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by monique alvin
09/03/25
For Sale
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I wasn’t trying to get found.

After that Youth Sunday meltdown, I just wanted silence, shade, and maybe a snack.

Instead, I got Nyxion.

Of course, that wasn’t the name he gave me at first.

Back then, he was just the boy leaning against the graffiti-tagged brick wall behind the church—hands in his pockets, hoodie up, one eyebrow raised like he’d been expecting me.

> “You okay?” he asked, voice low—not fake-concerned like a youth leader, but chill. Curious.

Like someone who knew what breaking felt like.

I didn’t answer.

Mostly because I didn’t have the words.

Partly because I didn’t trust them not to shake.

> “You came out during altar call,” he said. “Didn’t even wait for the benediction. That’s bold.”

I glanced at him, squinting. “You were watching me?”

> “Nah,” he said, smirking. “I was watching the sky. You just happened to walk into frame.”

I should’ve walked away.

Should’ve muttered a polite excuse and gone home to hide under my blanket with a half-eaten bag of Hot Cheetos and questions for God.

But something about him felt… steady.

Not safe. But steady.

Like a ledge on the side of a crumbling cliff.

> “Church ain’t really for people like us,” he said after a moment.

I flinched. “Us?”

He tilted his head.

> “You see things, don’t you? Feel stuff in the room before it happens. Hear voices that sound like thunder but come in dreams.”

I froze.

Because no one knew that. Not really.

Not the heat I felt during prayer, like fire crawling under my ribs.

Not the shimmer of light I saw around angry people.

Not the way I once begged God to silence the dreams—and they got louder.

> “Who are you?” I asked, barely whispering.

He smiled. Not soft. Not cruel. Just… sure.

> “Someone who used to feel crazy too,” he said. “Until I found out what I really was.”

I should’ve run.

Or prayed.

Or both.

But instead, I listened.

And that’s how it started.

With a boy named Nyxion.

With stories about power, control, and hidden truths the church was too scared to teach.

With me—bruised from a thousand little rejections—finally hearing a voice that didn’t call me broken.

Just… different.

---

That night, I tried to talk to Mama.

Tried to put into words what I’d been feeling—

not just the dreams, but the pull.

The sense that something inside me was waking up,

and I didn’t know if it was God or something else.

She was folding laundry at the kitchen table, humming a worship song under her breath.

I stood there for a full minute before I spoke.

> “Mama… do you ever hear God even when you’re not praying?”

She looked up, gentle, curious. “Sometimes.”

> “Like… feel something before it happens? See it, even?”

Her brow furrowed.

> “You talkin’ about dreams?”

> “No. I mean—kinda. But not always when I’m asleep. Sometimes when I’m just… there. Like I can feel people’s anger in the air. Like the room shifts. And sometimes I hear things—like voices, but they ain’t mine.”

She went quiet.

Folded one more towel. Set it down slow.

> “Elias, you’ve always been sensitive to the spirit. But that don’t mean every feeling you have is from God.”

I nodded, trying to hold it together. “But what if it is? What if it’s… Him trying to speak and I just don’t know how to listen?”

Her face tightened—barely, but I saw it.

> “You pray. You read your Word. That’s how you listen. If you start chasin’ feelings and signs, the devil’ll give you just what you’re looking for.”

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

> “But what if God’s not in the church anymore? What if He’s not in the places we keep looking?”

She stiffened. Her voice gentled, but her spine stayed straight.

> “Don’t talk like that. God’s always in His house.”

I wanted to believe her.

But I couldn’t forget the spirit behind the youth speaker.

The way the sanctuary felt hollow that day.

Like God had moved out and nobody noticed.

She kept folding clothes. Humming again like nothing happened.

I nodded, thanked her, and went to my room.

But that night, I didn’t pray.

I just laid there, staring at the ceiling, replaying Nyxion’s voice in my head.

> “You’re not crazy. You’re gifted.”

And for the first time,

I wondered if maybe Mama couldn’t hear me either.

---

The next time I saw Nyxion, he didn’t look like someone who belonged behind a church.

He looked like he belonged in a coffee shop that didn’t play music with lyrics—just humming bowls and synths and the occasional haunting flute solo. All black everything. Boots with silver buckles. Rings stacked on every finger like secrets.

I didn’t mean to find him again.

But maybe I did.

He sat at the edge of the park near my bus stop, sketching something in a notebook. I walked past like I didn’t see him.

He didn’t look up. Just said:

> “You been dreaming again?”

I stopped.

Because yeah. I had.

This time it was fire. Not hellfire—just… light. Blinding and blue.

And a voice I didn’t understand, speaking in syllables that rattled the bones in my chest.

But I hadn’t told anyone that.

> “Do you follow me?” I asked.

He laughed without smiling.

> “Nah, man. You follow energy. You just don’t know it yet.”

I didn’t even sit down. Just stood there, staring at him like he was a riddle I didn’t want to solve.

He closed his notebook and finally looked up.

> “You’re not crazy, Elias,” he said. Like he already knew my name.

“You’re gifted.”

That word again.

Gifted.

The church used to call me that once—until my gifts got inconvenient.

Then I was “confused.”

Then “rebellious.”

Then “troubled.”

Apparently being “gifted” had an expiration date—like milk.

> “What kind of gift?” I asked.

His grin was slow and strange.

Like he was proud of me for asking.

> “The kind they’re too scared to explain,” he said.

“The kind that comes with fire… and a price.”

I should’ve walked away.

Instead, I sat down.

---

That’s when he started talking about energy. About intuition.

About ancient practices that helped people unlock their true selves.

Words like chakra, aura, divine alignment.

Stuff I’d only heard church folks mock in between praise breaks and altar calls.

But it didn’t feel evil.

It felt… freeing.

> “You ever feel like people only see the parts of you that make them comfortable?” he asked.

I nodded.

> “What if I told you there’s a world that sees everything—and doesn’t flinch?”

That’s how it began.

Not with a spell.

Not with a ritual.

Not with a book full of demons.

Just with a boy who offered me something the church never did:

A place to belong.

---

Nyxion didn’t push anything the first time.

No candles. No circles. No blood oaths under a full moon.

Just a question.

> “You ever meditate?”

I shrugged. “I’ve prayed.”

He grinned like I’d said something adorable.

> “Nah. I mean sit still and listen. Not to talk to God, but to hear you.”

That sounded harmless enough.

Self-care even.

The kind of thing therapists recommend and youth pastors side-eye.

So I said yeah. Why not.

We sat cross-legged on the grass, the kind of thing I would've made fun of six months ago.

He told me to close my eyes. Breathe in through my nose. Out through my mouth.

Focus on the center of my chest like there was a light hiding under my ribs.

And something happened.

The air around me shifted.

Not in a spooky way—more like awareness. Like the wind had eyes.

Behind my eyelids, I saw gold.

Pulsing. Alive.

Then warmth in my palms.

And I heard something—not in English, not out loud—but it landed in my chest like a truth I already knew:

> You were never broken.

And I believed it.

For a second, I believed it more than anything the church had ever told me.

When I opened my eyes, Nyxion was watching me.

> “How do you feel?” he asked.

> “Like I touched something holy.”

He nodded.

> “Not holy,” he said. “Real.”

That should’ve been my first red flag.

But it wasn’t.

Because I walked home that day feeling more connected, more powerful, more seen than I ever had under a church roof.

---

What I didn’t notice?

The stillness didn’t last.

By nightfall, the dreams came louder.

The voices came sharper.

And the warmth I felt that afternoon?

Gone.

Replaced by a restlessness I couldn’t name.

---

The Ritual of Reflection

A week later, Nyxion invited me to his place.

Not gonna lie—I expected candles. Maybe a pentagram. Something dramatic.

Instead, it looked like a minimalist Tumblr witch’s dream: salt lamps, black curtains, incense that smelled like burned oranges and secrets.

There was a small glass bowl in the middle of the table, filled with water so clear it looked fake.

He motioned for me to sit.

> “You ready?”

I hesitated.

He’d called it a mirror ritual.

Said it would help me “see beneath the surface.”

And I wanted that warmth again.

That wholeness. That fire that said I wasn’t crazy.

I wanted to feel chosen.

> “Yeah,” I said. Lying a little. “Let’s do it.”

Nyxion lit a white candle. Dropped something dark into the bowl—herbs maybe? Ash? I didn’t ask.

Then he placed a crystal in my hand—clear quartz, he said, “for focus.”

> “Now breathe,” he whispered. “Don’t think. Just feel.”

The flame flickered.

The room felt like it tilted.

I stared into the water.

At first—just ripples and smoke.

But then—

Images.

My face… but older.

My mother, crying, holding a letter.

A church sanctuary filled with shadows and fire.

And then—a girl.

Reddish hair. Brown skin. Eyes like storm clouds.

She didn’t speak. Just stared.

Like she knew something I didn’t.

I gasped.

Nyxion leaned in.

> “What did you see?”

I told him. The girl. The fire. The way it felt—urgent. Like a warning wrapped in beauty.

He looked pleased. Like a teacher watching his star student level up.

> “That’s your spirit vision,” he said. “You’re awakening.”

And I wanted to believe him.

I did believe him.

Because the church told me I needed deliverance.

Nyxion made me feel like I’d finally been delivered—from judgment.

---

Later that night, though…

I tried to write it all down, but my hands trembled.

I tried to sleep, but something pressed on my chest.

Not heavy. Just… present.

Watching.

Whispering.

And for the first time in weeks, I remembered what I’d prayed when I was twelve:

> God, please make it stop.

He didn’t.

And now I wasn’t sure if He ever had.

Because if this was light…

why did it cast so many shadows?

---
End of Chapter 3.

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