The phone pressed against David's ear felt heavier than any weight he'd lifted .
His father's voice came through in waves questions about his whereabouts, his health, his academic standing, his state of mind. Each question was a small, precise dart, and David had no answers. He couldn't say I was fighting a philosophical nightmare made of mirrors. He couldn't say I passed out for two days in a secret base. He couldn't say I'm not an engineering student anymore, I'm something else entirely.
So he let the questions wash over him, offering vague murmurs and half-truths, until...
"David."
His father's voice, sharper now. A command wrapped in concern.
David blinked. The room came back into focus. The white walls. The medical equipment. The empty noodle bowl.
"David, are you listening?"
"Yes, sir. I'm here."
A muffled exchange. Then his mother's voice cut in, closer now.
"David, hope you're not in a cult oh ."
David's stomach dropped.
"A cult? Mom, what? "
"You're acting really strange." she insisted.
"No, no, no." He denied while running his hands through his hair.
"Please. It's not safe anymore in your school. These things they're saying on the news gas leaks, student disappearances I don't like it. I don't like any of it."
Gas leaks. The official story. The polite fiction that kept the world from panicking.
"No, Mom. I'm not in a cult." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry for not being available. I just… lost my phone."
The lie tasted like ash. But what else could he say?
His father's voice returned, softer now. "Well, I'm glad you're okay. That's the most important thing."
David heard his mother inhale sharply. The kind of inhale that preceded a storm.
"Our son is clearly lying," she said, her voice aimed away from the phone now, at his father. "And you want to end this quickly and leave."
A muffled sigh. Then his father again, closer to the receiver: "We've been talking for over an hour. It's best we just let it go. Besides, I need to rest. It's late over here."
His mother's sigh was long and heavy. "Of course. Well, you can leave."
A click. His father was gone.
The silence stretched. David held his breath.
"David." His mother's voice was different now more softer, lower, the way it got when she was about to say something that mattered. "You don't have to hide things from me. You know I'm always here for you."
David's throat tightened. He stared at the white ceiling.
Always here for you. The words should have been a comfort. Instead, they were a weight. Because she was always there. And one day, that might cost her everything.
"Yes," he said finally. "I know. And I'll always tell you what happens."
It wasn't a lie. It was a promise deferred. One day, maybe. When he could find the words. When she could handle them.
"Give me the phone numbers of your new friends," his mother said.
"New... friends?" He replied with a sharp confusion
"Since the old ones are nonexistent anymore."
He almost laughed. New friends. Jonathan. Praise. Eloghosa. The giant with the black flail.
"Alright, Mom."
"I love you."
"Love you too mom ."
A pause. Then her voice, warm and familiar, reciting the prayer she'd said before every exam, every interview, every first day of school:
"Whatever you set your hand to shall flourish."
David closed his eyes. "Amen."
The line went dead.
He sat there for a long moment, phone pressed to his ear, listening to nothing. Then he lowered it. The screen glowed 167 missed calls,274 messages but he didn't look at them. He just breathed.
Whatever you set your hand to shall flourish.
He hoped she was right.
He left the room.
The hallway opened into something he hadn't expected. The Covenant base wasn't a bunker or a cellar or a sterile command center. It was a dojo but one that had been dragged into the present century and told to adapt.
The floors were polished wood, warm under his bare feet. Weapons lined the walls in neat, respectful arrangements: staffs, training swords, weighted chains, and things he'd drawn countless times before . But alongside them, mounted on racks and hanging from hooks, were modern tools: weighted vests, resistance bands, speed bags, and equipment he recognized from boxing gyms. Ancient and current, side by side.
And everywhere pink doves hovered .
They perched on the rafters, on the weapon racks, on the windowsills. Their feathers were soft, almost luminous, and they moved with a quiet, calming grace. Wherever they sat, the air felt lighter. Fresher. Like breathing after rain.
Eloghosa's, David realized. His aura. His doves.
He walked through the dining hall long wooden tables, empty now past the spacious training hall where mats had been laid out for sparring, until he reached a large, open room at the heart of the base.
The main room.
Eleven people stood in a loose semicircle, their backs to him. They wore variations of the same uniform sleek, black, modern but each had a different colored accent at the collar, the cuffs, or the seams. David spotted Jaron's purple, Jonathan's blue, Praise's gold, Eloghosa's pink, and in the corner, a vast silhouette of pitch black that could only be Ezra.
They were praying.
Their voices were low, harmonizing in a language David couldn't understand but he recognize. It wasn't English. It wasn't Yoruba or Benin or any of the other languages he'd grown up hearing. It was something older. Something that belonged to the space between words.
At the front of the room, on a raised platform, a wall stretched long and high. Picture frames lined it row after row of faces. Some young, some older, all wearing the same expression: not pride, not sorrow, but resolve. The kind of look that said I knew what I signed up for.
And at the bottom of the wall, a new frame.
Marcus.
The man with the white sword. The one who had grinned before the fight, who had called David "kid," who had been flung across the courtyard and never got up.
His face was still. His eyes held that same resolve.
Vanguards who die don't truly die, David realized. They stay here. In the will of those who carry on.
Jaron's head turned slightly. He didn't need to look ,he sensed David standing there. The leader straightened and faced the room.
"We have a new Vanguard," Jaron said, his voice carrying easily across the space. "David Osayi. Some of you have met him. Some of you have only heard."
He gestured, and Jonathan stepped forward.
In Jonathan's hands was a folded set of clothing. The fabric was matte-black, the kind of black that seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it. Dense but soft somewhere between cotton and something else entirely. Something that felt almost alive, as if it had been waiting.
Jonathan handed it to David, who unfolded it carefully.
The jacket was high-collared and tailored, fitted but not tight, with long sleeves that would reach his wrists. The cut was clean, almost ceremonial the kind of garment that demanded the wearer stand up straight. Down the front, a single row of hidden clasps instead of buttons, keeping the silhouette unbroken.
But the detail that caught David's eye was the green.
Vibrant, emerald-green piping ran along the collar's edge, tracing the cuffs of the sleeves, and lining the hem at the waist. The same green as his light. The same green as the line that had cut through Axum.
The pants matched—slim but not restrictive, with the same green accents running down the outer seams. A simple black belt with a plain buckle completed the set.
It looked like something between a martial arts uniform and a modern formal jacket. Practical enough to move in. Elegant enough to matter.
David ran his thumb along the green piping. The fabric was cool to the touch, but it warmed slightly under his fingers as if recognizing him.
"Welcome," Jonathan said. Quiet. Earnest.
David smiled. Just a little. Just enough.
The room erupted in applause. Not polite clapping but genuine, warm, almost boisterous. Eloghosa whooped. Praise's smile was wide and bright. Even Ezra, standing in the back with his massive arms crossed, gave a slow, deliberate nod.
David looked around at them. Eleven people. Eleven strangers who had decided he was worth betting on.
Then Eloghosa was there, wrapping his long arms around David in a crushing hug.
"Welcome, welcome, welcome," Eloghosa said into his shoulder. "You're one of us now. No take-backs."
David patted his back awkwardly. "Noted."
Eloghosa released him, grinning.
David looked down at the uniform in his hands, then at the eleven faces watching him. Then at the wall of frames ,Marcus among them now watching too.
"So," David said, clearing his throat. "When do I start?"
Eloghosa chuckled a low, knowing sound.
"Start?"
A pink dove fluttered down from the rafters and landed gently on David's shoulder. Its feathers were warm, and its tiny heart beat against his neck.
And then
The world folded.
Not broke. Not shattered. Folded, like a piece of paper creased along a perfect line. The dojo blurred, the faces smeared into streaks of color, and David felt himself lifted not flying, but translating, moving from one point in space to another without crossing the distance between.
He landed on his feet.
His room. Hall Four. Akanu Ibiam Hall. His bottom bunk by the door.
The pink dove that had been on his shoulder was gone. But another one sat on his pillow, preening its feathers, completely unbothered.
David stared at it.
The dove stared back.
"Omo," David whispered, his voice small in the quiet room. "What just happened?"
He touched his chest. His heart was racing, but his body felt fine. No nausea. No disorientation. Just the lingering sensation of being folded through space.
The dove tilted its head. Then.
The door burst open.
"DAVID!"
Three of his roommates spilled into the room Chuka, Tolu, and the quiet one whose name David always forgot. They were grinning, shouting, slapping his back.
"Where have you been, man?!"
"We thought you were dead!"
"Your phone's been off for days!"
David let himself be absorbed into the chaos of their voices, their questions, their relief. He hugged them back, laughing, making up excuses he couldn't remember a second later.
And on his pillow, the pink dove vanished in a soft puff of light.
David Osayi was back.
But he wasn't the same person who had left.