The first hundred yards were a journey across a foreign planet. The wheels of the wheelchair, their bearings now clean and oiled, made a soft, crunching sound on the ash-covered pavement, a noise that felt as loud and intrusive as a gunshot in the profound silence. Adekunle pushed, his shoulders and back already beginning to ache with a familiar, human strain. He had made a conscious decision: he would use his own strength for as long as he could. The other power, the alien strength, was a weapon to be conserved, a sleeping giant he would only wake when absolutely necessary. To use it for something as mundane as pushing a chair felt like a dangerous indulgence, a step toward becoming reliant on the monster.
Their progress was painfully slow. They moved in a rhythm of fear and caution. Adekunle would push the chair for twenty feet into the deep shadow of an abandoned market stall or a burned-out car, then stop, his entire body rigid, listening. He would listen for a full minute, his senses stretched to their absolute limit, trying to parse the faint, ghostly sounds of the dead city. The whisper of wind through a broken window. The distant, mournful creak of a swinging sign. The frantic skittering of unseen things in the darkness. Only when he was satisfied that the silence was empty would he signal to his aunt and move forward again.
Funke sat in the chair, a silent, hooded figure, her hands gripping the armrests. She did not speak. She trusted him completely, her stillness a testament to a faith that was both heartbreaking and empowering. She was his passenger, his cargo, his queen, and his purpose. Her weight, combined with their supplies, was immense. The tyre iron was strapped to the side of her chair, its metal form a grim and constant companion.
They were navigating by the map Adekunle had drawn, a crude but essential guide. He had memorized the first leg of the journey: a winding path through the market stalls behind their street, leading to a narrow residential lane that ran parallel to the main, dangerous thoroughfare. The market, once a place of vibrant, chaotic life, was now a skeletal maze. The wooden stalls were collapsing, their corrugated iron roofs rusted and full of holes. The air was thick with the faint, sweet smell of rot from vegetables and fruits that had liquefied into dark, sticky puddles on the ground. The ash muted everything, turning the once-colourful stalls into monochrome shades of grey. It was a city rendered in charcoal and grief.
As they passed a stall where a woman had once sold peppers and tomatoes, a place Funke had frequented for years, she reached out a hand and let her fingers trail across the splintered wood. A small, involuntary sound, half sigh, half sob, escaped her lips. It was a quiet requiem for a world of simple errands, of haggling over prices, of life. Adekunle heard it and pushed on, his jaw tight. They could not afford to drown in the ghosts of the past.
They reached the end of the market and found the entrance to the residential lane. It was narrow, walled on both sides by the high concrete fences of private compounds. It offered good cover, but it was also a perfect bottleneck, an ideal place for an ambush. Adekunle stopped at the entrance, his body tense.
"I'm going ahead," he whispered, his voice a dry rasp. "Just to the first corner. I'll be back."
He left her there, a lone, hooded figure in her strange chariot, tucked into the deep shadow of the last market stall. He took the butcher knife from his belt, its sharpened edge a sliver of cold light in the gloom. He moved down the lane alone, his steps silent, his body pressed to the wall. Every overflowing rubbish bin, every dark doorway, was a potential hiding place. The silence here was different. It was a waiting silence.
He was halfway to the corner when he saw it on the ground. A tripwire. A thin, dark cord stretched taut across the alley at ankle height. It was almost invisible in the gloom. He froze, his heart leaping into his throat. He followed the line of the cord with his eyes. It was attached to a complex arrangement of empty tin cans and glass bottles, precariously balanced on a high wall. A crude but effective alarm system. Someone had claimed this alley.
He backed away slowly, his mind racing. This was a trap not for a large group, but for a solitary runner, someone moving quickly in the dark. A scavenger's trap. His first instinct was to retreat, to find another way. The map in his head was a web of possibilities. But every other route meant crossing a wider, more exposed street. This narrow lane was still their best option.
He had to disarm it. But the real question was whether the trapper was still nearby, watching, waiting for the sound.
He crept back to his aunt. "There's a trap," he whispered, explaining what he had seen. "An alarm. I have to disable it. Wait here. If you hear anything—anything at all—you do not move. You do not make a sound."
She nodded, her eyes wide with a fresh, immediate fear.
He returned to the tripwire. He knelt, his fingers tracing the thin cord. He could cut it, but that might still make a sound if the tension was released too quickly. He had to be smarter. He followed the cord to its anchor point on the wall. It was tied to a single, heavy nail that had been hammered into a crack in the concrete. The knot was tight.
He needed to create slack. He looked at the nail. It was driven deep. He couldn't pull it out with his bare hands, not without making noise. This was it. The first test. A small problem that required a small, precise application of the other strength.
He closed his eyes and summoned the power, not as a flood, but as a trickle, a delicate, controlled stream. He imagined the immense force not as a hammer, but as a pair of invisible, surgical pliers. He placed his thumb and forefinger on the head of the nail. He did not pull. He willed the nail to loosen, to slide from its concrete housing.
He felt a strange, tingling warmth in his fingertips. The nail shifted. It began to move, sliding out of the wall with a slow, grinding protest that was almost silent. He drew it out, inch by inch, until it was free. The tripwire went slack, falling harmlessly to the ashy ground. He held the nail in his hand. It was warm to the touch. He had done it. He had used the power not for destruction, but for delicate, silent work. The thought was a revelation. The monster had a gentle touch.
He went back and retrieved his aunt, his confidence bolstered. He guided her past the now-useless alarm, his hand resting on her shoulder. They continued down the lane, their progress even slower now, more cautious. Whoever had set that trap might have set others.
They reached the end of the lane without further incident. It opened onto a small, deserted roundabout. Their pre-planned shelter for the coming day was visible from here: a multi-story car park, a hideous concrete ziggurat from the 1980s. Its open sides and spiraling ramps offered dozens of vantage points and escape routes. It was the perfect urban fortress.
They were in the home stretch for the night's journey. The car park was only two hundred yards away, across the open space of the roundabout. The riskiest part of the journey.
"We go now," Adekunle said, his voice a low, urgent whisper. "Fast as we can. Straight across. Don't look back."
He put his hands on the grips of the wheelchair and prepared to push. He took a final, sweeping glance around the deserted roundabout. The buildings were dark, the windows like vacant eyes. Everything was still. Too still.
And then he saw him.
He was perched on the roof of a low, flat-topped building across the roundabout, the very building where the tripwire alarm had been rigged. A lone figure, sitting cross-legged, perfectly silhouetted against the sickly yellow sky. He was not armed. He was not moving. He was just… watching them.
It was the man from the shop. The king of dust and wires.
Adekunle froze, his blood turning to ice. How had he gotten here? How long had he been watching them? Had he seen them disable his trap? The man's presence made no logical sense. He should have been miles away, a ghost left behind them. But here he was. A silent, patient observer.
The man slowly raised a hand. He did not wave. He simply pointed. He pointed directly at Adekunle. Then he pointed at his own chest. Then he pointed up, at the jaundiced, empty sky. A silent, cryptic message. You. Me. God.
A wave of nausea and profound, existential dread washed over Adekunle. This man wasn't just a random survivor. He wasn't just mad. He had seen what Adekunle had done in the shop. He had seen the impossible power. And he had followed them. He wasn't a threat in the way Jago had been. He was something else. A witness. A prophet of this new, strange reality. Or perhaps, a rival. Another soul touched by the Fall in some deep and inexplicable way.
"Kunle, what is it?" Funke whispered, sensing his sudden, rigid stillness.
"We have been followed," he replied, his voice barely audible.
He had to make a choice. Confront the man? Ignore him and make a run for the car park, exposing their destination? Or retreat back into the labyrinth of alleys?
But as he looked at the silent figure on the rooftop, he knew that none of those were the right choice. This was not a physical confrontation. It was something else. A conversation had begun, without a single word being spoken. The world had more monsters in it than just the demons. And he had just met the second one.
He broke his gaze away from the figure on the roof. He looked at the car park, their sanctuary. He looked at his aunt, her life depending on his next move.
He lowered his head and began to push the wheelchair, not in a frantic sprint, but with a steady, deliberate pace, out into the open space of the roundabout. He would not run. He would not hide. He would not acknowledge the silent watcher. He would simply walk his path. It was a declaration, a refusal to be intimidated by the new, strange rules of this world.
He pushed the chair across the ash-covered ground, the wheels making their soft, crunching sound. He did not look back. But he could feel the man's eyes on him, a heavy, knowing gaze that followed him all the way to the entrance of the car park. He had not escaped the witness. He had only postponed the sermon.