The Novice Outside the Wall

The monastery at the edge of the Bago Yoma was a place of discipline and early mornings, but the nights belonged to the jungle—a space where the rules of men didn't apply. I was staying there to organize the library records. One of the novices, a boy named Maung who was barely twelve, came to me one evening with a look of profound confusion and a trembling lower lip.

'U Htun Win,' he said, 'I think the wall is talking back to me.' He explained that while he was sweeping the courtyard after the evening chants, he’d heard someone calling his name from the other side of the stone boundary. It wasn't just anyone; it was his own voice, exactly, but with a strange, wet clicking between the words.

I told him it was just an echo or a trick of the wind. The jungle is full of birds that can mimic any sound. But that night, as I lay in the dormitory, I heard it too. A high, clear voice, just like Maung’s, calling from the shadows beyond the wall. 'Maung... come and see. I found the way back. It’s so much wider out here.'

I looked at Maung’s mat. It was empty, the blanket still warm. I grabbed my torch and ran to the courtyard. The novice was standing by the gate, his hand on the heavy teak bolt. He looked like he was in a trance, his eyes wide and fixed on the darkness outside, his mouth moving in silent imitation of the voice.

I reached him just as he slid the bolt back. I grabbed his arm, and as I did, the voice from the jungle changed. It wasn't Maung’s voice anymore; it was a deep, wet growl that sounded like it was being pulled through a throat full of thorns and old blood. 'Open it, Maung. We’re so hungry for a name to wear.'

In the beam of my torch, I saw a face leaning over the top of the wall. It looked like Maung, but the skin was pulled too tight over the bone, and the eyes were two flat, yellow disks that reflected no light. It had too many teeth, all of them sharp and needle-like. It wasn't a novice; it was a *nat* that had stolen a reflection and was trying to claim the original's skin.

The creature reached down with a hand that had seven joints, its fingers ending in long, black talons that scraped against the stone. I pulled Maung back and slammed the bolt home, the impact vibrating through my entire body like a thunderclap. From the other side, I heard a sound like a heavy weight hitting the ground, followed by a high, Maung-like giggle.

The abbot found us there at dawn. He didn't ask what happened; he just looked at the deep, black scratches on the outside of the gate and told the monks to double the offerings at the forest shrine. He said the jungle doesn't like boundaries that are too quiet, and it hates a name it can't eat.

Maung left the monastery a week later. He never spoke again, not even to his parents. I still see him sometimes in the village, and he always wears a thick scarf around his neck, even in the heat. He says the voice is still there, just on the other side of his own skin now, and sometimes his reflection in the water doesn't move when he does.