The sun dipped low over the city of Lagos, throwing golden hues across the rusted zinc rooftops and flickering off car windows. The roads buzzed with the usual chaos — danfos honking, hawkers weaving between cars, and preachers shouting into megaphones at bus stops. Tunde Adewale, a 20-year-old student at the University of Lagos, walked briskly down a narrow street, his face set in a scowl.
His shirt clung to his back with sweat, and the weight of his backpack pressed into his shoulders. The test he had just written was a mess. He hadn't studied enough — again. Between juggling his part-time graphic design jobs and trying to survive the noise of the hostel, studying had become a luxury he couldn't afford.
"Guy, you for read na," Chinonso had told him that morning. "This your freestyle lifestyle no go help you."
Tunde had nodded, knowing his best friend was right, but brushing it off all the same. Now, walking alone, regret chewed at his insides.
The street he took home was quieter than the main roads — a shortcut behind the old post office, lined with broken walls and wild hibiscus. He liked the quiet here. The scent of earth and burning firewood drifted on the air. As he passed by a gutter, something caught his eye.
A glint.
He stopped.
Amidst the dirt, stuck between stones and dry leaves, was a coin. But it wasn't an ordinary coin. It was slightly larger than a fifty naira piece, dull silver with strange symbols etched along the rim. At its center, there was an insignia — an hourglass encircled by what looked like an ancient script.
Something about it called to him.
He crouched, hesitating briefly, then reached out. The moment his fingers touched it, a chill ran down his spine. He picked it up.
And the world went silent.
Not the kind of silence that comes at night when the generators go off — this was unnatural. Total stillness. The wind stopped. A nearby okada rider, frozen mid-turn, was suspended in time. A hawker with a bottle of Pepsi paused in mid-shout, his mouth hanging open like a glitch in a paused video.
Tunde's heart raced. He looked around, eyes wide.
"What the hell?"
He waved his hand in front of a woman carrying a basket of plantain on her head. No reaction. He touched her shoulder gently — nothing. She was frozen in time, solid as a statue.
The coin burned warm in his palm.
Panic gripped him. He dropped the coin, and instantly — whoosh — time resumed. The woman blinked and continued walking. The okada rider swerved past. The hawker's voice returned mid-sentence.
Tunde staggered back.
People stared at him like he'd lost his mind. A boy selling gala chuckled. Tunde grabbed the coin from the ground and stuffed it into his pocket, heart thudding like a drum.
---
Back at his cramped hostel room, he stared at the coin under his reading lamp. Chinonso was out. The room smelled of Indomie and sweaty clothes. His mattress creaked as he sat.
"What are you?" he whispered.
The coin now looked dull and harmless. Maybe he had imagined it. Maybe the sun had cooked his brain too much.
To test, he stood up and held it again.
Nothing happened.
He tried flipping it, closing his eyes, whispering prayers. Still nothing.
He laughed nervously. "You don craze, Tunde."
---
The next morning, he tried again.
This time, as soon as his fingers curled around the coin — the freeze returned.
Lagos — noisy, hectic Lagos — went completely silent.
Tunde stared in awe. The same woman from yesterday, now wearing a different wrapper, was walking her usual path. She was paused mid-stride. A bus with passengers inside was frozen in motion. A bird hung still in the sky.
He checked his watch.
8:41 AM.
He paced. Tried running. Went through someone's bag (nothing missing, just looking — for now). Touched the bird. Cold feathers. Five minutes passed.
Then, as suddenly as it began, everything unfroze.
The bird flapped its wings. The bus moved. The city roared back to life.
8:46 AM.
Exactly five minutes.
---
Back in his room, he couldn't stop grinning.
Power. Real power. In a city where everything felt like it was built to keep people down — NEPA, strikes, floods, corrupt lecturers — he had found something different.
He called Chinonso.
"Guy, abeg you get one old book wey dey talk about African symbols? Like mystical ones?"
Chinonso laughed. "You don finally smoke igbo?"
Tunde smiled. "Just bring the book come hostel. I dey wait."
---
Over the next few days, Tunde tested the coin. He used it once per day, always five minutes, never more.
He walked into a crowded bank, paused time, and left with a printout of his account balance from behind the counter — just to prove he could.
He snuck into a classroom full of seniors, paused time, wrote "You will all fail" on the board, and left before the lecturer arrived.
He paused time during a lecturer's boring rant and rearranged all the marker pens.
No one suspected a thing.
But even in his joy, he noticed things.
His head ached each time the time-freeze ended. Tiny migraines. His ears would ring for a moment, like a badly tuned radio. And sometimes, he'd swear people looked at him strangely — like they almost noticed something off.
---
Then one night, something new happened.
He used the coin to pause time and walk through the school's cafeteria, stealing a meat pie (just one!). But as he bit into it, he heard a sound.
Footsteps.
In frozen time.
He turned sharply.
A figure stood across the hall. A girl — tall, dark-skinned, wearing a red headwrap.
She was moving. In frozen time.
She stared directly at him, then smiled.
"You're new," she said.
Tunde dropped the meat pie.
"What— who—"
She stepped forward. "Welcome to the game."
Time resumed before he could reply.
She was gone.