Dante Chambachikola

The first semester at the University of Lusaka's Leopards Hill Campus had just started, and Dante, a freshman law student, already despised group assignments.

He sat in the university's new lecture hall, a half-dozen law books spread out across the desk. They were supposed to be working on a presentation for their Legal and Academic Writing class, but the other three group members were glued to their phones, laughing at something on TikTok.

"Bro, did you see the video of that minister whose nudes leaked?" one of them, a guy named Mike, asked.

Dante didn't look up. "No."

"Ah, this guy is always serious," another one said, nudging Mike. "Leave him. He'll do all the work anyway."

They went back to their phones. Dante let out a quiet sigh. They weren't wrong. He would do all the work. It was just easier that way. Dealing with people was exhausting.

He glanced at his own phone. He had a dozen unread messages, mostly from family asking when he was coming home to Soweto for the weekend. He ignored them. He loved his family, but they were... a lot. They still treated him like the quiet kid who needed protection, not the one who was supposed to be protecting them.

His family was different. They called themselves Diviners. It meant they could see things others couldn't. For Dante, it meant he could see that his lecturer was lying about her credentials, or that the campus security guard was cheating on his wife. It was a cheap, useless kind of magic most of the time.

He also had a weird connection to shadows. It was hard to explain. Sometimes, when he was tired or not paying attention, he could reach for his backpack across the room and his shadow would stretch out and grab it for him. It was a neat party trick he had never shown to anyone.

He closed his textbook. He couldn't focus. The new hall felt too loud today. He needed to walk.

"I'm heading out," he said to his group. "I'll send you my part of the slides tonight."

They just grunted in response, their eyes still glued to their screens.

Outside, the February heat was immediate. The campus was buzzing with the energy of a new semester. Students were hanging out on the lawns, lining up at the cafeteria, and complaining about their first assignments. It was all so normal. Dante felt like he was watching it from behind a pane of glass.

He put in his earbuds, but didn't play any music. He just wanted to dull the noise of the world. He walked without any real destination, his hands shoved in the pockets of his trademark black hoodie.

He passed a couple arguing near the school gate. He could see the faint, jagged aura of anger coming off the boy, and the shimmering, watery aura of sadness around the girl. He looked away. It wasn't his business. It was never his business.

He found himself walking along the sidewalk of Leopards Hill road, watching the traffic. Cars, minibuses, and taxis fought for space, a chaotic but familiar dance. He stood for a bit, feeling the sun on his face. For a moment, he was just another student skipping a boring lecture. It was nice.

He decided to do something normal. He walked across the road to the small cluster of shops and bought a Fanta and a meat pie. He sat on a concrete curb to eat, watching people go by. It was a simple exercise his grandfather had taught him: "To see the world, you must first sit still in it."

He watched a woman haggling with a vendor over the price of tomatoes. He watched a group of kids in school uniforms chase each other, their laughter sharp and loud. He watched a man in a sharp suit talking on the phone, pacing back and forth, with a cigarette in his hand.

Everything was exactly as it should be. The city's pulse was steady.

And yet... something felt off.

It was a feeling he'd had for a few weeks now. A low-level static in the back of his mind. A sense of... anticipation. Like the feeling in the air right before a big storm hits.

He finished his pie and tossed the empty bottle in a bin. The feeling was stronger today. He decided to walk back to his boarding house in Bauleni. He needed to be alone. He needed to think.

As he stood up, he glanced back at the university. From this distance, it was just a collection of buildings. But Dante saw the shadows stretching from them. And for the first time in his life, they looked less like reflections, and more like fingers reaching out for something.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He was just tired. Overthinking things, as usual.

It was just another normal Tuesday in February. There was nothing to worry about.

He started the long walk back, keeping to the side of the road. The journey to his boarding house in Bauleni wasn't short, but he preferred it over the cramped, noisy minibuses. The walk gave him time to think, to let the city's rhythm wash over him. Usually, it was a comforting, predictable beat. Today, it felt like a drum whose skin was pulled just a little too tight.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting another message from his family. Instead, it was a news alert.

"MINISTER OF FINANCE DENIES CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS. PROMISES FULL COOPERATION WITH INVESTIGATION."

Dante snorted. He'd seen that same minister at State Lodge last week, his aura a greasy, confident green—the color of successful lies. He swiped the notification away. It was just more noise. More proof that seeing the truth didn't give you the power to change it.

As he turned onto the dirt road that led deeper into Bauleni, the atmosphere shifted. The wide avenues of Leopards Hill gave way to a dense maze of small houses, makeshift shops, and the constant thrum of neighborhood life. Here, the shadows were older, deeper. They held the memories of generations.

He passed a group of men playing a heated game of cards, their shouts and laughter echoing off the concrete walls. He saw his landlord, a large woman with a perpetually tired expression, chasing a stray dog away from her vegetable stand. It was home. It was normal.

He finally reached his room, a small, single unit at the back of a crowded compound. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, the relative cool and quiet a welcome relief. He dropped his backpack on the floor and collapsed onto his bed, staring at the ceiling.

The image of the university's shadows, like grasping fingers, returned to his mind.

He was being paranoid. It was the pressure of school, the weight of his family's legacy. That's all it was. He closed his eyes, trying to push the feeling away. He just needed to focus on his studies, get his degree, and maybe, just maybe, live a life that was his own.

He reached for his phone, deciding to finally reply to his mother. As his fingers hovered over the screen, it buzzed again. This time, it was a message from a number he didn't recognize.

"Yo, my guy. Heard you're a genius. Can I join your legal and Academic Writing group?"

Dante stared at the message. Dealing with people was exhausting.

He turned his phone over and placed it face down on the bed. He'd deal with it later. Or never. Never sounded good. For now, he just wanted silence.