A shadow fell unto Late. Mr. Marcus White's grave...
"Dumbasses, the traces you ALL left... Y'all will pay for this..."
DATE: 25 | 05 | 2025
The wind whispered through the graveyard, rustling dead leaves and overgrown grass. Clouds loomed overhead, heavy with the promise of rain. The lone figure stood motionless before the tombstone, gloved fingers tracing the cold stone. The name, once powerful, now reduced to letters etched in silence.
Boots scraped against gravel. Another presence.
"We need to go."
The figure didn't turn. Didn't move. Just stared.
"Not yet."
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The past wasn't finished speaking.
___________________________
18 YEARS BACK – THE SAME DAY...
The rain wouldn't stop. It hammered against the windshield, drowning out the sound of his father's voice. Five-year-old Kisimoto Sasukan gripped his plush toy, watching his father's hands tighten around the steering wheel.
"Hold on—!"
The car skidded. Tires screamed. Then, the world tilted.
The bridge railing shattered as they crashed through it, and the vehicle plunged into the river.
Cold. Heavy. The water swallowed them whole.
Kisimoto's tiny fingers fumbled with the seatbelt, lungs burning, heart hammering. He could barely see in the darkness, but he could hear—his father, struggling.
Their eyes met.
Panic. Desperation. Love.
His father tried. He really tried. But the water was faster, crueler. The river pulled, twisted, consumed. The last thing Kisimoto saw was his father's mouth forming his name—before everything faded.
Light.
Kisimoto gasped awake, coughing up water. His tiny body trembled, soaked to the bone, as strong hands lifted him. A stranger—no, a reporter—wrapped a coat around his shoulders.
"You're safe now, kid."
Safe?
His small fingers clutched the damp fabric of the coat. He turned his head, staring at the river.
The water rippled, undisturbed. His father never surfaced.
Police sirens howled in the distance. A crowd gathered, voices blurring together. Then—
"Kisi... oh my god—Kisi!"
His mother's scream cut through the noise. She pushed past the officers, her face pale, her eyes wild with fear. His newborn sister in her arms, totally puzzled, was in tears too on seeing him.
His mother fell to her knees, pulling him into her arms. She was sobbing, her body shaking against his. His sister hugged him tight.
But Kisimoto didn't speak.
Didn't cry.
Didn't move.
He just kept staring at the river.
Because that night, the water didn't just take his father.
It took something from him too.
The officers talked to the reporter, taking notes. Someone wrapped a blanket around Kisimoto's small shoulders, but he barely felt it. The world around him blurred. Voices muffled.
His mother was still holding him, her hands shaking as she smoothed back his wet hair.
"We're going home, Kisi. You're safe now."
Safe.
That word again.
His little sister, cradled in their mother's arms, had stopped crying, her wide, innocent eyes locked onto him. She was barely old enough to understand, but she knew something was wrong.
The only thing though, which she didn't know was that- ... Everything was wrong.
The river was quiet now. Like it hadn't stolen a life that night. Like it hadn't swallowed his father whole.
No one could hear it, but Kisimoto did.
A whisper.
A presence in the water, curling around the wreckage beneath the surface. Watching.
Waiting.
The river wasn't done with him.
Not yet.
TO BE CONTINUED...