About The Thread that Binds Us
Maya finds herself in a mysterious train, the carriage filled with ‘faceless people’ except for a boy near her age who was standing next her, named Liyema (who’s name she would mistake as Liam.)
The two would interact and bond as the train continued moving, not noticing the bright white light that would surround the train just as the transport vehicle stopped moving, causing the faceless people to suddenly rush out of the carriage and into the white light while Liyema was forcefully dragged in the process while Maya would desperately try to reach out to him but was held back by the large crowd.
Using her red hair tie as a makeshift rope, she would throw one end to Liyema while she held on to the other end and the two would tie their respective ends to their wrists before the blinding white light covered the whole train.
The two would simultaneously wake up in their respective rooms with no memory of the train nor of each other, just as all around the world, strange distortions suddenly start appearing.
Five years later, Maya, an astrophysicist-in-training and musician, would struggle to focus on the song that she was writing before she diverted her attention to a strange phenomenon of lights similar to the aurora borealis in the skies of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Enchanted by the colorful lights and motivated by the years of solitude due to the death of her parents, she would silently express her desire for companionship and for a love like her parents had for each other.
Meanwhile on the coastal town of Hermanus, South Africa, while hosting a successful art gallery that showcased several of his paintings, Liyema, an artist that was growing in fame, stared at one of his paintings of a mysterious woman that he had painted before he would later witness a strange phenomenon of an array of different shades of purple lights appearing in the night sky in various shapes above the ocean.
Enchanted by the anomaly and motivated by the feelings of loneliness experienced from the death of his past lover, Nolwazi, he silently expressed his desire for companionship that would replace the feelings of loss that he had.
As the two slept, a purple distortion would appear near Maya and send her to then appear next to Liyema before it sent her back just as he woke up.
As a year passed by, the two would find glimpses of each other in their everyday lives while sometimes finding themselves in a shared dream and glimpsing into each other’s memories, developing feelings for each other in the process.
A large distortion would one night appear above their respective towns/cities in the form of a large purple circle that showed the top view of the other’s city before closing as suddenly as it came.
The next day after the anomaly, realizing that her memories of Liyema were fading along with all her diary entries that were about him, Maya would desperately attempt to mentally contact Liyema who was having a brief meeting with Nolwazi’s mother, she would encourage him to move on from her daughter’s death before he would later that night find himself encountering a large anomaly as he sat by the beach, an electrical storm above him that would send him briefly to Maya’s side who pleaded him to find a way to her before he reappeared once more on the beach.
Realizing that his memories of Maya were now fading, Liyema would find her in a shared dream and the two would agree to head to the nearest distortions in their respective locations, the peak of a mountain near Hermanus and a cave outside Buenos Aires.
Reaching their respective locations, the cave distortion would send Maya to Liyema’s location where the two had an emotional meeting before she was sent away just as the two would attempt to kiss.
Falling down the mountain after he would attempt to hold on to his memories of Maya, Liyema would start to wonder who Maya was just as he lost consciousness, meanwhile, Maya, who already lost all her memories of Liyema, wondered why she was inside a cave on the outskirts of the city.
A confused Maya would then find words written on her right hand just as Liyema regained consciousness and found words written on his left hand.
“I love you/I love you too,” the words written on Maya’s and Liyema’s hands respectively, causing the two to regain the lost memories of each other and two would tearfully cry out for the other.
A week passed as Liyema and Maya both boarded a bus before a white portal would suddenly appear and suck in the two busses. Sending them into the unknown and the two vehicles to cross paths with one another, causing Maya and Liyema to see each other before the busses safely landed in separate locations in an unknown city.
Using the connection they had, Maya and Liyema would search throughout the city for each other before they finally met in a place eerily similar to the first shared dream they had. The two would joyfully embrace and share a kiss before leaving hand-in-hand to figure out where they were.
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Author Bio:
Anathi Mgijima is a small-town storyteller with a big imagination. He’s been creating worlds and characters since childhood, driven purely by a love for storytelling. His work explores emotion, imagination, and the quiet moments that connect us all. The Thread That Binds Us is his debut novel, born from the kind of “crazy ideas” that turn into unforgettable tales.