Chapter 8: The Eclipse draws near

Jordan found herself falling.

Or floating.

She couldn’t quite tell.

Above her, the sky stretched wide and dark, but not empty. There were twelve stars, all evenly spaced, hovering in a circle like sentinels around a great cosmic stage. And at the center of that stage—the sun and the moon, impossibly close, shifting toward one another with slow, deliberate gravity.

She stared, breathless.

The sun blazed golden. The moon was a silver coin, quiet and cold. As they drew closer, the stars began to pulse—faint at first, then brighter. Brighter. Until their light outshone the sun itself.

And then—

Alignment.

The sun and moon locked into place. Not a full eclipse. Not darkness. Something else. Something divine.

The instant they met, the stars flared white.

Jordan’s vision blurred. A sound like a breath caught in the throat of the universe rang out—a hollow, vibrating silence.

When her vision cleared, she was no longer in the sky.

She stood barefoot in the middle of Cape Town CBD.

Cars lay abandoned. Shop windows shattered. Sirens screamed in the distance, but they didn’t sound like sirens anymore—more like animals howling. People ran past her, screaming, their mouths moving with no sound she could understand.

She turned.

And saw monsters.

On the rooftops, winged things with long, skeletal limbs stretched toward the skies. In the streets, shapes that looked vaguely human but moved like shadows, dragging tendrils behind them. And above it all, swirling in the air like a second sky— tear. A rip in reality, humming like a broken song.

And there—on the horizon—

Table Mountain.

A flame licked its peak. Then another.

Then, like dry paper touched by a match, the entire mountain roared into fire.

Jordan stepped back, stumbling. Her hand reached for something—anything.

But there was nothing to grab.

The city burned.

The sky cracked.

The world screamed.

And then—

She woke up.

Her room was still.

Morning light filtered through the curtains, gentle and yellow. The sound of birds chirping and a distant taxi horn floated in from outside.

She lay in bed, heart pounding.

Everything looked ‘normal’- a word that felt uncomfortable thought Jordan..

And yet… the light seemed thinner somehow, as if Cape Town were waking under the wrong sun. The shadows on her wall stretched a fraction too far, like they didn’t quite belong to the objects that cast them.

 Her skin felt cold. Her throat dry. Her hands trembled like she’d just escaped something real.

She sat up, staring at the light spilling across her floor.

Outside, the world moved on.

 Unaware.

But above it all, high in the sky, the eclipse was coming.

The water in the bathroom was warm against her skin, but Jordan still couldn’t shake the cold feeling in her bones. She moved through the morning like someone walking through a dream—one she hadn’t quite left behind.

At the breakfast table, her mom was humming along to the radio, buttering toast, already dressed for work.

Her little sister, Cairo was scribbling something in crayon at the kitchen counter, tongue sticking out in concentration.

“Sleep okay?” her mom asked, not looking up.

Jordan hesitated. “I had a weird dream.”

“Was it that YouTube horror you watched last night?” her mom asked. “I told you not before bed.”

“It wasn’t that,” Jordan mumbled, sipping her tea.

“Well, write it down before you forget. Dreams mean something when you’re young. That’s what your grandma always said.”

Jordan glanced at the morning light pooling on the floor.

Table Mountain looked like Table Mountain through the window.

Still, she wrote it down anyway. Her grandma was always right about these things. And because—though it made no sense—some part of her feared the dream might matter later.

Table Mountain looked normal through the window.

Still, she wrote it down anyway.

By the time she reached varsity, the dream had dulled at the edges. The sky above was bright and cloudless, but something about the light felt… off. Like the sun had been diluted, just a little.

She found Richard waiting for her on the bench near the netball courts. Hoodie, black jeans, schoolbag dangling from one shoulder. He always looked like he just stepped out of a graphic novel.

“Yo,” he greeted, tossing her a guava-flavored sucker. “For surviving Monday.”

“It’s Tuesday,” she said, catching it.

“Time’s an illusion. I’ve been saying that all term.” He smirked, tapping his knee as if counting.

“Think that makes it… twelve times now.”

Jordan stilled, wrapper half-torn between her fingers.

“Twelve?” she echoed.

“Yeah. Why?”

She sat next to him, shoulder to shoulder. The bench creaked slightly under their weight.

“I had a dream,” she said, unwrapping the sucker.

“Oh?” He didn’t look at her yet.

“Twelve stars, the sun and moon aligned, and then Cape Town was—” she hesitated,

 “—it felt like it was the apocalypse. Table Mountain was on fire.”

Richard blinked. “That’s crazy.”

“I know, right?” she said, forcing a laugh.

“I had a dream too.” He paused. “A dragon ate the moon.”

Jordan snorted. “That’s your dream?”

“Yup. It landed on the mountain, wrapped around it like a snake. Then it bit the moon and swallowed it whole.”

She looked at him.

They both burst out laughing.

“Bro, what did you eat last night?”

“Fish fingers. You?”

“Half a Gatsby and regret.”

They sat for a beat, the silence between them familiar, comfortable.

“Anyway,” Richard said, kicking at a stone near his shoe, “it was just a dream. Right?”

Jordan nodded slowly.

“Right.”

But she didn’t believe it.

And judging by the way Richard’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, neither did he.

The rest of the day passed quietly.

Classes, murmurs of the upcoming eclipse, phones filled with memes.

 At break, Luna argued with Kevin about anime rankings again. Someone played Amapiano off a Bluetooth speaker. Mr. Venter gave them all the “don’t stare at the sun without glasses” lecture.

Jordan tilted her head back, squinting at the sky. The sun looked the same as always. And yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was moving, even when no one else could see it.

 And somewhere above them, high in the sky, the moon began its slow, silent drift toward the sun.