Kazeem stepped out of the house with leaden feet, the door creaking shut behind him. The sky was too bright. The light too familiar. Everything about the day felt identical.

  He had tried, twice.

  Speaking about something else. Knocking over a cup. Tiny changes that had startled his mother or made her raise an eyebrow… but hadn’t shifted the day’s flow. Not in any real way. She still said the same words. Still hummed the same tune. Still offered him foutou and sauce graine, warm and heavy and familiar.

  But without that feeling.

  That fullness he had tasted on the ninth… the true ninth. when he’d broken the loop, when he had changed something real. This time, it wasn’t there. His body ate, but his soul stayed hollow.

  He had considered doing something bigger. More violent. More impossible. But something deep in his chest, a buried instinct, or perhaps a leftover echo from the loop, had stopped him.

  Not yet.

  It wasn’t fear, not exactly. It was closer to a warning, the kind that only children and cursed things could hear.

  So he walked.

  Same wind. Same footsteps. Same trees swaying in the same rhythm. A branch creaked in the exact same way as yesterday, and a cluster of yellow flowers fell into the path like they were trapped in performance. The sun wasn’t just shining, it was repeating.

  And it made him nauseous.

  Most people wouldn’t notice. Most people would be grateful. A beautiful day, it is warm, calm and there is no sign of trouble.

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  But Kazeem saw the strings beneath it now. And they were tightening.

  He muttered, “It’s okay. The day isn’t over yet,” trying to soothe the dread pressing behind his ribs.

  But his voice didn’t carry the confidence he hoped. His amber eyes flickered, trembling slightly with unease.

  The market was just up ahead when he spotted him… again.

  The old scavenger, same crooked back, same cart piled high with bent metal rods and rusted bolts. His sandals slapped unevenly against the path, and the cart’s single wheel squeaked every fourth turn.

  And just like before—clink.

  A small piece of metal fell from the side.

  Kazeem watched it hit the ground, just as it had yesterday. The exact same spot. It spun a little before settling, almost like a coin flipped by fate itself.

  He moved quickly and picked it up, holding it in his hand as if it were something sacred.

  “What if I tell him this time?” he whispered to himself.

  “Hey, Unc!”

  The scavenger glanced back. “What? Oh, lil ghost!”

  Kazeem flinched at the nickname, though he’d heard it for years. If the kids called him ghost-eye, the scavenger had a full rotation of alternatives : lil freak, tower boy, quiet one. Rarely his real name.

  It wasn’t just the eyes and his weird handsomeness which always make him stand out , though those were part of it. It was how he used to sit silently atop the raid camp tower, staring off into the distance like he was watching something invisible move through the trees. Like he knew something no one else did. He simply looked too strange for them.

  “This piece fell off your cart.”

  “Oh?” The old man squinted, then waved dismissively. “It’s alright. You can have it.”

  Kazeem blinked.

  “Nothing happened,” he thought bitterly.

  “Wait! Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, sure,” the scavenger said, already turning his back.

  “…Are you sure to be sure?”

  That’s when it started.

  A sharp pressure in his temple, like someone had whispered too close to his ear. His heartbeat stumbled.

  The old man didn’t turn. “Ahhhh, If you don’t want it, just toss it back on the cart.”

  Kazeem stepped forward, clutching the metal. “But—”

  His sentence broke. The headache surged, dull at first but growing quickly. Not like normal pain. Like something ancient and heavy pressing against his thoughts.

  And there it was again.

  Gb?…

  Not a sound.

  A feeling. A flicker of wrongness that curled beneath his ribs. His stomach growled, not from hunger but from hollowness. The same kind of emptiness he had felt the moment before time broke. But now, it was wrong, stunted. As if he was trying to force open a door that wasn’t ready.

  Stop, his instinct whispered again. Not this way.

  He froze.

  The scavenger disappeared into the crowd, cart rattling behind him, metal clinking softly like laughter.

  Kazeem stood still. The piece of metal weighed nothing in his hand, but felt heavier than a stone.

  The second attempt had failed.

  I did this chapter while being hungry ….