The triumphant laughter from the street below was a physical blow. It traveled up the face of the building and washed over the rooftop, a wave of savage joy that extinguished Adekunle's own brief, glorious victory. He lay flat on the gritty, ash-covered surface of the roof, his heart a frantic, trapped bird against the concrete. He was a castaway on a tiny island, and the ocean between him and safety was now teeming with sharks.
He crawled back to the open hatch and listened. The sounds from the stairwell confirmed his worst fears. He could hear their heavy, booted footsteps as they entered the building, their voices echoing up the concrete tube. He heard Jago's guttural laugh, Ikenna's subservient whining, and the terrified, bleating cries of the goat. They were home. And they would be celebrating their miraculous bounty all night.
He gently lowered the heavy iron hatch back into place. The soft thud as it settled into its frame was the sound of his cage being locked from the outside. He was trapped on the roof, with ten litres of life-giving water that he had no way of getting to his dying aunt. The irony was a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth, as sharp and unpleasant as the air he was breathing.
For the first hour, he did nothing but lie there, hidden behind the bulk of his uncle's water tank, listening. The sounds of the celebration grew louder. A fire was started in the yard, the flickering orange glow painting the undersides of the low, yellow clouds. The smell that drifted up to him was a unique and exquisite form of torture. It was the smell of roasting meat. His stomach, which had been a hollow ache for days, cramped into a tight, painful knot. Saliva flooded his mouth. He hadn't tasted real, cooked food since the night of the Fall. He felt a hunger so profound it bordered on madness.
He could hear their voices clearly now, unrestrained and amplified by drink. They were telling the story of their hunt, a loud, boastful epic of how they had cornered the goat in an abandoned schoolyard. They were kings feasting in their hall, and he was the starving peasant locked outside the walls.
Despair began to creep in, cold and insidious. He thought of Funke, alone in the dark flat, waiting for him. He had told her he would be back. She would be listening, her ear pressed to the door, waiting for his signal. A signal that would never come. Every minute he was trapped up here was a minute the fever had to burrow deeper into her, a minute closer to the point of no return. Waiting for the gang to fall into a drunken sleep was a gamble he couldn't afford. They could stay up until dawn.
He had to find another way.
He rose to his feet and began to pace the rooftop, a predator in his own cage. His eyes scanned the landscape, searching for an escape route. The front of the building was a sheer, three-story drop to the street. Impossible. The sides were no better. That left the back.
He walked to the rear edge of the roof. His building was the last one on this particular block. Behind it was the narrow, refuse-choked alley. And on the other side of that alley, perhaps fifteen feet away, was the back of the next building—a lower, two-story structure that housed the tailor's shop and the bookshop.
Fifteen feet. A horizontal chasm of dark, empty air. Fifteen feet separated his trap from a potential new path. It might as well have been a mile. No human could make that jump. The run-up was too short, the distance too great. A fall from this height onto the hard-packed, rubble-strewn earth of the alley would mean a broken neck. Certain death.
He stood at the edge, the wind whispering past him, carrying the scent of roasting goat and the faint, ever-present smell of ash. He stared across the gap at the flat, tar-papered roof of the other building. It was so close. So impossibly far.
He thought of his hands. He thought of the mangled iron lock he had torn from the hatch. He thought of the demon, its broken body crumpled against the husk of a car. A different kind of monster.
This was the test. This was the moment of truth. Was the power just a fluke, a one-time surge of panicked adrenaline? Or was it something he could call upon, something he could control? He had used it for brute force, for destruction. Could he use it for something else? Could he use it for grace?
The decision settled on him with a grave, terrifying certainty. This was the only way. He would build a bridge out of empty air.
The plan was insane, and it had to be executed in stages. First, the water. He couldn't risk jumping while carrying the heavy, sloshing containers. He took the coil of electrical cable he had used to haul up his aunt. He tied one end securely around the handle of the first water container. He took a few steps back, swinging the heavy container like a pendulum. One. Two. On the third swing, he released it, letting it fly out over the alley.
It sailed through the air, a dark, heavy projectile, and landed on the other roof with a loud, hollow thump. He froze, his ears straining, listening for any reaction from the yard below. But the gang's celebration was too loud. Their raucous laughter had covered the sound. He repeated the process with the second container, and with the red toolbox, sending his precious supplies across the chasm one by one.
Now it was his turn.
He stood at the very edge of the roof, his toes curling over the concrete lip. He looked down into the dark, menacing alley. A wave of vertigo washed over him, and he swayed, his arms flailing for balance. He took a step back, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm. He was a boy who was afraid of heights. He was a student, a mechanic. He was not a superhero.
"He did not save us from the fire just so we could drown in the dust." His aunt's voice. "He would want us to fight."
He closed his eyes. He didn't think about the fall. He thought about her face, her skin hot with fever. He focused on the wellspring of power inside him. He didn't ask it to come; he welcomed it. He felt the familiar, tingling surge, the densifying of his muscles. The fear didn't vanish, but it was joined by something else: a strange, exhilarating sense of possibility.
He took three steps back. He took a deep breath. And he ran.
He launched himself from the edge of the roof, his body a tight coil of focused energy. For a single, terrifying, ecstatic moment, he was flying. The wind rushed past his ears. The dark alley yawned beneath him. He was not going to make it. The other roof was too far.
He felt a surge of panic, and then the power kicked in. It was not a conscious thought. It was an instinct. A kick of impossible force from his legs in mid-air, a final, desperate push against nothingness that propelled him forward. He hit the other roof not with a crash, but with a hard, solid impact that he absorbed by rolling, the gravel and tar paper scraping against his back.
He lay there, stunned, his chest heaving, staring up at the jaundiced yellow sky. He was alive. He was on the other side. A wild, hysterical laugh bubbled up from his chest. He had done it. He had flown.
He pushed himself to his feet, his body aching but unbroken. He looked back at the building he had just escaped. It was a dark, silent tower, and somewhere on the third floor, his aunt was waiting, alone.
He gathered his supplies—the water, the toolbox. His triumph was short-lived, replaced immediately by the cold, hard reality of his new situation. He had escaped one trap only to land himself in another. He was on a different roof, but he was still three stories above the street. And he had no idea how to get down.
He walked to the front of this new building, peering over the edge. The street was empty. He looked for a fire escape, a drainpipe, a sturdy tree—anything. There was nothing. Just a sheer, flat wall dropping to the pavement below.
He was just as trapped as before. But as he stood there, the precious water at his feet, he didn't feel despair. He felt the phantom energy still humming in his limbs, the echo of his impossible leap. He had found a new weapon. Not just strength, but control.
He looked down at the dark, silent city. The problem had changed, but so had he. He would find a way down. He was no longer just the boy who could fix machines. He was the boy who could fly. And in this dead world, that made all the difference.