AFTERLIGHT

The house was gone.

Not just in rubble—but in presence.

No whispers in the walls.

No breathing behind mirrors.

No throb of power in the floorboards.

Gone.

Like it had never existed outside a fever dream.

Zina stood at the edge of where it had been, the black rose still glowing faintly in her hand. The earth was raw beneath her bare feet, scorched in a perfect circle where the altar once stood. Around her, the forest sighed in relief.

Birds chirped.

Leaves rustled.

Light moved again.

And Zina?

She stood very, very still.

She should have run.

Should have cried. Should have fallen to her knees and screamed her own name until it sounded like something real again.

But instead, she whispered, "It's over."

The wind didn't answer.

And that silence felt like the beginning of something… cruel.

She walked.

Out of instinct. Out of ache.

The sigil on her skin had vanished, but the phantom pain remained — a kind of spiritual limp. She didn't know where she was or how long she had been walking, only that her shadow was hers again.

No house.

No king.

Just her.

Hours passed.

Or maybe days.

Time unraveled in her mind like an old scarf pulled loose from both ends.

By the time she reached a road, she was dust-covered and barely breathing. The first car that stopped didn't ask questions. A woman behind the wheel with tired eyes and a cross on her mirror just looked at Zina and nodded once.

"You're not the first to come out of those woods."

Zina blinked. "You believe me?"

"I don't have to," the woman said. "But I do."

Zina got in.

🕯️ Days Later – Market-Above Healing

The room was small. Smelled of spices and ink.

Zina lay on a thin mattress under a flickering bulb in the attic above a market in Ibadan. Below, the sounds of life danced and shouted and argued their way into her half-dreams.

No whispers.

No shadows.

Still, she couldn't sleep.

When she closed her eyes, she saw veils. Thirteen mouths sewn shut. A mirror breathing like lungs. Kain's hand reaching across a memory he was trapped inside.

But mostly, she saw herself.

Standing at the altar with a black rose in her hand and a choice in her chest.

She chose freedom.

And it tasted like ash.

The rose hadn't died.

It sat in a mason jar by her bed, unmoving. Glowing faintly when the moonlight touched it. Never blooming further. Never wilting.

Just… watching.

On the fourth night, a knock.

Not on her door.

On her window.

She opened it slowly, bracing herself.

It was Laila.

But changed.

No more veil. No more tremble in her bones. Her eyes weren't haunted—they were burning with purpose.

"I didn't think you'd come," Zina whispered.

Laila stepped through the window like it was a portal. "I didn't think I could."

She held Zina's hands.

"You freed me."

They sat together on the floor and talked until the lantern burned out.

Laila had wandered after the collapse. Gotten lost in a place that had once been home and prison and secret.

She had slept under trees and awoken to her own voice for the first time in years.

"I can speak without permission now," she said, voice shaking.

"You always could," Zina whispered. "You just forgot."

They spent three days together.

Walking the city. Eating roadside boli and watching children chase kites.

Zina was quiet. Laila laughed too loudly, like she was making up for lost years.

They didn't talk about the house often.

But when they did, they always called it "it."

Like naming it might give it shape again.

One night, while washing their faces at a tap behind the building, Laila asked, "Do you think he meant it?"

"Kain?"

Laila nodded.

Zina hesitated.

Then: "Yes. And no."

"I think he wanted love. But all he knew was power."

She dried her hands.

"I think he would've loved me—if he remembered how."

Laila nodded slowly.

"I think he envied you."

🕯️ The Birth of the Thirteenth Room

Weeks later, Zina found the building.

An abandoned clinic with broken windows and graffiti on the front. Vultures circled it like it owed them something.

She walked inside.

No ghosts.

Just silence and rot.

She knelt in the middle of the cracked waiting room floor and whispered,

"I want to build something honest here."

The black rose, still with her, pulsed once.

She used her last savings. Laila helped her clean.

Together, they painted, swept, sang songs from childhood. They left a jar of honey in every room—"to sweeten the air," Laila said.

And finally, a name over the door:

> THE THIRTEENTH ROOM

A sanctuary for the forgotten.

For girls with empty mirrors and names whispered only in nightmares.

The first woman arrived three days later.

Then another.

Then five.

Zina didn't ask for their stories. Not until they were ready.

She just gave them a bed.

And silence.

And a black rose at every door.

Sometimes, at night, she dreams.

Kain sits on a field made of salt and smoke.

He never speaks.

She always does.

> "You could've been more."

> "You could've been free."

Then she wakes.

Lights a candle.

And writes a letter to one of the brides.

She's written twelve.

One remains.

The last one will be to herself.

And she knows exactly how it begins:

> "Dear Zina,

You were never meant to survive.

You were meant to rewrite the ending."