Quake Epilepsy Short Story by Otatade Okojie

We were in the eye of it, yes—but not the calm kind poets lie about. This was the breathing center of something alive, something watching. “Eye of the fucking storm,” Isla had said, and she meant it like a prayer. The bike roared beneath us like a creature that knew the road better than we knew ourselves. Wind clawed at my jacket, dragged tears from my eyes that I pretended were from the speed. London blurred—grey, electric, restless—but somewhere beneath it all, something older stirred. Something that had begun the day I touched the painting. Quake. I didn’t tell Isla everything. Not about the way the world sometimes slipped sideways. Not about the moments where sound dulled and color sharpened, like reality itself was holding its breath. Not about the dreams—if they were dreams—where I stood in a corridor of endless doors, each one whispering my name in a different voice. But I told her enough. She believed in storms. School rose ahead like a monument to forgotten gods—brick and glass pretending to be progress. To everyone else, it was just another place to survive. To me, it had become a stage. Or maybe a wound. I slid off the bike, boots hitting pavement. My hands trembled, just slightly. The kind of tremor no one notices unless they’re looking for it. Isla noticed everything. “You good?” she asked. I nodded. I lied. — By second period, I was already gone. The park stretched wide and indifferent under a pale sky. Diego Berto was there, running suicides like he was chasing something that refused to be caught. There was a rhythm to him—pain, breath, repetition. A kind of devotion. Watching him felt like watching someone pray with their body. I leaned against the fence, trying to steady the strange pull behind my eyes. It always started the same way. A flicker. A ripple. A quake. Diego stopped mid-run. Not slowed. Stopped. Like someone had pressed pause on him. Then he looked at me. Not at the fence. Not at the world. At me. For a moment, his face changed—just slightly, just enough. Older. Wiser. Like he had lived a hundred lives in the space between heartbeats. Then he blinked, and it was gone. He kept running. I exhaled. — The abandoned toilets were never really abandoned. Not anymore. Katy Walters stood before the wall like a queen before her kingdom. The Empress stretched behind her—untouched, unbroken. Still bleeding. Crimson tears carved down the painted woman’s face, glistening even now, as if the wall itself refused to dry them. Kids gathered around like pilgrims. One of them pressed his hand to the cloak. I felt it before I saw it. The shift. The world bent—just slightly, like heat above asphalt. The boy gasped, stumbling back. His friend laughed, but it wasn’t mocking—it was afraid. “I—I can hear…” the boy whispered. “Hear what?” He looked around, eyes wide. “Everything.” Katy turned to me slowly. “You did this,” she said. Not accusing. Not praising. Just stating. I wanted to deny it. Instead, I said, “I think it’s doing me.” — The first time it happened, I thought I was dying. The gallery had been quiet, almost sacred. Iva Duvall Mendes’s work hung alone in the center, like it didn’t belong to the rest of the world. Quake wasn’t just a painting. It was movement trapped in stillness. Time folding into itself. I reached out before I could stop myself. My fingers brushed the surface— —and something inside me broke open. Not pain. Not exactly. More like remembering something I had never known. I collapsed. They said it was a seizure. Myoclonic jerks. Absence fits. Clinical words for something that felt anything but clinical. Because when I came back, I wasn’t alone in my own mind anymore. — “Say it,” Isla said now, her voice cutting through the noise. We were back on the bike. The sky had darkened, though no clouds had moved. “Say what?” “That you’re scared.” I laughed, but it came out wrong. “I’m not scared.” Another lie. She slowed the bike, just enough to turn her head. “You’ve been chasing this,” she said. “Whatever it is. Since the painting. Since the first fit. Don’t pretend you don’t want it.” She wasn’t wrong. That was the worst part. “I think…” I hesitated, feeling the tremor rising again, deeper this time. “I think it’s not random.” “What isn’t?” “All of it.” The Empress. The healing. The visions. The way people changed after touching the mural. The way I changed after touching Quake. “It’s like…” I searched for the words. “Like something is moving through us. Through art. Through… expression.” “God?” Isla asked, half-smiling. “Or something that learned how to look like God.” — That night, the fit didn’t pass. It deepened. The world cracked open. I stood again in the corridor of doors. But this time, one of them was open. Inside, I saw her. The Empress. Not painted. Breathing. Her eyes still bled crimson, but she didn’t look in pain. She looked… infinite. Behind her, the children reached—not desperate, not broken—but awakening. She stepped forward. Barefoot. Onto streets I recognized. Onto my streets. “You began it,” she said, her voice layered—many voices, one sound. “I didn’t mean to,” I whispered. “You did,” she said gently. “You just didn’t know why.” “Why me?” She smiled, and it felt like the world exhaled. “Because you listened when the storm called.” The corridor trembled. Another quake. “And now?” I asked. Her eyes met mine, and for a moment, I saw everything—every life, every choice, every fracture in time. “Now,” she said, “you decide what the storm becomes.” — I woke on the pavement. Rain fell. Not heavy. Not violent. Just steady. Isla was shaking me. “Hey—hey! Stay with me!” I blinked up at her. The world felt… sharper. Clearer. Changed. “I saw her,” I said. “Who?” I turned my head slowly toward the school. Toward the wall. Toward the mural. The Empress. “She’s not finished,” I whispered. Isla followed my gaze. And for the first time— she went silent. Because the painting had changed. The woman’s foot— was no longer on the street inside the mural. It was stepping out of it.