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Chapter 27 – "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." (African Proverb)
The first night after the siege had ended with silence. The second began with screams.
They came from the southern barricade—sharp, sudden, panicked. Survivors bolted upright from restless sleep, grabbing makeshift weapons, hearts pounding. Amara's stomach dropped as the noise rippled through the hall like a curse.
The zombies had found them again.
Amara ran with others to the barricade, lungs burning. Torches hissed in the humid night, throwing wild shadows against the walls. At the edge of the compound, four men struggled to hold a reinforced gate as pale arms clawed through the cracks. Fingers blackened by decay scratched at the wood, nails breaking but never stopping.
The sound was worse than the sight. That endless scraping. That hunger.
"Hold!" one of the guards shouted, his eyes wide. "Push, abeg! If dem break this one, we don finish!"
Amara threw herself against the gate, muscles screaming. Sweat poured down her face, mingling with tears she hadn't realized were falling. The smell of rot was everywhere—like wet earth mixed with burning plastic.
The gate shuddered. For a moment, she thought it would give way.
Then—
"Step aside."
Dele's voice cut through the chaos like steel.
The guards moved without question. Dele stepped forward, calm, deliberate. In his hands, he carried something new—two iron rods, sharpened into spears, their tips blackened as though burnt in fire.
"Hold the torches higher," he ordered.
Flames flared. Dele plunged the first spear through a crack. A wet crunch followed, then silence. The clawing slowed. Another thrust. Another crunch. By the time he pulled back, the arms on the other side hung limp.
The survivors stared. The gate was quiet.
Dele's voice was low, but it carried. "The dead will keep pressing. Tonight, they test our strength. Tomorrow, they come harder. But we will not break. We will sharpen iron. We will sharpen ourselves. Those who cannot—will fall."
No one spoke. No one dared.
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Amara's chest heaved as she stumbled back into the hall. Her arms still ached from holding the gate. She dropped against the wall, trembling.
Around her, survivors whispered. Some praised Dele—calling him savior, protector. Others muttered fearfully, voices hushed.
"Na wah for that one," a woman whispered in pidgin. "E just dey too calm. Like say e don see all this before."
"Maybe na juju," another muttered in Yoruba. "Only babalawo fit look death for eye like that."
Amara hugged her knees. She wanted to dismiss their words, but she couldn't. Dele had seen all this before—his eyes told her so. But how?
When she closed her eyes, she still heard his words: We will sharpen iron. We will sharpen ourselves.
It wasn't just survival he was promising. It was transformation.
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By morning, Dele had called a gathering. Survivors filled the atrium, faces drawn, eyes sunken. Hunger gnawed at them. Fear weighed on them.
Dele stood at the center.
"You saw the gate last night," he began. "You saw how the dead test our walls. This will not stop. They will come until we break, unless we change."
He lifted one of the spears. Its blackened tip caught the light. "We forge weapons. Not sticks, not stones—iron. We set traps. We build fire. We train."
Murmurs rose.
"We are not soldiers," someone shouted. "We are students, mothers, children!"
Dele's gaze cut to him. "Then learn. Or die."
The hall fell silent.
He lowered the spear. "From today, every able body will train. Every hand will build. Those who cannot fight will cook, fetch water, guard the children. There will be no idlers. Idlers are corpses waiting to happen."
The weight of his words pressed on them. Some nodded, desperate for purpose. Others shifted uneasily.
Amara's heart thudded. She could see what he was doing—taking their fear, shaping it into obedience. And the terrible truth was that it worked.
---
Later, as the crowd dispersed into tasks, Amara approached him.
"You're turning them into soldiers," she said.
Dele didn't look up from sharpening his spear. "I'm turning them into survivors."
"At what cost?" she pressed. "They're already broken. You're pushing them harder."
His hand stilled. He looked at her, eyes dark. "Do you know what happens to a village that cannot defend itself? It burns. And everyone inside burns with it."
Her throat tightened.
"Amara," he said quietly, "I will not let us burn. Even if it means becoming the fire myself."
---
The following days blurred into drills and sweat. Survivors marched in circles, swung spears, lifted crates. Children carried stones to strengthen the barricades. Old women wove cloth into strips for bandages.
It was brutal. It was exhausting. But it was order.
And all the while, the dead pressed. Their moans seeped through the walls at night, a chorus of hunger. No one slept deeply anymore.
One evening, Amara found herself on the southern wall, spear in hand. Her arms trembled as she practiced thrusts, but her mind drifted. She remembered her old life—lectures, market days, dancing at festivals. It felt like another world.
Now, survival was muscle and fear.
Beside her, Dele watched silently. His presence was steady, unshakable. She hated him for it. She envied him for it.
"Do you ever feel fear?" she asked suddenly.
His gaze lingered on the dark horizon. "Fear is constant. But I learned long ago—it can be sharpened into a blade."
"And if the blade cuts the wrong people?"
He finally looked at her. His expression was unreadable. "Then they were too weak to hold it."
Amara's chest tightened. She turned away, unable to meet his eyes.
---
That night, the zombies pressed harder. The barricades groaned. Fires lit the compound, torches burning bright. Survivors stood shoulder to shoulder, spears raised.
The dead clawed, moaned, pressed—
but the living pressed back.
When dawn came, the barricades still stood. Exhausted, bloodied, trembling—the survivors were still alive.
And they looked to Dele.
Not as a man. Not even as a leader.
But as the fire keeping them from the dark.
---
Amara sat apart as the sun rose, its light faint and gray. She watched him speaking to the guards, calm, composed, unshaken.
The proverb whispered in her mind, words her grandmother used to say: The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.
That was Dele.
And if the world would not embrace him—he would burn it, reshape it, and force it into his arms.
Amara shivered.
The zombies were not the only danger pressing in.
The greater danger might already be inside.
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