@ShadowTalesNG 24 June 2026 more from that month

The Sky's Debt The third star fell. Not down. _Through_. The floor vanished. My brother’s hand passed through my chest like smoke and yanked something out of me I didn’t know was there. A thread. Silver. Tied to my heart. The compass cracked. Light bled from the fractures. The note’s last words changed before my eyes: _Never use it twice. Unless you’re ready to pay._ “Pay what?” I choked. The thread was pulling me forward, into the hole in the sky. My brother smiled, but it wasn’t his smile anymore. His black-hole eyes reflected constellations that had died millions of years ago. “You didn’t read the rest. A star for a soul. Fair trade. But the sky… the sky collects interest.” Outside, the stars didn’t just flicker out. They screamed. Each one that vanished took a sound from the world with it. First the crickets. Then the wind. Then my own heartbeat. Frost wasn’t climbing the walls now. Silence was. The compass burned hotter. Words burned deeper: _THE DEBT MUST BE PAID. YOUR STAR OR HIS._ I understood then. Grandfather didn’t hide the compass because it was dangerous. He hid it because he used it. That empty chair at our dinner table wasn’t my brother’s. It was his. “You brought him back,” the thing wearing my brother’s face said. “But you’re the one who’s missing. You’ve been missing since the night he vanished. You just didn’t notice.” Memory hit like ice water. Three years ago. Car crash. Two bodies pulled from the wreck. Only one funeral. I wasn’t the one mourning. I was the one mourned. The third star reached the compass and didn’t stop. It kept falling. Through the compass. Through me. Through the floorboards Grandfather once pried up. The hole in the sky widened. Something looked back. Not a constellation. Not a god. The thing that takes stars when humans get greedy. It had Grandfather’s eyes. “Last choice,” it whispered with the wind that no longer existed. “Step through with him. Or stay. But if you stay, every star you stole will come back down. As fire.” My brother—whatever he was now—held out his hand again. This time it was warm. Human. “You were always afraid of empty chairs. Come sit with me.” The compass fell from my hand and shattered. Each shard held a piece of sky. Each piece was going out. I looked at the empty chair in the corner. Then at the hole above. I stepped forward. The world went dark. Somewhere far above, a new star lit. It looked exactly like me. --- #shortstory #nigeria #fiction #twist #suspense