The plan, once spoken aloud, settled into the very atmosphere of the flat, changing it from a shelter into a predator's blind. The oppressive, waiting silence was replaced by a new, sharper quiet—the focused, patient silence of a hunter waiting for its prey to expose its throat. Every day became a reconnaissance mission. The slit in the curtain was no longer just a window to a dead world; it was Adekunle's observation post, his perch from which he studied the five men who were the keepers of his prison.
He and his aunt were a two-person command center. Funke, with her sharp, pragmatic mind, was the strategist. Leaning over a crude map of their building that Adekunle had drawn on the back of a calendar, she would point with a trembling finger, her voice a low, intense whisper.
"The main room is here," she would say, tapping the living room of the flat below theirs. "That is where they feast. It is where they are loudest. It must be our target. But what happens after, Kunle? After you make the hole. What is the goal?"
"We need a path," he would reply, his own voice sounding harder, colder than it had a month ago. "A clear path to the back door of the stairwell. If we can get out that way and over the wall, we are free."
"And them?" she would press, her dark eyes searching his. "Jago? Ikenna? You cannot just make a hole and walk past them."
This was the question that haunted him in the darkest hours of the night. His power was a blunt instrument. He had used it in a moment of panicked defense against a demon. He had tested it on inanimate objects. But to use it deliberately, proactively, against human beings? That was a threshold he had not yet crossed. It was the border between survivor and killer.
"I will create a shock," he said, the words feeling inadequate. "Confusion. By the time they understand what is happening, we will be gone." It was a lie, or at least a half-truth, and they both knew it. There was no clean way to do this. There would be violence. There would be blood.
He spent his days not just watching, but listening. The concrete floor was a conductor, transmitting the sounds from below. He would lie for hours, his ear pressed to the cool floor, deciphering the rhythm of their lives. He learned to distinguish their footsteps. Jago's was a heavy, arrogant stomp. Ikenna's was a quick, nervous shuffle. He learned that they were laziest, drunkest, and most vulnerable in the hours just after a successful scavenging run. That was when they would feast. That was when they would be loud. That would be the moment.
His physical preparations were simple and grim. He found the longest, sharpest knife in his aunt's kitchen—a butcher knife Ben had bought her for cutting goat meat. He took a whetstone from the toolbox and began to sharpen it, the rhythmic shhhk-shhhk-shhhk of steel on stone a meditative, menacing sound in the quiet flat. He was not just sharpening a blade; he was honing his own resolve, preparing his mind for what his body would have to do.
He practiced moving the heavy mahogany dresser. He learned to lift it without a sound, to harness the power inside him with a quiet, focused will. He would move the massive piece of furniture from one side of the room to the other and back again, his movements fluid and silent, a dancer rehearsing a deadly ballet. He was no longer afraid of the power. He was simply learning its contours, its demands. He was the vessel, and he was learning to contain the storm.
Four days after they had made the plan, the opportunity came.
It was late afternoon. Adekunle was at his post, watching the empty street, when he saw them return. Jago was in the lead, a wide, triumphant grin on his scarred face. His men were hauling crates of beer and bottles of spirits, a treasure trove scavenged from the back room of a locked bar. They had hit the jackpot.
"Tonight," Funke whispered from behind him. Her voice was steady.
The celebration began as soon as darkness fell. The sounds that drifted up from the flat below were a cacophony of drunken shouts, crude songs, and breaking glass. They were feasting, celebrating their dominion over their small, broken corner of the world, completely oblivious to the silent hunter listening to their every move from the ceiling above.
Adekunle and his aunt ate their own meager meal in silence. A few slivers of corned beef and the last of their dry biscuits. Funke insisted he eat the larger share. "You will need your strength," she said, her voice grim.
After they ate, she helped him prepare. She took a strip of dark cloth and tied it around his forehead to keep the sweat from his eyes. She checked the crude splint on her own leg, tightening the knots. She handed him the sharpened knife. Her hands were not trembling. Her eyes were clear and hard as diamonds. "Your uncle was a builder," she said softly. "He built walls to protect his family. Sometimes, to protect your family, you must tear walls down." She put her hand on his cheek, her touch surprisingly cool. "Be the storm, Kunle. And then come back to me."
He nodded, the lump in his throat too large for words. He took his position in the center of the living room. He had already moved the sofa and coffee table, clearing the floor. With a silent, focused effort, he lifted the mahogany dresser and moved it to the far side of the room. The target area was clear.
He lay on the floor, his ear pressed to the concrete. The party below was in full swing. He could hear Jago's booming laugh directly beneath him. He could hear Ikenna telling a crude joke, his voice high and whining. Perfect. They were all gathered in the main room.
He stood and took his position, planting his feet wide. This was it. The culmination of all their waiting, all their fear. He closed his eyes and summoned the power. It came roaring to life inside him, a familiar, thrumming inferno that no longer felt alien. It felt like a part of him. It felt like his own righteous, grieving fury made manifest.
He waited for his cue. The men below were singing a drunken, off-key song. The song reached its chorus, and they all roared with laughter, their voices rising in a wave of chaotic sound.
Now.
He lifted his right foot and stomped down on the solid concrete floor with all the impossible, terrifying force he could command.
It was not a stomp. It was an explosion.
The sound was not a crack; it was a deafening BOOM that shook the entire building to its foundations. The concrete beneath his foot did not just break; it disintegrated. Dust, plaster, and chunks of rock erupted upwards. A hole, three feet wide, instantly appeared in the floor, a gaping, dark maw leading directly into the room below.
The laughter and singing from Jago's flat were cut off, replaced by a single, collective shriek of pure, terrified confusion.
Adekunle didn't wait. He didn't hesitate. He looked down through the hole he had created. He saw a scene from a nightmare. The room below was lit by candlelight, the faces of the five men turned upward, their mouths open, their eyes wide with disbelief and terror. They were looking up at the impossible hole in their ceiling. They were looking up at him.
He took the tyre iron from his belt, its familiar weight a grim comfort. He took a final look at his aunt, who stood by the braced door, her face pale but resolute. Then he stepped into the void.
He dropped through the hole, landing in a low crouch on the floor of their flat amidst a shower of dust and debris. He landed with a soft thud that belied the ten-foot drop, the power in his limbs absorbing the impact effortlessly.
He rose to his full height in the center of their candlelit feast, a figure of dust and shadow and righteous fury. He was no longer the boy hiding upstairs. He was the monster. He was the ghost. He was the storm. And he had just fallen from their sky.