The sound of the final lock clicking into place behind him was the sound of a ship being cast off from the last safe shore in the world. Adekunle stood alone on the third-floor landing, his back to the door, and for a moment, the sheer, crushing weight of his solitude threatened to bring him to his knees. He was trapped. If Jago's men returned, there was no retreat, no sanctuary to flee to. He was caught in this vertical concrete tube, this forgotten passage between a dying world and his besieged home. The thought was a cold knot of fear in his stomach. He forced it down. Fear was a luxury. Action was survival.
He looked up. The final flight of stairs rose into a darkness so profound it seemed to absorb the very idea of light. He began to climb, the two empty five-litre containers banging softly against his hips, a hollow, plastic percussion accompanying the soft shuffle of his footsteps. The air grew thinner, dustier as he ascended. This part of the stairwell was less protected from the elements, and a fine layer of the ubiquitous grey ash coated the steps, puffing up in tiny, ghostly clouds around his feet.
He reached the fourth-floor landing and stopped. It was not a landing so much as a small, square concrete platform. Directly above him was his goal: the roof hatch. It was a brutalist square of rusted iron, set flush into the concrete ceiling. It was designed not for convenience, but for security, a final barrier against the outside world. And it was secured by a locking mechanism that made his heart sink. It wasn't a simple padlock. A thick, heavy hasp was held in place by a massive, industrial bolt lock, the kind used on shipping containers, its surface pitted with rust. A keyhole, clogged with dirt and corrosion, stared down at him like a blind, mocking eye.
He set the water containers down and pulled out his uncle's keyring, a small, hopeful jingle in the oppressive silence. He tried the keys that looked like they might fit, his hands shaking slightly. One by one, he slid them into the corroded lock, jiggling them, trying to find purchase. None of them turned. None of them even went in more than halfway. These were the keys for the doors, for the padlocks of their lives. This lock belonged to the building itself, a different, more impersonal beast.
Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at the edges of his resolve. He had come all this way, risked everything, only to be defeated by a single, rusted piece of metal. He thought of his aunt, her feverish skin, her shallow breathing. He thought of the empty space on the water shelf. Failure was not an option.
He took the tyre iron from his belt. His uncle's lessons came back to him: brute force is the last resort of a desperate man. He was a desperate man. He wedged the chisel end of the bar into the small gap between the hasp and the iron frame of the hatch. He took a deep breath and threw his weight against it.
The sound was horrific. A loud, high-pitched SCREEECH of metal on metal, followed by a sharp CLANG as the tyre iron slipped and struck the concrete floor. The noise echoed down the stairwell, a series of frantic, diminishing reports that sounded like a gunshot.
Adekunle froze, his blood turning to ice. He flattened himself against the wall, every muscle rigid, his ears straining, listening for the inevitable shout from below. He imagined Jago's men bursting from their flat, their machetes ready, drawn by the sound. He counted the frantic beats of his own heart. One. Two. Ten. Twenty.
Nothing. Only the faint, steady drip of water from the roof above.
They hadn't heard. Or if they had, they had dismissed it as just another strange noise in a world that was now full of them. He let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding, his body trembling with the aftermath of the adrenaline surge. He looked at the lock. The tyre iron had barely scratched it. Brute force had failed.
He leaned his head against the cold concrete wall, the rough surface a painful press against his skin. There was only one option left. The one he had been dreading, the one he had been denying. He had to use the other strength. The monster in his hands.
He looked down at his own palms, at the faint tracing of lines he knew so well. It felt like a surrender, a final admission that the old Adekunle, the student who believed in logic and reason, was truly dead. The world had broken its own rules; now he had to break his.
He closed his eyes. He didn't wait for a moment of rage or fear to trigger it. He reached for it deliberately, quietly. He focused on the deep, humming wellspring of energy inside him, the sleeping giant. He felt it stir, a warm, tingling sensation that started in his chest and flowed down his arms, making the muscles feel dense, impossibly powerful. It was like closing a circuit. He opened his eyes. The world seemed sharper, the darkness less absolute.
He reached up and took the heavy, rusted hasp in his hands. He didn't use the tyre iron. He just used his fingers. He wrapped them around the thick metal, his grip sure and steady. He took a breath, not of desperation, but of grim purpose. And he pulled.
There was no screech this time. There was only a low, deep groan, the sound of stressed metal giving up the ghost. The rusted bolts holding the hasp to the frame sheared with a series of sharp, internal pops, like knuckles cracking. The metal bent in his hands, warping, twisting. With a final, sharp SNAP, the entire locking mechanism tore free from the frame and came away in his hands.
He stood there for a second, his chest heaving, holding the mangled piece of iron. The sound had been shockingly loud, but brutally short. He dropped the broken lock to the floor with a heavy clang. The way was open.
He pushed up on the heavy iron hatch. It resisted for a moment, then swung open with a rusty groan, revealing a square of bruised, yellow sky. Fresh air—thin, metallic, and tasting of rain and ash—flowed down into the stairwell, a blessed relief from the stale, stagnant air of the tomb.
He climbed out onto the roof. The world spread out before him, a panoramic vista of devastation. The city of Lagos, his city, was a silent, sprawling ruin under the sickly jaundiced light. The tops of the skyscrapers in the distance were jagged, broken teeth against the yellow sky. Blackened scorch marks, miles wide, scarred the landscape where the celestial war had been fiercest. There was no movement. No cars. No people. Only the slow, patient decay of a world that had been murdered and left to rot.
The sight was so vast, so complete in its desolation, that it stole the breath from his lungs. He felt like the last man on Earth, a lonely spectator at the end of all things.
Then he saw it. And a surge of pure, unadulterated joy, so powerful it felt like a physical blow, hit him. His uncle's water tank. It was there, a huge, black plastic cylinder, looking beautifully, blessedly mundane in the midst of the apocalypse. And it was overflowing, a small, steady trickle of clean rainwater spilling from its top, a sign of its fullness.
He scrambled over to it, his previous despair forgotten. He unscrewed the tap at the bottom, and a gush of cool, clear water poured out. He didn't bother with the containers at first. He just put his mouth under the tap and drank, the water a shocking, life-giving coldness on his parched throat. He drank until his stomach ached, until he felt the water rehydrating his very soul. It was the best thing he had ever tasted.
He filled the first container, then the second, the sound of the sloshing water a beautiful, triumphant song. He had done it. He had faced the impossible and won. For a single, glorious moment, standing on the roof of his dead city, with ten litres of life-giving water at his feet, he was not a monster. He was not a frightened boy. He was a hero.
He had just finished screwing the cap on the second container when he heard it. A sound from the street below. Shouts. Angry, triumphant shouts.
He crawled to the edge of the roof and peered down.
Jago's men. All five of them. They had returned, much, much sooner than he had expected. And they were not empty-handed. They were dragging something between them, a large, struggling sack. As they passed under a street light that hadn't worked in years, Adekunle saw what was in the sack. It was a goat. A live goat. They had found a miraculous, impossible prize. Their laughter and shouts echoed up to the rooftop.
Adekunle pulled back from the edge, his heart sinking into a black, icy pit of despair. He was trapped. He was on the roof, with the water, with the only exit leading directly into a stairwell that would soon be filled with the sounds of a celebrating, drunken, and very dangerous gang. And they would be there all night.