1.
Aphiwe had, as her mother would say, just dipped a toe into the last day of her life…
"Not like that!" Aphiwe yelled.
Lesanda threw down her arms letting out an exaggerated groan.
"I don't even want to do this!"
"No! I let you go first, so now I get to go!"
"I don't want to play anymore."
"If you stop without me getting a turn; I'm going home."
"That's not- You can't- You promised!"
"So did you!"
Both girls stared, caught in an impasse. Aphiwe sighed and walked away.
Lesanda's jaw quivered.
"Okay! But do it from-"
Aphiwe parted her feet, shoulder width, digging toe to root and soil, hands apart, spine straight, the bow the length of her body pulled taunt, top and bottom giving, she loosed and her arrow flew straight and true.
Thud!
Crash!
Lesanda was flipped, blowing through a young Barudabi tree, snapping it in half. Aphiwe froze. Time as she knew it expanded infinitely, swallowing space and matter.
Then a gravely still Lesanda cried out, squirming and clutching her chest. Aphiwe blinked a tear away, laughing as she dropped her bow, sprinting up to Lesanda who was still hugging her heart.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!"
Kicking out of Aphiwe's line of sight, Lesanda's foot carved into the soil, sweeping Aphiwe's leg before she could think. Lesanda's onyx and silver speckled legs wrapped around Aphiwe's neck, rolling them.
Layers of rotted leaves, soil kicked up as they gained speed spinning on and on.
"Stop!" Aphiwe yelled.
"No! You hit me harder than I hit you!" Lesanda cried out.
"I'm sorry!"
"Liar, you laughed!"
"I'm sorry!"
"For what?"
"I don't know."
They sped up.
"I'm choking."
"Good!"
"No really."
"You wouldn't be able to talk if you were choking."
It shut Aphiwe up, she let go of Lesanda's smothering thighs, suddenly kicking up. Lesanda's momentum, mixed with Aphiwe's, launched them skywards.
"Wait! Stop! We're right next to the-"
It was too late. The wooded earth hit a sudden end. Aphiwe stood only to fall, taking Lesanda with, momentum launching them over.
The girls parted, screaming their lungs out. The drop wasn't their own. Dozens of vines, branches and webbing crowded, mostly them along the way, bouncing and flipping them until they slammed into the floor with a crash that caused birds to shoot up into the air.
From multiple vines sap dripped, pooling before spilling down to another slow accumulating pool. Bugs poured out the woodwork, attached to them crystalized versions of the same syrup with green and purple roots popping out like veins. The bugs converged in sappy war, and the veins fed on the aftermath too, slowly glowing.
Out the bark, needle like spikes burst out, stabbing the bugs, pulling them in. A sheet of thick meat closed, crushing and dissolving them in their hundreds, jagged claws like pins formed a shape, like carpet of teeth.
Said 'carpet' fell. Clicking and clacking on root and compost. A far larger one fell. Both moved in on each other but the second bunched, doubling in size, it was enough to shrink the other.
There was a heaving roar.
The creatures shuddered retreating for a second before, rushing forwards, feelers reaching out, then Aphiwe sneezed.
Another roar.
Her pointed ears perked.
"Lesanda!" She yelled. "I think that sound was a Jokai… Lesanda!"
She got nothing.
Aphiwe jumped as though shot out a cannon, roaring baby lungs producing a baby growl. The carpet creature slithered back, retreating as though chased.
Aphiwe stumbled, holding her head and the world swayed, dropping her to her knees.
She gasped for air.
"Lesanda, get up!"
Aphiwe gripped handfuls of earth and rot, squeezing as it bled out her fingers.
She whistled, short and erratic bursts upon finding her friend. Her legs a blur rushing and, immediately scooping Lesanda up. Her muscles gave a frightening chill to her bones. There was blood coming out Lesanda's mouth.
Aphiwe ran out of breath and simply held onto her friend, just throbbing in pain until the weight and pressure on her eased enough to let her breathe.
She whistled faster.
Time passed, dragging on until she ran out of breath and she had to wait until her heart ached less and she started up again. Long dried tears rehydrated like a riverbed after long rains.
In the distance, a bark returned in the same bursts, followed by a long running whine. Heavy paws pounded the ground. An immense Sedi jaguar appeared. Its head and paws were bulbus. The muscles between thin, and coated in scales. With every step they rose and dropped, revealing millions upon millions of spikes like waves in an ocean, each insignificant compared to the whole package. It spread its front paws low to match her eye.
She patted its head, almost falling on it.
"Good girl, Bae Bae, I need you to go to mom. There's a Jokai here. We got to get out of here, now!"
The creature jumped away but came back. In one hand, she lifted Lesanda, wiping a tear with the other. Spikes sharp enough to dig into rock, bounced off dull onyx and silver as she lay Lesanda over the beast. Aphiwe jumped on after.
They took off.
A distinct roar made her shudder. All across was a dense forest, earth and thick raised roots. Remnants of civilisation could be seen, abandoned. Unmaintained and unwatched by her people. The level of earth abandoned for the health of the God Tree.
Bae Bae deftly blasted ahead as if she were flying through open plane. Aphiwe held Lesanda and dug into the spikes, letting them branch and cling to her as they rippled.
They were out of the densest forest, but still surrounded by trees, so large they weren't pillars but towers, ranging forever only to end in the shadow of trees so large she couldn't see their curve. All a sickly white and tan. There was another chill down her spine as another roar came. In the distance was a pit, above a solid wall of wood and plane tan vines. In-between and along the bark, a stairway.
"Bae Bae, we're not going to make it if you don't go faster."
Bae Bae's were not the only audible steps.
She turned to see a monkey. It had six tails, each tip a mace of fur and spikes running up its spine. Its fingers dense. Steel nails ripping into the wood. Its face a sunflower of jagged leather and bone. It was small; waist-high at its tallest, but enough to make Aphiwe scream for Bae Bae to go faster. She was trembling, looking back and forth, before taking a deep, deep breath. Jokai did not leave survivors.
"Bae Bae, go back to my mom. Bring her back, I'll work to gather enough time for you to fetch her."
She jumped off and Bae Bae slowed only for Aphiwe to scream for her to go.
Bae Bae ran, howling as she blasted off, her speed on a completely different scale.
Aphiwe scrambled, picking up a long, petrified branch that had caught her eye. She swung it, the creature halted.
"Go away!" She screamed.
The Jokai tilted its head. Aphiwe took a step forward, it took one. She pressed, taking five, it took four back, then taking three for her four, two for her three, one for her two and then none.
Aphiwe jumped on the spot screaming, she looked back seeing Bae Bae and Lesanda disappear up the stairway up the colossal stem of the God Tree.
She looked back to see it growling, sharp but thick fangs flared, the tails spread. It crushed what nerve she had and fast.
Screaming, she ran at it as it bounced from left to right, it jumped over her head, all six tails had a mind of their own, each picking a different spot. Two targeted her goggles, one her chest, another her legs. The steel bounced off her skin but pushed her back. The stick caught air. The creature belched.
Purple sprayed from its lips. Aphiwe's eyes widened and she immediately took off, pulling what was left of her leather tunic over her nose. The Jokai was fast, overtaking her and slapping the stick out her hands, forcing her to go get it.
The moment she bent, it jumped on her back, its claws bouncing off her skin but ripping through the tunic like tissue. A purple spray hit her head, passing over as it tried to pull her goggles off.
Her hand caught metal and squeezed, it howled and she bounced it against rock and root spinning fast and hard. She watching it bounce and looked to the stem of the God Tree.
It might as well have been in another world.
She ran for the branch, her world spun, nearly making her buckle and trip, spitting and seeing purple.
Sprinting, she dove for the branch, grabbing it and running directly at the creature. It was quick to its feet; shaking but bouncing as she chased it like a maniac.
She panted but didn't stop, her body weight on her heels before she bounced, sidestepping and swinging wildly, catching it off guard.
Just as dense purple spray burst, Aphiwe dove.
She rubbed her nose finding purple snot. A secondary concern because the creature was down.
Still purple sprayed.
She unhooked her goggles, putting one glass on her eye and the other over her nose. Closing the exposed eye, she grabbed the branch, breaking the ends a taking any rocks there and filling her mouth. Struggling to breathe she made her way forward, it blasted more purple, black blood oozing out its head. It tried to retreat. She came after it slamming without mercy until there was black blood across the soil.
Her world still spun, and she stumbled to her knees. The branch fell, forgotten for a desperate run for the pit, the world zigzagging against her will.
'Mama!' her mind cried out, mouth locked.
Her muscles spasmed but pushed on.
A tail swept her ankles before another tail shoved.
A tiny Jokai jumped on her back. Rich purple blew over her head, her exposed eye forced shut.
The creature jumped in front of her, spraying directly into her face, she flailed but might as well have been nailed to the floor, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed.
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Aphiwe's world is suffocating—literally. Choked by vines in the belly of a cavernous tree, surrounded by skeletons and blood, she fights for breath while monsters close in. But her cry isn't for escape. It's for her mother.
"Mama!" she screamed into the purple fog, as the tree itself shuddered and a Jokai larger than nightmares stepped forward.
This is more than survival. It's the story of a girl caught between the secret ambitions of her family and the monstrous forces that guard the great houses. A coming‑of‑age drama where loyalty, power, and bloodlines collide—and where one desperate heartbeat can change everything.
📖 Step inside the house they're building in shadows. Witness Aphiwe's fight to belong, to breathe, and to rise.