Chapter 7 — The Last Dance

**The Last Dance**

The bass shook my bones. Neon lights painted sweaty faces purple and gold. Everyone danced like tomorrow didn’t exist.

Maybe it didn’t.

I pushed through the crowd at Melville Underground. The club felt different tonight. Wrong. The music was too perfect. The lights too bright. People moved like they were in a dream.

“You feel it too?” A girl with silver hair grabbed my arm. Her eyes were ancient in a young face.

I nodded. Something was ending.

“This world is dying,” she said. “Bit by bit. Starting with the magic.”

Magic? I almost laughed. Then I saw them—threads of light connecting every dancer. Golden strings that pulsed with the beat. The girl could see them too.

“What are you?” I asked.

“What we all are. The last generation that remembers.” She smiled. “Come on.”

She pulled me to the dance floor. The moment my feet hit the ground, I felt it. Pure energy shooting up through my legs. The concrete was alive. The whole city was alive, feeding off our movement.

We weren’t dancing in a dying world. We were keeping it alive.

Every step charged the streets. Every beat powered the lights. Every laugh kept the darkness back for one more night.

The girl spun me around. “Now you know why we party so hard.”

I grinned and danced harder. Outside, Johannesburg sparkled like a circuit board. We were the batteries. We were the magic.

And we were just getting started.