Insight of a Kenyan Girl

Tilly stared at Nathaniel, her arms crossed tightly over the manuscript like it might shield her from whatever he was about to say.

“Survived what?” she asked, voice brittle.

Nathaniel rose slowly from the chair, not threatening, not urgent—like a man burdened by too much knowledge.

“Mystique was never just a club,” he began. “It’s a gate. A sanctuary for those who’ve been broken in ways the world doesn’t recognize. People don’t come here by accident, Tilly. They’re drawn.”

Tilly shook her head. “I didn’t choose this. I was just here for work. I was—”

“Grieving,” he finished softly. “Alone. Floating between what was and what could be. You lost something the world couldn’t give back. And in that void… we find people like you.”

She stepped back. “You found me?”

“No,” he said. “You walked in on your own. You chose the manuscript, remember? Out of hundreds.”

Tilly’s lips parted. The day of the submission—how the cover had shimmered, how something about it had tugged at her. The title. The Chosen Shadows.

“You planted it.”

“We left it. For the right person.”

Her voice cracked. “This is insane.”

Nathaniel didn’t argue. He walked to the shelf and pulled a leather-bound volume—no title, no author—then opened it.

Inside were names. Dozens. Some marked through. Some circled in red.

She recognized one.

Lena G.

Tilly’s knees nearly buckled.

“Lena was one of us?” she whispered.

“She still is. Or was. Until she tried to warn you.”

“That’s why the call dropped.”

Nathaniel nodded. “She broke protocol. She wanted to protect you. But that’s not how this works.”

Tilly backed into the table, eyes burning. “What is this, Nathaniel? A cult? A sick literary experiment?”

He looked at her with something between guilt and awe. “It’s a reflection. A rewriting of fate. Everyone in this room had something taken from them. A part of their story cut out before they could finish the chapter. Mystique gives them the pen back.”

Tilly clutched the manuscript. Her name—Tara Morgan—scrawled inside it like a scar she thought she’d buried.

“So what,” she whispered, “I was just another story to you?”

“No,” he said, his voice breaking for the first time. “You were the one I couldn’t finish. Until now.”

Silence folded over them.

Her thoughts were a blur: the silver ring, the red envelope, Lena’s voice like a ghost, the mirror of herself in the manuscript pages. The version of her that Nathaniel had somehow, impossibly, already known.

And beneath all that—rage.

“I’m not your character,” she said, voice low and sharp.

Nathaniel held her gaze.

“No,” he said. “You’re the author now.”