.

“We came here thinking we were escaping. But what if the island didn’t trap us?”

He looked at Dara.

> “What if we’re from here?”

---

Dara wanted to scream.

He ran outside, into the woods, searching for something — anything real.

Then he heard it.

A voice, soft, like wind between teeth.

> “Dara…”

He turned.

No one.

> “Dara, come see…”

It was coming from the Singing Tree.

He followed, steps heavy, heart louder than the crickets.

The tree stood taller now, its bark stretched like skin, humming that eerie melody again.

And there, beneath it —

A mirror.

Tall. Cracked. Ancient.

But Dara saw something in it.

Not his reflection.

A memory.

---

He was younger. Maybe ten. Holding a balloon.

A woman — soft-eyed, tired — was shouting.

“You’re not my son! They switched you!”

Then the memory dissolved.

Now he saw the foster home.

Mr. and Mrs. Adeyemi… carrying a box. Crying.

But they weren’t sad.

They were scared.

The box moved.

Inside it… Dara.

---

He fell to his knees.

> “What am I?” he whispered.

The mirror spoke back.

> “A memory that remembered too much.”

---

He didn’t return to the house that night.

Instead, he sat beneath the Singing Tree, watching shadows stretch around him like arms.

And when he finally looked at his reflection again…

…it blinked before he did.

---

---

CHAPTER  12– The Mirror World 🪞🌑

The tree cracked open that night.

Not like wood splits from wind.

No — it peeled like skin, revealing a door behind the bark. Smooth, reflective, humming.

Dara stood in front of it, hand trembling, heart screaming.

Zino had followed him — or the thing wearing Zino’s smile had.

“You’re not real,” Dara hissed.

Zino tilted his head. “Neither are you.”

And then he shoved Dara into the mirror.

---

The Mirror World was not a place.

It was a feeling.

The moment Dara passed through the bark-glass, he wasn’t walking — he was dripping.

Melting through space, then landing hard on a street that looked just like the island… but empty.

No birds. No sky.

Just versions of the village. Shadow-versions. Broken copies.

Each house was mirrored — backward, eerie.

And the people inside?

They looked just like the villagers… until you saw their eyes.

Every eye was hollow, endless, like mirrors turned inside out.

---

Dara wandered through it, clutching his chest.

The world responded — showing him pieces of himself.

In one window: a birthday he never had.

In another: Simi, before she died, kneeling by the singing tree, crying into the roots.

And in the middle of the square… was a chair.

A single, silver chair — and in it, a boy.

His own age. His own face. But pale, quiet, and stitched at the lips.

He opened his hand.

Inside it: a cracked key.

> “Take it,” the stitched-Dara mouthed.

> “You’ll need it to escape. If you still want to.”

---

Suddenly, the mirrored sky split.

Black vines tore down from above like lightning. The reflections began to scream.

The stitched version of Dara rose and whispered one final thing:

> “You’re the copy.”

Then the world folded.

---

Dara woke up back in the forest. Or what felt like the forest.

But the sky was purple, the birds spoke in riddles, and Muna was standing beside him — with blood on her hands.

“He’s gone,” she whispered.

“Who?”

She didn’t answer. Just held out the cracked key.

> “We have to return it. Or it’ll keep taking.”

---

The Mirror World was not done with Dara.

It knew him now.

And it wanted him back.

---

CHAPTER 13– The Real Ones Don't Remember 🌫️

The days blurred.

Dara woke up one morning and didn’t remember how old he was.

The next, he couldn’t recall his last name.

By the third, he forgot what his mother looked like.

“Muna,” he whispered. “Why do I feel like I’ve lived here before?”

She stared at him, pale. “You asked me that yesterday.”

The island had changed. The woods moved when no one watched.

Zino, who had once been full of riddles and sarcasm, now just stood still for hours, watching the forest line.

Until he vanished.

One moment he was outside plucking leaves.

The next — gone.

No scream. No sound.

Just a shoe by the roots of the Singing Tree.

---

Then came the fog.

It rolled in without warning — thick, heavy, and alive.

Anyone who stepped into it came back… different.

Some came back silent.

Some didn’t come back at all.

Mrs. Adeyemi tried to enter it, calling for Zino.

When she returned, she stared at Dara and said, “Who are you?”

---

That night, Muna heard a whisper near the Singing Tree.

It was Simi.

Her ghost.

She sat at the roots, bleeding but calm.

> “It wasn’t supposed to be you,” she whispered.

“They chose the wrong reflection.”

And then she faded into the bark.

In her place: the key.

Now glowing.

---

CHAPTER 14– The Final Ritual 🎭

Thunder rumbled — but the sky was clear.

The ground shook — but nothing moved.

Then came the voices.

From the trees, from the rocks, from beneath the house.

Masked figures appeared. Tall, hunched, some crawling.

They wore faces — wooden, carved, smiling.

The island’s Ritual of Returning had begun.

Each year, they said, one child must be “undone” — erased from both worlds.

Firstborns. Always firstborns.

> “But I wasn’t born here,” Dara said.

“No,” the masked one replied.

> “But your reflection was.”

---

Muna begged him not to go.

Mrs. Adeyemi wept like she had lost him already.

But Dara… he was tired. Of forgetting. Of running.

And he wanted answers.

So he stepped into the circle beneath the Singing Tree.

Key in hand.

The ritual began — a song, backward and slow.

As they chanted, the mirror cracked open again.

And Dara felt his body stretch — not painfully, but like a memory being unraveled.

Then he saw himself again.

The stitched Dara. But now, the stitches were open. He spoke:

> “This is what you are. A memory made flesh.”

> “Then let me forget,” Dara whispered.

And he walked into the mirror again.

---

CHAPTER 15– The One Who Stayed 🔒

Silence.

Then — a house.

Dara was inside the home again, but no one else was.

The clocks had stopped.

The mirrors were all empty.

Even the Singing Tree was still.

He wandered outside. The island looked the same… but the sky had no sun.

Just dim light.

Then he saw her.

Muna. Alone. Standing at the edge of the shore, whispering his name.

She couldn’t see him.

> He was now a part of the island.

A guardian. A reflection.

The one who stayed behind.

To keep it quiet. To keep it asleep.

Muna returned home that night.

She opened the Book of Names… and wrote “Dara.”

But by morning, the ink had vanished.

---

CHAPTER 16 – Leave Before Sunset 🌅

The island stood silent.

A new family arrived, years later.

Tourists. Adventurers.

They never found the house.

They never saw the tree.

But their daughter — a curious little girl — found a strange notebook in the dirt.

It had drawings of a tree, a boy, and shadows with mirrors for eyes.

On the last page, written in a shaky hand:

> “Some stories end before they end.

Others just stay, like shadows.”

That night, as the sun dipped below the trees, she looked into a puddle.

And saw a boy smile back at her.

Not her reflection.

Just… watching.