The morning heat in Mushin wrapped around the world like a curse.
Roosters crowed, generators rumbled, and somebody was already shouting at a conductor two streets away. In Lagos, noise was nature.
But inside one little shanty, the world moved slower.
---
Ajani Ahmed wiped sweat from his forehead as he lifted the last tyre off the metal rack. He had been up since 5 a.m., and the sun hadn't even started killing people yet.
> Kpooo!
The tyre hissed as he filled it with air.
His scarred hands worked fast, firm, and silent. The kind of hands that had patched thousands of tires, lifted broken-down cars, and buried more emotions than any man should carry.
He stood shirtless under the shed, his taper fade clean, his Bellingham-style beard sharp despite the grime on his neck.
Girls in the neighborhood still talked about how fine he was, but none of that mattered. His looks didn't feed the family.
---
He heard soft feet running toward him.
> "Ajani!"
Tayo, the little one, barefoot and bright-eyed, appeared with a paper-wrapped bundle.
> "Mama said to give you your akara now-now before e cold."
Ajani crouched and smiled at her.
That smile—Tayo's smile—was the only thing that made Lagos look like heaven.
He took the akara and tore the bread in two.
> "You go chop with me, abi?"
She nodded, mouth already full before sitting on an old tyre beside him.
> "I like your beard," she said suddenly.
"When I grow up, I want my husband to have beard like yours."
Ajani chuckled. "You better find husband that can cook jollof first."
They both laughed.
---
Back home, Mama Ahmed coughed again.
Her body was frail. Breathing came like debt—each inhale felt borrowed.
Ajani had been buying the same syrup for months. Sometimes fake. Sometimes expired. But it kept her going. Barely.
She sat on the mat, wrapped in a faded Ankara cloth, fingers moving over her prayer beads.
> "Ajani," she called as he entered, "Kemi don go already?"
> "Yes, Mama."
> "You talk to her?"
He paused.
> "I talk. She no listen."
Mama closed her eyes and sighed.
> "This world will break a woman before it breaks a man. Protect her. And that small one too."
Ajani sat quietly, watching the beads slide through her fingers.
He didn't believe in prayers anymore.
---
Kemi, his sixteen-year-old sister, walked through the chaos of Oshodi traffic like she owned it.
Groundnuts stacked in pyramids on her tray, she dodged danfo mirrors and sweet-talked tired passengers.
She was smart. Sharp with words.
But life didn't care about intelligence when you were poor.
> "Fine girl," someone shouted. "Come sell that groundnut with smile now!"
> "Buy first, uncle. Smile is free promo," she fired back.
A black SUV stopped beside her. Tinted glass.
The window rolled down slowly.
> "Kemi," the man inside said.
"You're still this beautiful."
Her heart skipped. Chief Olowonmi.
He smiled that same crooked smile again. Dressed in clean agbada, gold rings glinting under the sun.
> "Come in. I'll buy everything. Plus give you money for home."
Kemi hesitated.
But he had done it before.
He seemed kind. And she needed that money.
She stepped into the car.
---
Back at the shop, Ajani's mind was elsewhere.
Even when working, he felt it—the pull of something wrong.
An itch in his bones. A silence in the air too deep to be natural.
That night, Mama's cough was worse.
Tayo fell asleep on his arm while he stared at the ceiling, sweat clinging to his chest.
Kemi still wasn't home.
---
Somewhere in Lagos,
the system's code began to stir in the dark.
Buried beneath layers of reality.
Waiting. Watching.
> Subject found: Compatible.
Unlock pending…
---