The rain had broken an hour ago, leaving Lagos shrouded in a dark, glistening humidity. It was late, past ten on a Monday night, and the air that drifted into the open front of the shop was thick with the smells of the city after a storm: the clean scent of rain-washed dust, the sharp tang of wet asphalt, and the ever-present aroma of charcoal fires and frying plantain from a nearby street vendor. The city's power grid, in its infinite wisdom, had died with the first clap of thunder, as it always did. The only light and life on their street came from the familiar, steady roar of a hundred generators, a mechanical chorus that was the true heartbeat of Lagos.
Inside the shop, Adekunle tightened the final bolt on the casing of a diesel generator nearly as old as he was. Its yellow paint was faded and chipped, scarred from years of hard labour, but its engine was a masterpiece of stubborn reliability. The beam of the battery-powered work light cast a pool of intense white onto his hands, illuminating the grease under his fingernails and the focused, serious set of his mouth. He was twenty-two, but in moments like this, surrounded by the guts of a machine, he felt older, a quiet participant in a long tradition of men who fixed what was broken.
"Is she ready to sing again?"
The voice, deep and gravelly, came from the back of the shop. His Uncle Ben emerged from the gloom, wiping his hands on an oil-stained rag. He was a man built of dense, sturdy materials, like the machines he loved. His face, etched with the lines of sixty hard-won years, was a mask of gruff appraisal as he looked over Adekunle's work.
"She will sing," Adekunle confirmed, giving the bolt a final, firm twist. "The fuel line was clogged with sediment. I cleared it and cleaned the filter. She has seen worse."
"This old girl has seen the world fall apart and be built back up again," Ben said, patting the generator's metal housing with something like affection. "She will outlive us all." He walked past Adekunle toward a heavy, steel-plated door set into the back wall of the shop, a door that looked profoundly out of place amidst the clutter of shelves and spare parts. He produced a key and unlocked a heavy, industrial padlock, then turned a wheel set into the center of the door, the sound of bolts disengaging echoing with a heavy thump-thump-thump.
This was a nightly ritual. The door led to the shelter.
Ben had built it himself over a decade ago. It was a concrete-and-steel box buried fifteen feet beneath the shop's foundation, a personal obsession born from a trauma Adekunle could only read about in history books. Ben had been a boy during the Biafran War, and as he often said, "A man who has seen his world burn once never forgets the smell of ash." The shelter was his insurance against the world burning again. It had its own ventilation, its own small generator, a chemical toilet, and shelves stocked with tins of food and containers of water that Ben rotated with quiet, methodical regularity. To Adekunle, it had always seemed like a strange, paranoid folly. A tomb for a ghost that had haunted his uncle his entire life.
Ben pulled the heavy door open, revealing a steep set of concrete stairs descending into a cool, damp darkness. He sniffed the air. "The dehumidifier is working hard tonight," he grumbled, more to himself than to Adekunle. He leaned down and disappeared for a moment, and Adekunle heard the faint click of a switch being tested. He re-emerged, nodding with satisfaction. "Everything is in order."
He was about to close the door when another, warmer presence filled the shop.
"Are my two husbands going to work all night?"
Aunt Funke stood at the entrance, a wide, vibrant smile on her face that seemed to generate its own light. She held a large plastic container, and the aroma that wafted from it instantly overpowered the smell of oil and dust. Jollof rice, rich with smoke and spice, and the unmistakable, peppery scent of grilled suya. She was the heart of their small family, the force that turned their struggles into a life.
"A man must work," Ben said, but his gruffness melted away as he looked at his wife, his eyes softening. "But a wise man knows when to stop for his wife's jollof."
"And a smart boy knows to listen to his uncle," Funke added, winking at Adekunle. "Come. Eat before it gets cold."
They set up their small feast on an overturned wooden crate. The world outside, with its noise and its struggle, faded away. Here, in the small circle of the work light's glow, there was only the three of them. Funke fussed over Ben, scolding him for having oil on his cheek. Ben grumbled good-naturedly but leaned into her touch. Adekunle ate quietly, watching them. He felt a profound, aching love for these two people, the architects of his entire world. In moments like this, his philosophical musings about the nature of reality felt thin and pointless. This was real. This love, this food, this shared circle of light in the darkness. This was the only truth that mattered.
He had just finished his plate when it happened.
The generator powering their light didn't just flicker. It died. Instantly. The roar of the engine cut out with a final, choked gasp, plunging them into absolute, profound darkness.
"Ah, she is still a troublesome old girl," Ben grumbled, already reaching for the work light.
But then he froze. Adekunle realized it too. It wasn't just their generator.
The entire city had gone silent.
The constant, familiar roar of a hundred generators, the bassline of Lagos life, had vanished. All of it. At the exact same second. The silence that fell was not peaceful. It was a deafening, unnatural void, a sound of absolute wrongness. For the first time in his life, Adekunle could hear the frantic chirping of crickets from the overgrown lot behind the shop.
"Ben?" Funke's voice was a small, frightened thing in the immense silence.
Then came the screams.
They started as a single, high-pitched shriek of terror from the street, followed by another, and then another. A wave of pure, animal panic washed over the neighbourhood, a sound made all the more horrific by the preceding silence.
Ben was already on his feet, pulling Funke back, away from the entrance. "Kunle, the shutter!" he commanded, his voice a low, urgent growl.
Adekunle scrambled to the heavy chain, his heart hammering against his ribs. He pulled, and the rolling security door came rattling down, slamming into the concrete floor with a deafening clang that sealed them in. The screams from the street were muffled now, a distant, terrifying chorus.
"What is happening?" Funke cried, her hands gripping her husband's arm.
"Stay here," Ben ordered. He grabbed the work light and fumbled with its switch, but it wouldn't turn on. The batteries were dead. They were in total darkness, blind, with the sounds of the world ending just outside their metal door.
"My phone," Adekunle said, his hands trembling as he pulled it from his pocket. The screen lit up, a small, holy beacon in the oppressive dark. He turned on its flashlight, the beam cutting a nervous, shaky path through the gloom.
He joined his uncle at the shutter, pressing his eye to one of the thin ventilation slits. Funke was right behind him, her hand gripping his shoulder. The view was a nightmare postcard from hell. A car was on fire further down the road, casting a flickering, demonic orange light over the scene. People were running, but they were running from nothing visible. And everywhere, there were the clothes. Piles of them. A policeman's uniform, lying empty by an overturned motorcycle. A woman's bright pink dress, a collapsed heap on the sidewalk. A man was on his knees, screaming and clawing at a child's school uniform.
Then Adekunle saw it happen. A woman, running directly toward them, her face a mask of terror. In the space of a single stride, she simply… ceased to be. Her body vanished, and her clothes—her wrapper, her blouse, her headscarf—fell to the pavement in a soft, soundless pile.
Funke let out a strangled gasp, her nails digging into Adekunle's shoulder.
Ben had seen enough. He pulled them back from the shutter, his face a mask of cold, hard decision. The pragmatist, the paranoid survivor who had built a tomb for a ghost, was now in complete command. The ghost had come for them all.
"The shelter," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Now."
He didn't wait for a reply. He grabbed a multi-pack of bottled water from a shelf, shoving it into Funke's arms. He grabbed the dead work light. "There are new batteries downstairs," he said. He looked at Adekunle. "The tools. Bring the red box. The heavy one."
Adekunle moved on instinct, his mind numb with shock. He found the heavy, red metal case containing the industrial socket set and heaved it off the shelf. He grabbed his backpack, which held his textbook—Plato's words about shadows on a cave wall now seemed like a cruel, cosmic joke.
Ben was already at the heavy steel door, swinging it open, revealing the black square of the stairwell. He ushered Funke in first. "Go, go, go," he urged. Adekunle followed, his feet clumsy on the steep steps, the weight of the toolbox throwing him off balance.
Ben came in last. He pulled the immense steel door shut. The darkness was absolute. Adekunle heard the sound of the heavy wheel turning, the thump-thump-thump of the bolts sliding into place. Then came the final, grating click of the heavy padlock.
They were sealed in.
And as they stood there, three people huddled together in a deep, man-made cave, the last thing they heard from the world above was not a scream, not a crash, not an explosion. It was the faint, muffled sound of the city tearing itself apart.
Then, silence. The profound, breathless, buried silence of the tomb.
The world outside went away.