As Ella and I were walking down the corridor towards the school exit, I texted my mother and asked her if I should bring anything on my way home from the shops. She replied quickly, saying we had everything we needed at home.

Ella and I were chatting about playing video games during the weekend when I started to feel as if my body were on fire, especially around my neck. My throat felt constricted, and I started to cough uncontrollably.

There was a high-pitched ringing sound in my ears. It rang louder and louder until it started to hurt my ears. I held my hands to my ears, trying to make it stop, but it didn’t relent.

I started to see red, as if the world were washed in fresh blood. Panicked, I wondered if my eyes were bleeding. I blinked to see if the red hue would clear, but it just became more intense. My eyes were dry and scratchy, and they started to water. The dry cough persisted, while efforts to mute the ringing in my ears with my palms failed.

“Thando! What’s wrong? What is happening to you?” Ella asked. 

Ella’s voice sounded muffled. I couldn’t tell what was louder: the ringing in my ears or the beating of my heart.

Before I could respond to Ella, a strong gust of wind hit my feet and swept me up towards the ceiling until I could almost touch the exposed rafters with my head. Yet, when I looked down, I saw myself on the ground, standing next to Ella. I still had my hands over my ears. Am I outside my body? How am I seeing myself from above?

Time had slowed down on the ground while it moved normally where I floated.

A tall humanoid made of molten lava and flames materialised right behind my body on the ground. I could feel its warmth from the ceiling, but its heat did not burn anything around it. It stood with its hands around my neck, strangling me.

I screamed, but no sound came out.

“That’s a Kryona strangling you,” said a voice next to me. The voice was so close, I thought it came from my head. It was the voice of a man. It spoke matter-of-factly, as if there weren’t a fiery creature strangling a girl before it.

I looked around and I couldn’t see anyone. I had that familiar feeling of being watched. It must have been the shadow man speaking to me, but where was he? Still suspended in the air, my heart beating fast, I felt fear rush through my body.

“Do not be afraid,” said the voice. “If you become afraid, you will fall back into your body. And I need you here for just a little longer.”

I couldn’t speak back to this man’s voice in my head. I was too stunned.

“The Kryona will not rest until it has consumed you,” continued the voice. “Since it has not been able to consume you, it goes around consuming anyone who allows it, to satisfy its hunger for you. But substitutes of you do not satisfy it; instead, it just gets hungrier. Therefore, you need to consume it first to stop its carnage on other humans.”

Something about hearing those words set me off, and I was sucked into an intense panic attack. Adrenalin rushed through me, and I felt as if I were on the brink of death, my chest in intense pain. The panic catapulted me back into my body so violently that I almost crashed straight to the ground.

Breathless, and splayed on the ground after the fall, I stared up at Ella in shock. My hearing returned and the wave of students’ gasps and whispers hit me. They were gathering around, murmuring to themselves.

An image of my mother looking at me close to my face flashed in my mind, and everything went dark and silent.

~

Dreamer: The Activation of Makeba excerpt