---
The lagoon walkway reeked of blood. The monster's twitching body sprawled across the concrete, its glowing veins dimming like dying embers. The moonlight caught the jagged teeth still slick with saliva, and for a moment, every survivor stood rooted — not because the beast still lived, but because of the man who killed it.
Musa swallowed hard, his throat dry. His knees shook so much he had to crouch to stop himself from falling. "Olorun o…" he muttered, the words trembling out of him. God save us.
No one moved. No one spoke. Only the soft slap of water against the lagoon edge, and the faint crackle of lantern fire.
Amara was the first to step forward, her eyes wide, almost shining. Her voice carried the tremor of disbelief. "Dele… what are you?"
He turned his head slowly, eyes locking on hers. There was no softness in that gaze, no comfort. Just weight — the kind that crushed doubts before they could rise.
"I'm the one who kills what you fear," he said quietly.
The words settled like stones in the survivors' chests.
Behind them, whispers started. Small, panicked voices.
"Nobody fit do wetin I just see…"
"Na juju?"
"Abi him no be human again?"
Their fear shifted, bending away from the dead monster and curling around the living man who had faced it head-on.
Amara's grip on her rod tightened. She wasn't sure whether it was for protection against the next zombie… or against Dele himself.
Dele heard their whispers. Every word.
Juju. Not human. Dangerous.
The corners of his mouth twitched, not into a smile, but into the faintest recognition of power. Fear was a currency, heavier than gold, sharper than blades. These people didn't know it yet, but they were already bound to him — not by loyalty, not by trust, but by survival.
He wiped the blood from his machete with deliberate slowness, letting the scraping sound echo in the silence. The beast's corpse steamed at his feet. Around them, the night pressed close, humming with the distant groans of the horde.
He looked at Amara. Her eyes searched him, half with awe, half with doubt. She wanted answers — human answers — but Dele had no intention of giving her what she wanted.
"Look around you," he said finally, his voice cutting through the murmurs. "The city is dying. The world is shifting. Those who cannot adapt…" —he nudged the monster's corpse with his boot— "…will become this. Or worse."
The survivors flinched as the carcass slumped with a wet thud.
Dele let his gaze sweep over them, one by one. "If you want to live, you stay with me. If you doubt me, if you fear me—" he paused, letting silence sink claws into their hearts, "—then step away now. And see how long you last without me."
Not a soul moved.
Even Musa, still trembling, lowered his eyes. The machete he had dropped earlier remained on the ground, but he made no attempt to reclaim it.
Dele exhaled slowly. Good.
Inside, though, his mind was already far beyond them. He knew what this fight meant. He knew what that monster's veins had revealed — the mutation, the mana infusion. It was beginning. Too early, but it was beginning all the same.
And only he had the knowledge of where this road led.
Lagos will fall. Nigeria will fracture. The continent will drown in blood.
Unless he made it otherwise.
Dele stood apart, though they clustered near him as if he were the last pillar left in a collapsing world. Their dependence disgusted him almost as much as it pleased him. He didn't save them because of compassion. Compassion was weakness. No—he saved them because pawns had their uses.
In his mind, the city unfolded like a broken chessboard. UNILAG's compound, once bright with youthful chatter, was now a carcass of silence, blood, and shadows. Ikeja, Mushin, Yaba—each district already choking under the plague. Soon the bridges would fail. The mainland would become a graveyard. The Island would seal itself off.
He could see it all.
But unlike the others, Dele had no interest in merely running, hiding, or praying. He intended to rule.
The plague was chaos—yes. But chaos was also opportunity. He had watched the military crumble, the politicians vanish into bunkers, the self-proclaimed men of God shout until their churches burned around them. Authority was gone. Fear had no master.
He would become that master.
Not by begging. Not by mercy. But by demonstrating again and again what he had shown tonight: he could stand before the monsters and not only live, but command their deaths.
First, the survivors, he thought, eyes narrowing. I will bend them into soldiers. Strip them of weakness. Teach them that obedience is survival. Amara will resist. Musa will fear. The others will hesitate. It does not matter. They will learn—or they will break.
A low growl carried on the night air. Another wave of the dead was moving closer, slow but relentless. The others began to whisper nervously again, glancing to Dele for instruction.
He didn't answer. Not yet.
Instead, he studied the darkness. His heart was steady, his breathing calm. In the reflection of the monster's blood, he could almost see his future: a throne carved out of bone and silence, standing tall in a city of ash.
This is not the end, he told himself. This is the beginning of my reign.
The low growl in the distance thickened the silence. The group shifted uneasily, weapons trembling in their hands. Amara whispered, "They're coming again…" Musa muttered a prayer under his breath.
Dele finally spoke. His voice was calm, deep, and cutting through their panic like a blade.
"Good," he said.
They turned to him, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Good?" Amara's tone cracked. "What is good about more of those… things coming for us?"
Dele's gaze swept over them one by one, hard and unblinking. "Because pressure creates strength. You all fear them. But fear is a leash—and I will break it. If we survive tonight, you will understand that the zombies are not just an enemy. They are the fire that will forge us. And when we are forged…" He paused, letting the words hang heavy. "…nothing in this city will stand against us."
Musa frowned. "You sound like—like you want to fight forever."
Dele stepped closer, lowering his voice, forcing them to lean in. "Forever? No. We fight now to shape tomorrow. Listen to me—all the old powers are gone. The soldiers are dead. The leaders are hiding. Lagos is masterless." He clenched his fist. "But not for long. We will not just survive this. We will take it. Control it. Own it."
The others stared, stunned into silence. Some with fear, others with a dangerous spark of belief.
Dele smirked faintly, seeing it catch. "Follow me, and you live. Follow me, and you become more than frightened survivors. You become the beginning of something greater. A new order in this city of the dead."
Another growl echoed, closer now. The others flinched—but Dele only tilted his head, listening.
"They're here," he said softly, a cold thrill in his voice. "Let's welcome them properly."
The growls thickened, echoing off the broken walls of UNILAG's compound. Shadows stirred in the dark.
Dele's words still hung in the air, heavy and sharp.
Musa broke the silence first, face hard. "You're mad. Control Lagos? You talk like a tyrant. We are not soldiers—we're just people trying to live."
Amara nodded, clutching her machete tighter. "We need safety, not your empire."
But then Chike—young, eyes burning with something dangerous—stepped forward. "And where has 'safety' gotten us? My brother's dead, my aunt turned yesterday. Dele is right. If we don't take control, if we don't seize power, we'll just keep running until we're gone."
Musa spat to the side. "So you want to become like the monsters we fight? What's the difference then?"
Dele's voice cut through again, steady, unflinching. "The difference is choice. They hunger without reason. We act with purpose. Musa, your prayers will not stop the dead. Amara, your fear will not protect you. But me?" His eyes burned in the dim light. "I will carve a future with these hands, even if it is soaked in blood."
Chike's voice trembled, but not with fear—with conviction. "Then I'll follow you."
Amara pulled him back sharply. "Don't be foolish! He'll drag us all to ruin!"
Before more words could be exchanged, the night shattered with an ear-splitting screech. The dead were closer now—so close the stench rolled in with the wind.
Dele lifted his blade slowly, as though welcoming the sound. His smirk returned. "No more talking. Time to prove yourselves. You will either fight beside me… or die behind me."
The gates groaned. Something heavy slammed against the metal, again and again. The weak hinges rattled as if they would tear loose.
Dele moved first. His boots echoed across the cracked concrete as he strode toward the gate, sword in hand. "Form up!" he barked. His tone was not a plea but a command.
Chike followed instantly, heart hammering but eyes locked on Dele like a disciple. Amara hesitated, torn between fear and survival, until the gate bulged inward with a screech of tearing metal. Musa cursed under his breath and lifted his hunting knife.
The gate burst open.
The first corpse stumbled through—its face half-rotted, jaw hanging loose. Behind it came more, packed tight, shoving into the compound with a wave of decay and hunger.
"Strike low!" Dele roared. "Sever the spine, crush the skull—waste nothing!"
He was already moving. His blade flashed, cutting clean through a neck. The head rolled across the ground, eyes still blinking as the body collapsed. He pivoted, dragging Chike by the shoulder to force him into the fight.
"Now! Kill it, or it kills you!"
Chike screamed and drove his machete into a zombie's chest—too shallow. The thing lunged forward, jaws snapping at his face. Dele's hand shot out, smashing its skull against the wall with brutal efficiency.
"Chest is useless!" he snarled. "Head or spine! Remember that, boy!"
Amara swung wildly at another, slicing through its arm. Useless. The creature lurched at her, teeth bared. Musa dove in from the side, stabbing his knife deep into the base of its neck, twisting until the body dropped limp.
Blood sprayed. The compound echoed with screams and roars.
But Dele was everywhere—cutting, commanding, pulling them into formation. Each strike of his blade was deliberate, each kill clean. The others began to move in rhythm, no longer just survivors but soldiers in his war.
The horde pressed harder. The stench thickened. Still they held.
By the time the last corpse twitched on the floor, the ground was a blackened mess of blood and torn flesh. Their chests heaved, eyes wide, faces streaked with sweat and gore.
Dele stood tall in the middle of it, blade dripping. He looked at the others—Chike shaking but alive, Musa pale but steady, Amara's hands trembling around her weapon.
And then he smiled, cold and unyielding.
"This," he said, voice carrying in the silence, "is the beginning. Today you fought because I told you how. Tomorrow you'll fight because you believe. One city at a time, we will not just survive—we will rule."
The night was heavy after the last corpse fell. The only sound left in the compound was the buzzing of flies already circling, and the rasping of lungs that had screamed too much.
Chike dropped to his knees, machete slipping from his fingers. His whole body shook—not just from fatigue, but from the terror of what he had just survived. Amara leaned against the wall, hands sticky with blood that wasn't all her own. Musa sat on the ground, wiping his blade over and over as if trying to erase the memory of each kill.
But Dele didn't sit. He stood in the middle of the carnage, sword still in his hand, surveying the mess like a general counting the dead.
"You see now," he said quietly, though his voice carried through the night air. "This is what waits for you every time you step outside. The world has changed. There is no safety… only strength."
Amara's eyes flicked up, tired and angry. "Strength? You call this strength? We almost died."
Dele walked over, crouched in front of her, and pressed the bloody blade against the ground between them. His eyes locked on hers, hard and unwavering.
"You lived. That's what matters. Death was the lesson. Survival is the reward."
Amara flinched but couldn't look away. Chike, still trembling, whispered, "But… but there were too many. If more come…"
Dele cut him off sharply. "Then we fight smarter. You"—he jabbed a finger at Chike—"aim for the head, not the chest. You"—to Musa—"hold the line, don't just stab. Control the ground. And you"—his gaze returned to Amara—"stop swinging like a frightened child. Every strike must count."
Silence pressed down. They hated the harshness in his voice, but none of them could deny that without him, they would already be corpses among the pile.
Finally, Musa asked the question hanging over them all. "And you? Why do you know all this… this way of killing them?"
Dele stood tall, wiping his blade on a corpse's torn shirt. The faintest smile curled his lips.
"Because I've seen further than you. Mana is not just mystery—it is power. These creatures are only the first wave. If you follow me, I will make sure you never bow to them. Or to anyone."
The fire in his eyes made their skin crawl. Chike lowered his head. Amara clenched her fists. Musa watched him closely, suspicion warring with reluctant respect.
Around them, the bodies twitched their last. The night felt heavier, as if the city itself was watching.
For the first time, the group realized something chilling. They weren't just fighting to survive anymore. Under Dele, they were being forged into something else—something that might stand against the apocalypse… or become its darkest part.
The group gathered in one of the abandoned lecture halls, the smell of dust and faint blood still clinging to the air. The overhead bulbs were dead, but a single lantern flickered on the desk, casting long, tired shadows.
Amara sat on the floor with her back against the wall, chewing slowly on a dry garri cake they had scavenged earlier. Musa had his head bowed, muttering a soft prayer in Hausa under his breath, words tripping over exhaustion. Chike kept staring at his hands as if the blood had stained them permanently.
For the first time since the chaos, no one spoke of zombies. They spoke of home.
"My mother… she used to shout at me every night to bring water inside before the NEPA light went off," Musa said with a weak chuckle. "Now I would give anything to hear her voice again, just once."
Amara's eyes softened, her voice quieter. "My father… he worked two jobs. He used to say, 'Ụtụtụ ọma anaghị eche onye ụra,' (morning doesn't wait for the sleeper). He wanted me to fight for every chance." Her throat tightened. "I wonder if he would call this fighting."
Chike finally whispered, "I just… I just wanted to graduate. Get a job. Make my family proud." His voice cracked. "Now look at me."
The lantern flickered. Their words hung heavy in the silence, pulling them back to what they had lost.
Then Dele's voice cut through—steady, low, commanding.
"Hold on to that," he said. "Hold on to your families. Your memories. Your dreams. Because when the world is nothing but blood and ruin, that is what will keep you human. That is what makes you fight harder than any monster."
They looked up at him. For a moment, he seemed almost… human. His face softened, shadows shifting across his features. But then, just as quickly, his expression hardened again.
"Do not forget," he added, his voice sharpening, "tears won't keep you alive. Only strength will. Cry tonight, if you must. But tomorrow, we sharpen our blades."
The group went quiet again, but this time, the silence wasn't despair. It was a fragile thread of determination, thin but real.
Amara's hands curled tighter around the garri cake. Musa's prayers grew stronger. Chike finally lifted his eyes.
And Dele, standing apart, looked at them all with calculating eyes. He had given them a moment of humanity, but he knew it was also a tool. Hope could be sharpened just like steel.
Outside, faint groans echoed through the campus, a reminder that the dead never slept.
Inside, for one fragile night, the living allowed themselves to breathe.
The first light of dawn broke over the ruined campus. The rising sun painted the sky in streaks of gold and crimson, a cruel reminder that the world outside still had beauty, even as it drowned in horror.
Inside the compound, Dele stood tall, his figure outlined by the morning glow. His voice cut across the weary silence.
"Up. Now. This is not a hostel. This is not your father's house. Every second you spend lying down is a second closer to death. Move!"
Amara groaned softly as she dragged herself up from the floor, her body aching from yesterday's chaos. Musa rubbed his eyes, muttering, "Kai, ba sauƙi ba…" (this is not easy). Chike stumbled, still clutching his makeshift blade, but he obeyed.
Dele's eyes swept over them—sharp, ruthless. "You want to live? Then you'll learn. From this moment on, every one of you is a soldier. Forget your past. Forget your softness. Today, we build what the world will soon need."
He kicked over a desk, clearing the hall, then began demonstrating.
Formation drills: "When I say move, you don't think—you move. Shoulder to shoulder, weapons raised. Hesitation kills."
Kill strikes: He showed them where to hit—temple, neck, knee. "Zombies are fast but clumsy. You don't hack wildly. Precision. Efficiency. That is survival."
Endurance tests: He made them run laps across the broken compound, dodging debris, sweat stinging their eyes. "If you cannot run when your lungs burn, then you will die when it matters most."
By midday, their faces were streaked with sweat and dust. Amara's arms shook as she swung her blade again and again at a shattered chair leg, practicing killing blows. Musa's breath came in gasps, but he forced himself to keep up. Chike stumbled, but when Dele's voice barked, "Up!", he rose again, jaw clenched.
Dele never once let them rest easy. He corrected stances with brutal precision, pushed them harder than they thought possible. But beneath the hardness, there was a method—an invisible structure only he knew, one pulled from his memories of a future yet to happen.
Between drills, he whispered strategies to himself. Formations that would matter when mana began to awaken. Ways to turn ordinary survivors into weapons. Knowledge none of them could even imagine.
Amara noticed his eyes once—how distant they looked when he corrected her grip. As if he was seeing not her, but something else. Something years ahead.
By the time the sun reached its peak, the survivors were trembling, their bodies at their limit. But their eyes burned differently now. Where there had been despair, there was focus. Where there had been fear, there was the first flicker of discipline.
Dele finally gave a sharp nod. "Good. Weak, but better. Remember this feeling—exhaustion, pain, hunger. Get used to it. Because this is your life now."
He turned away, gazing out toward the broken gates where faint groans drifted from the distance. His voice dropped, cold as iron.
"And when the time comes, it won't just be about surviving. It will be about conquering. We are not rats hiding in ruins. We are the ones who will inherit this world."
The survivors didn't fully understand, but the fire in his tone sank into them like a seed.
Outside, the moans of the undead grew louder. Pressure never stopped. And Dele, with his strange knowledge and ruthless will, was shaping them into something far more dangerous than frightened students.
The hall reeked of sweat and dust. Bodies slumped against the walls, muscles trembling, chests heaving. They had trained harder in a few hours than in their entire lives combined.
Musa sat cross-legged, sweat dripping down his brow, muttering, "Ya Allah, give me strength. Even soldiers no dey train like this…" He tried to smile, but his lips quivered.
Chike was quiet, sharpening his makeshift blade against the broken edge of a desk. His hands were raw and blistered, but he said nothing. Each scrape of metal against wood echoed like a vow.
Amara, though exhausted, leaned forward, studying every move Dele made. He wasn't just training them—he was sculpting them, molding them. And something in her gut whispered that he had done this before, somewhere beyond reason.
Finally, Amara asked, her voice hoarse, "Why… why do you push us like this, Dele? Even before the… the apocalypse truly begins?"
Dele's gaze lingered on her, cold and sharp, but not unfeeling. "Because when it begins, there will be no time to learn. The weak will die in hours. The strong will survive… and rule."
He paused, his voice dropping lower, almost like a prophecy.
"Mana is coming. You won't understand it yet. But when it flows into this world, it will change everything. You think this is harsh? This is only the foundation. Those who endure will rise beyond human limits."
The words made their stomachs tighten. Musa looked bewildered. Chike's sharpening slowed. Amara's eyes narrowed—half fearful, half curious.
"You talk as if you've seen it before," she whispered.
Dele's lips curled faintly. "In a way, I have."
No one dared press further.
---
🌒 Later That Night
The survivors sat around a small fire in the cleared courtyard. For the first time, laughter sparked faintly among them. Musa mimicked Dele's barked orders, earning chuckles. Chike muttered a dry joke about how they would soon be doing pushups in their dreams. Even Amara cracked a smile.
But beneath the laughter, there was steel. The training had shifted something. They were no longer just scared students waiting to die. They were becoming… a unit.
Dele watched them quietly from the shadows, arms folded. To anyone else, it looked like he was simply standing guard. But in truth, he was analyzing—studying how each of them responded to pain, to command, to hope.
Musa: loud, loyal, but prone to doubt.
Chike: silent, but his anger simmered beneath the surface, sharp and dangerous if directed.
Amara: resilient, questioning, her gaze sharper than the others—she would either be a leader beside him or an obstacle to crush.
His mind never stopped calculating. Every smile, every word, every flicker of emotion—they were pieces of a puzzle he was arranging into a future army.
The moans of the undead drifted faintly across the campus walls, constant, unrelenting. But tonight, instead of trembling, the survivors sat straighter. Their fear was not gone, but it was tempered.
Dele allowed the faintest smile to touch his lips.
It was working.
The morning was heavy, air thick with the stench of rot carried on the breeze. Birds no longer sang. The silence of the campus was broken only by the faint scrape of moaning beyond the gates.
Dele was already awake, sharpening his blade by the fire. His eyes narrowed. Something felt different. The groans outside weren't scattered anymore—they were layered, overlapping, growing louder.
He stood. "Up. All of you. Now."
Amara blinked awake, instantly on guard. Musa cursed under his breath, scrambling for his weapon. Chike was already reaching for his sharpened desk-leg blade, face pale but steady.
Then it came.
A loud, metallic clang.
The old university gates shuddered as pale, decaying hands slammed against them from the outside. The survivors froze.
Dele's voice sliced through the fear. "Form up! Just like I taught you. Move!"
They scrambled into position, Amara and Musa on the flanks, Chike in the center. Their stances were shaky, but they remembered.
The gate groaned, hinges bending. Another slam. And then—
CRASH!
The gates burst inward, and the flood arrived. Dozens of zombies poured into the compound—groaning, staggering, their eyes glowing faintly with the first hints of Mana's corruption. Their movements were clumsy, but their hunger was relentless.
Musa's voice cracked. "Ya Allah…"
"Hold the line!" Dele barked, his voice like iron. "Precision! Aim for the head!"
The first zombie lunged. Chike drove his blade into its temple, exactly as trained. The corpse dropped instantly. His hands shook, but his eyes blazed.
Amara sidestepped another, slashing its neck, then jamming her blade upward into its skull. Blood sprayed across her face, but she didn't falter.
Musa hesitated as one came for him. His blade wavered—until Dele's roar cut through. "Strike, Musa! Strike or die!"
With a cry, Musa swung hard, splitting its jaw. The creature writhed, then fell.
The formation wavered, but it held. Strike. Step. Breathe. Strike again. The drills were paying off. Their fear hadn't vanished, but it was no longer paralyzing.
Dele himself moved like a predator. Calm, efficient, brutal. His blade cut through skulls with surgical precision, every strike measured, every kill a lesson. He didn't just fight—he demonstrated.
"See how I move! Copy me!" he shouted between blows.
Minutes stretched like hours. The courtyard was a blur of screams, groans, and the sickening crunch of bone.
At last, the final zombie twitched on the ground before going still.
The survivors stood in the carnage, trembling, covered in blood, their chests heaving.
Silence.
Then Dele's voice again, quiet this time but heavy as steel.
"This is the beginning," he said, his gaze sweeping over the corpses, then over his battered, bloodied group. "You survived because you listened. Because you fought with discipline. Remember this victory. Burn it into your minds."
He let the silence hang before finishing:
"From today, you are no longer prey. You are hunters. And the world will learn to fear hunters."
The survivors exchanged glances. Musa's lips trembled, but he nodded. Chike's hands were still shaking, but his eyes were fierce. Amara's stare lingered on Dele—part awe, part unease.
Outside the compound, more distant moans echoed. The pressure never ended.
But for the first time, they believed they might stand a chance.
---
Three days passed since the first breach, and UNILAG no longer looked the same.
The stench of burned corpses clung to the air, thick and acrid, carried by the smoke of makeshift pyres. Every dawn began with the same ritual: pile the bodies, burn them, and bury the ashes. It hardened the survivors faster than any lecture. Death was no longer theory. It was a neighbor, breathing down their necks.
Chike's trembling had stopped. His strikes grew sharper, each swing carrying weight and intent. The boy who once stammered during drills now moved without hesitation, his eyes shadowed but steady.
Musa bore a fresh scar across his forearm — his first real wound — but he wore it with a strange pride. He joked less now, his prayers deeper, his laughter replaced by grim determination. He no longer hesitated with his blade.
Amara… Amara was different. She had killed with fury, but what unsettled her was not the blood—it was how much Dele already knew. She had watched him move like a man who had lived this nightmare long before it began. The others saw a leader. She saw a secret.
And Dele himself? He remained an enigma. While others slept, he stood at the broken gates, sharpening his blade, eyes scanning the horizon. His hands never shook, his gaze never softened. He drilled them harder, sometimes until they vomited from exhaustion. But none of them dared complain. Because they knew — every scream, every sweat-drenched hour of training — kept them alive.
On the fourth morning, after another punishing drill, Dele finally spoke to them as they stood in a line, drenched in sweat.
"You're no longer children," he said. His voice was low, but every syllable carried. "You've fought. You've bled. You've killed. And you lived. That makes you hunters. Hunters don't wait for death. Hunters go out, track it, and break it before it grows teeth."
The group exchanged uneasy glances. They had been surviving. But Dele was talking about something else.
Amara frowned. "You mean… go outside the compound?"
Dele's eyes met hers. Calm. Cold.
"Yes," he said. "It's time we stop waiting for them to come. It's time we see what else is out there. Food. Weapons. Information. And maybe…" he paused, his tone unreadable, "other survivors."
The words hit them like thunder. The compound felt like safety, but Dele was asking them to abandon that illusion.
Musa swallowed hard. "And if we don't come back?"
Dele's blade hissed against the stone as he sheathed it.
"Then you'll die like prey," he said simply. "But if you come with me, you'll learn to live like predators. The choice is yours."
Silence. Only the crackle of the pyre in the background.
One by one, though fear shone in their eyes, they nodded. Amara last of all — not out of loyalty, but out of something sharper. Curiosity.
Because deep down, she knew: Dele wasn't just teaching them to survive. He was shaping them for something bigger.
Something he hadn't revealed yet.
---