The sun, if the pale, sickly disk hanging in the jaundiced sky could be called such a thing, had begun its slow, afternoon descent. The light that slanted through the open sides of the car park had softened, the harsh glare replaced by long, distorted shadows that stretched and crawled across the empty concrete floor. They had spent the day in their new fortress, a small pocket of borrowed time. The rest had been a profound balm on their frayed nerves and aching bodies. Adekunle had slept, a true, deep sleep this time, and had woken feeling not rested, but at least functional. The deep, bone-weary exhaustion had receded, leaving behind a clear-headed watchfulness.
Funke was better. The water, the antibiotics, and the relative safety had worked their quiet magic. The colour was returning to her cheeks, the fire of the infection in her leg doused to a dull, manageable ache. She sat in the wheelchair just outside the security office, a silent queen surveying her grey kingdom, her hands busy stitching a new, more robust harness for their water containers. Her constant, quiet industry was the anchor that kept their small world from drifting into the madness of the larger one.
But the peace was a thin, fragile veneer stretched taut over a well of deep unease. The watcher on the rooftop had infected their sanctuary. His silent, knowing gaze was a ghost that haunted the empty spaces between the concrete pillars. Adekunle felt it as a constant, low-grade hum in the back of his mind. Every time he looked out at the dead city, he found himself scanning the rooftops, searching for the lone, cross-legged figure. He was a new and terrifying variable in the equation of their survival, a question mark that loomed larger than any demon.
"He is not there," Funke said, her voice soft, not needing to look up from her sewing to know where his attention was.
"I know," Adekunle replied, turning away from the open edge of the car park. He had been staring at the rooftop where the man had been, the place now empty and inert. "But he's not gone. I can feel it. It feels… like he's just moved to a different room in the house."
"Then we must ignore him," Funke stated, her tone pragmatic. "A watching eye cannot harm us. Worrying about it is a waste of energy we do not have. We have a more immediate problem." She gestured with her chin toward their small stash of supplies. "This place is a good fortress. But it is a temporary one. We need a path forward. Your map showed a canal we must cross, yes?"
Adekunle nodded, grateful to focus on a tangible problem. He walked over and unrolled the crude calendar-map on the dusty bonnet of a long-abandoned Peugeot 404. "Here," he said, tracing a line with his finger. "The canal is about a kilometer from here. In the old world, there were three bridges. The main road bridge at Ikorodu Road, too wide, too exposed. The railway bridge, too derelict, even before the Fall. And this one." He tapped a spot on the map. "A small, pedestrian footbridge. It's our best chance. But the path to it is blocked."
He had seen it on their way in. The most direct route from the car park, a narrow service alley that ran behind a row of warehouses, was blocked by a formidable gate. A ten-foot-high monstrosity of wrought iron, chained and padlocked with a mechanism so heavy it looked like it belonged on a bank vault. Getting the wheelchair around it would mean a long, dangerous detour onto the open, exposed main roads.
"The gate is the problem," he concluded. "If we could get through that gate, the path to the bridge would be covered, hidden. It would save us hours of travel in the open."
Funke looked at him, her needle pausing mid-stitch. The unspoken question hung in the air between them. And how do you plan to open a gate like that?
This was the test. He knew it, and she knew it. It wasn't just about clearing a path. It was about him taking another deliberate step toward understanding and mastering the power he wielded. He had used it for brute force, for a desperate leap. Now, he needed to use it for something else. For subtlety. For silence.
"I'm going to take a look," he said, his voice steady. "Alone."
He left her with the tyre iron and took the heavy red toolbox himself. The gate was on the ground floor, at the far end of the car park. He descended the ramps silently, the toolbox a heavy, reassuring weight in his hand.
He found the gate. It was even more formidable up close. Thick, iron bars were sunk deep into concrete pillars. A heavy, greasy chain, its links as thick as his thumb, was wrapped through the bars and secured with a massive, rust-pitted padlock. No amount of human strength with a tyre iron would break this. It would take hours of noisy work with a hacksaw.
He set the toolbox down and just looked at the lock. It was a complex problem. He could tear it apart, as he had the roof hatch. But the sound, the shriek of tortured metal, would be a siren call in the quiet afternoon. He needed to be a ghost. He needed to be silent.
He remembered the feeling of the axle in his hands, the way the metal had grown warm and pliable, yielding to his will. Could he do that again? Not to bend, but to… unmake?
He reached out and placed his hands on the thickest part of the padlock's shackle. He closed his eyes, shutting out the dead world, and focused inward. He called on the power, drawing it up from the quiet wellspring inside him. He felt the familiar warmth flood his hands. But this time, he did not command the metal to bend or break. He pictured it in his mind. He pictured the alloy, the crystalline structure of the steel. And he pictured it coming apart. He imagined the molecules losing their cohesion, their bonds dissolving, the solid form becoming as weak and unstable as sand.
He felt a strange, intense heat in his palms, a heat that bordered on pain. The padlock beneath his fingers grew warm, then hot. He heard a faint, high-pitched hum, the sound of immense energy being focused on a single point. He felt the steel begin to change. It grew soft, grainy. It was losing its integrity. With a final, focused push of his will, he squeezed.
The hardened steel shackle crumbled in his hands, dissolving into a small pile of hot, metallic dust and grit that fell to the pavement with a soft hiss.
Adekunle snatched his hands back, a gasp escaping his lips. He stared at the empty space where the lock had been. The chain now hung loose. He had not broken the lock. He had erased it. Disintegrated it. The power was not just physical force; it was a fundamental manipulation of reality itself. The thought was so terrifying, so profoundly alien, that he had to brace himself against the gate to keep from falling.
He stood there for a long moment, his heart hammering, his hands tingling with a strange, pins-and-needles numbness. He had just turned a solid piece of steel into dust with his bare hands. He was more than a monster. He was a magician. A god. A glitch in the fabric of the universe.
He took a series of deep, shuddering breaths, trying to force the terror back down. He had to focus. The path was clear.
He unwrapped the now-useless chain and pulled one of the heavy iron gates open just enough to allow the wheelchair through. The hinges groaned in protest, the sound loud in the quiet alley. He would have to deal with that later.
He was about to turn and go back up to his aunt when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Not in the alley, but above it. On the rooftop across from him. The same rooftop as before.
The watcher was back.
He was standing this time, a tall, thin silhouette against the yellow sky. He was not looking at the gate. He was looking directly at Adekunle. And he was holding something in his hand.
Adekunle froze, his body going rigid. He was caught. He had been seen. This silent man had been here the whole time, watching him perform his impossible, terrifying magic.
The man on the roof did not seem hostile. He simply stood there, his presence a calm, unnerving certainty. He slowly, deliberately, raised the object in his hand. It was a fruit. A single, perfectly formed, unblemished orange mango. The kind that used to grow on the big tree in the yard behind their old shop. In this world of ash and decay, it was an object of impossible beauty, a jewel of vibrant life.
The man held it up for Adekunle to see clearly. Then, with a gentle, underhand toss, he dropped it.
Adekunle watched, mesmerized, as the mango fell. It did not plummet to the ground. It fell with an unnatural slowness, as if the air around it had thickened to honey. It drifted down, turning gently, and landed on the ashy ground in the center of the alley with a soft, delicate thud, not even bruising. It lay there, a splash of brilliant, impossible colour in the grey, dead world.
Adekunle stared at the fruit, then looked back up at the roof.
The man was gone. He had vanished as silently as he had appeared.
Adekunle stood motionless for a full minute, his mind struggling to process what had just happened. It was not a threat. It was not an attack. It was a communication. A sermon delivered without a single word. The tripwire trap had been a question: Are you there? The impossible mango was the start of an answer. It was a demonstration. A proof of existence.
I am like you.
The message was as clear as if it had been shouted. The watcher was not just a survivor who had seen something strange. He was another miracle. Another monster. Another glitch. And he was a different kind. Adekunle's power was kinetic, elemental, a hammer that could shatter reality. This man's power was something else. Quieter. More subtle. The power to warp gravity, to preserve life, to create a perfect, unblemished fruit in a world where everything was rotting.
He slowly walked over to the mango and knelt. He picked it up. It felt real in his hand, its skin smooth and cool, its weight solid. It smelled sweet, a scent of the world they had lost.
He returned to the gate, the mango clutched in his hand, his mind a whirlwind of new, terrifying possibilities. He had thought he was the only one. He had thought his loneliness was absolute. He was wrong.
There was another god in this dead city. And he had just left a calling card.
Adekunle turned and began the long climb back up to the fourth floor, his footsteps heavy with the weight of a new and terrible revelation. He was not just a survivor anymore. He was a player in a new game, and he had just met the opponent he didn't even know existed.