The knock remained hanging in the silence of the small room.
Elsha's hand rested on the door, but he did not open it immediately. He stood there for a few seconds and listened. Whoever was outside had not knocked again. There was no impatient tapping, no voice calling his name, and no sound of someone moving away. Whoever it was seemed content to wait.
Elsha narrowed his eyes.
There had been a time when a quiet knock at his door could mean anything. An enemy. A messenger. Someone seeking help. Someone coming to collect a debt. In the other world, even silence could carry danger. A person could smile at you during the day and send someone to kill you before sunset.
But this was Nairobi.
This was supposed to be different.
He slowly opened the door.
Jasmine stood outside.
For a moment, Elsha simply looked at her.
She looked calmer than she had the previous night, but there was something different in her eyes. The playful expression he had seen at the market was gone. She looked tired, almost as if she had spent the entire day thinking about whether she should come here.
"You," Elsha said.
Jasmine gave him a small smile.
"Me."
He looked past her toward the narrow path outside his house. It was quiet. A few lights from nearby houses were visible through the darkness, and somewhere farther away, a vehicle moved along the road. Nairobi had not completely gone to sleep, but this part of the neighborhood had settled into the slower rhythm of the night.
Elsha looked back at her.
"What are you doing here?"
"I told you I needed to talk to you."
"You could have talked to me at the stall."
"I couldn't."
"Why?"
Jasmine hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
Elsha stepped aside slightly, but he did not invite her in.
"What happened?"
She looked down for a moment before raising her eyes again.
"I need your help."
Elsha almost laughed.
Not because it was funny, but because he had expected those words the moment he saw her standing there.
"I can't help you."
"You don't even know what I need."
"I don't need to know."
Jasmine stared at him.
"You're serious?"
"Yes."
She looked at the small room behind him.
"You really are going to leave me standing outside?"
"You came here without telling me."
"I left you a note."
"That doesn't make it better."
A faint smile touched her lips, but it disappeared quickly.
"I didn't know who else to come to."
Elsha remained quiet.
He could already feel where this conversation was headed, and he didn't like it. The last thing he wanted was another person's problem finding its way into his life. He had spent too much time escaping problems that were far greater than anything an ordinary person in Nairobi could imagine.
He had escaped death.
He had escaped an entire world.
He had returned to a life where his biggest concern was whether enough customers would come to his meat stall.
That was enough.
"What happened?" he asked again.
Jasmine looked over her shoulder.
This time Elsha noticed the movement immediately.
She was checking the road.
Checking the darkness.
Checking whether someone had followed her.
His expression changed slightly.
"Are you being followed?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
Elsha said nothing.
Jasmine looked at him.
"Not tonight."
That answer was different.
Elsha stared at her for a few seconds.
"So you were."
She looked away.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I just don't want to take chances."
Elsha leaned against the doorframe.
"You should go to the police."
Jasmine immediately shook her head.
"I can't."
"Why?"
"My family."
Elsha waited.
Jasmine seemed to realize that she had said more than she intended.
"What about your family?"
She took a breath.
"They have a lot of influence."
"In what way?"
"Not like that."
She shook her head again.
"I mean... they know a lot of people. Important people. Business people. People everywhere. If they find out where I am, it won't take them long to come for me."
Elsha studied her face.
There was fear there.
Not the fear of someone who thought she was about to be attacked that very moment, but something deeper. The fear of knowing that wherever she went, the people she was trying to escape had enough reach to eventually find her.
"So you're running from your family?"
Jasmine nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"Why?"
She looked down.
"I can't tell you everything."
Elsha straightened.
"Then there is nothing I can do."
"I knew you would say that."
"Then why did you come?"
"Because I thought you might understand."
Elsha's expression hardened slightly.
"Understand what?"
"What it feels like when everyone else decides what your life is supposed to be."
For a moment, something moved inside him.
The words were simple, but they touched something buried beneath years of memories.
He remembered people making decisions for him.
He remembered alliances he had never asked for, battles he had never wanted, expectations placed upon him because of the power he possessed. He remembered a world where strength did not always mean freedom. Sometimes the stronger you became, the more people wanted from you.
And then there was the cliff.
The fall.
The betrayal.
The second chance.
He pushed the memories away.
"You don't know anything about me," he said quietly.
"No," Jasmine replied. "I don't."
She looked at him for a moment.
"But I know you saved me."
Elsha looked away.
"That was nothing."
"It wasn't nothing to me."
"You were being chased."
"And you still helped me."
"You were standing behind me."
She almost smiled.
"So if I had been standing somewhere else, you wouldn't have helped?"
"Probably not."
Jasmine gave him a strange look.
"You're a difficult person."
"So you've said."
A small silence settled between them.
Then Jasmine's expression became serious again.
"They are looking for me."
"Who?"
"People sent to find me."
"Your family?"
She hesitated.
"Yes."
Elsha looked down the road again.
"And the men from that night?"
Jasmine nodded.
"They were sent to bring me back."
Elsha's face remained calm, but his mind returned to Kangemi. He remembered the frightened girl running toward him, the men behind her carrying metal weapons, and the moment he had spoken a single word.
Noisy.
He remembered the men disappearing into smoke.
He had thought they were simply dangerous people.
Now the story looked different.
"You knew them?"
"No."
"Then how did you know they were looking for you?"
"They weren't the first people sent after me."
Elsha was silent.
There it was again.
Another piece of a story she was not ready to tell.
He could have asked questions. He could have pushed her until the whole thing came out.
But he didn't.
He had no interest in becoming involved in someone else's family problems.
"Then go home," he said.
Jasmine looked at him as if he had said something impossible.
"I can't."
"Why?"
"I already told you."
"Then stay somewhere else."
"I don't have anywhere."
"You have a family."
"I don't want to go back to them."
"Friends?"
She shook her head.
"Anyone else?"
"No."
Elsha sighed.
The conversation had reached the point he had been trying to avoid.
He looked at Jasmine carefully.
She was nineteen. Young enough to still have much of her life ahead of her, yet old enough to understand that whatever she was running from was not something that would disappear simply because she ignored it.
He knew that feeling.
Sometimes running only changed the location of the problem.
It did not make the problem disappear.
"How long have you been away?" he asked.
"A few days."
"And you've been moving around since then?"
She nodded.
"Where have you been sleeping?"
Jasmine didn't answer.
Elsha understood.
"You've been sleeping outside?"
"Sometimes."
He looked at her clothes.
They were still neat, but there were signs that the last few days had not been comfortable. Her hair was not as carefully arranged as it had been at the market, and there was a tiredness around her eyes that she could not hide.
Elsha looked back into his room.
It was not much.
A small bed.
A small table.
A few things he owned.
The same place where he had slept on the floor while Jasmine occupied the bed only a short time ago.
He had wanted a quiet life.
Instead, trouble had found him again.
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Just for tonight," he said.
Jasmine looked at him.
"What?"
"You can stay here tonight."
Her expression changed immediately.
"You mean it?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet."
She stepped inside.
Elsha closed the door behind her.
For a few moments, Jasmine stood quietly in the room, looking around as though returning to a place that was already becoming familiar.
Elsha noticed.
"You've been here before."
She looked at him.
"Yes."
"I know."
She smiled faintly.
"I remember."
He moved toward the small table and placed his things down.
"You'll sleep on the bed."
"And you?"
"The floor."
"You did that last time."
"I survived."
Jasmine laughed softly.
"You really don't care about comfort, do you?"
"I care about peace."
She looked at him.
"That sounds like something an old man would say."
Elsha gave her a flat expression.
"You talk too much."
"And you don't talk enough."
She smiled.
For a few seconds, the room felt almost like it had been the first night she had stayed there.
But this time there was something different.
The fear was no longer simply about what had happened in the streets.
There was a larger problem standing behind Jasmine, something Elsha could sense without understanding.
He sat down on the edge of the bed.
"You can't stay here forever."
"I know."
"You need to figure out what you're going to do."
"I know."
"And if people come here looking for you?"
Jasmine looked at him.
"They won't."
Elsha raised an eyebrow.
"You sound very sure."
She looked toward the door.
"They don't know this place."
Elsha remembered that she had found his stall easily enough.
"And if they find it?"
Jasmine didn't answer immediately.
"I don't know."
That was probably the most honest thing she had said all night.
Elsha leaned back slightly.
He could have told her to leave.
He could have refused to become involved.
Perhaps that would have been the sensible thing to do.
But something about her situation bothered him.
Not curiosity.
Not attraction.
Something else.
He had spent another lifetime watching people become prisoners of circumstances they had not chosen. He had watched people fight for freedom only to discover that the world had already decided what they were supposed to be.
He knew what it was like to have a path placed in front of you and be told that you had no right to choose another.
Maybe that was why he had opened the door.
Maybe it was simply because he couldn't watch someone who was frightened stand outside his house at night.
He wasn't sure.
And he didn't want to think about it too much.
Jasmine sat quietly on the bed.
"Why did you help me?"
Elsha looked at her.
"You already asked me that."
"I know."
"And I already answered."
"You said I was standing behind you."
"That is the answer."
She smiled slightly.
"I don't believe you."
"You don't have to."
The room became quiet again.
Outside, a vehicle passed somewhere in the distance. A dog barked once before falling silent. The night air moved gently through the small opening in the window.
Jasmine eventually lay down.
Elsha remained seated for a while.
He looked toward the ceiling.
Another problem.
Another person.
Another disturbance to the simple life he had tried so hard to build.
He almost smiled at the irony.
In the other world, trouble had come looking for him because of his strength.
Here, he had almost nothing.
No title.
No army.
No cultivation sect.
No treasures.
No enemies that he knew of.
Yet trouble still seemed to find him.
Perhaps trouble did not care how powerful a person was.
Perhaps it simply followed people wherever they went.
"Elsha?"
He turned his head.
Jasmine was looking at him.
"What?"
"Thank you."
He stared at her for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"Sleep."
She smiled and closed her eyes.
Elsha eventually lay down on the floor.
But sleep did not come immediately.
He listened to her breathing and stared into the darkness.
His senses reached beyond the small room without effort. The familiar world of Nairobi surrounded him; the distant movement of vehicles, footsteps somewhere beyond the walls, voices fading into the night.
Nothing unusual.
No spiritual pressure.
No aura.
No trace of the world he had left behind.
Just Nairobi.
Just a young woman sleeping in his house because she was afraid of the people searching for her.
Elsha closed his eyes.
He had wanted an ordinary life.
A simple business.
A small house.
Peace.
Yet somehow, even in a world where he had buried his power and forgotten his former identity, life had found a way to place another person's trouble directly in front of him.
He wondered how long he could keep pretending that it had nothing to do with him.
And somewhere in the darkness, before sleep finally came, one thought remained in his mind.
He had opened the door.
Now he would have to live with what had walked through it.