Island, Lagos — Midnight
The lights went out without warning.
For a heartbeat, Lagos held its breath—then roared into confusion.
The island skyline, usually a river of gold and neon, vanished into darkness. Generators coughed, flickered, then died, leaving the streets swallowed by night.
Bayo Adeniran stood by his apartment window, the city's silence pressing against the glass. The usual hum of life—the blare of distant horns, laughter, even the arguing—had thinned to a ghostly quiet. Only the ocean wind moved, brushing past the blinds like whispers from another world.
He reached for his phone. Dead. The signal light was gone.
Outside, faint flashes of torchlight darted like fireflies—neighbors peering from balconies, security guards shouting in confusion. A siren wailed briefly, then cut off mid-howl.
Bayo's chest tightened. He'd lived through Lagos blackouts before, but this was different. It wasn't chaos born of failure; it was precision—a switch flipped on purpose.
He grabbed his keys and stepped into the hallway. The building's generator should have kicked in, but it hadn't. Even the backup had gone silent.
On the street below, a group of residents had gathered. Some murmured prayers. Others whispered rumors: government shutdown, cyber-attack, coup attempt.
Bayo's gaze lifted toward the mainland, where the horizon glowed faintly red—an electrical surge? Or something worse?
He exhaled slowly. If this was their move, they weren't just choking light. They were choking breath itself.
And somewhere, he knew, Tope was still out there.
---
Yaba — Same Night
Tope ran her fingers along the cracked wall, navigating by memory more than sight. The little generator that usually lit the safehouse had sputtered out an hour ago.
Her tablet, lifeless. Her phone, useless. Every form of communication—gone.
Only the candlelight swayed in the stale air, illuminating the face of her contact: a lean man with tired eyes, an underground journalist who had risked everything to meet her. His name was Dare. He held a flash drive in one hand and a trembling lighter in the other.
"You're sure this is the last copy?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Tope nodded, sliding an envelope across the table. "Keep it safe. Don't upload it yet. Not until power returns, and not from Lagos."
He stared at the envelope, the candlelight trembling between them. "They're saying it's just a power grid collapse."
Tope's eyes hardened. "No. This blackout—this isn't punishment. It's cleansing. They're wiping everything they can't control."
Dare swallowed hard, pocketing the drive. "Then we better make sure what they can't control still breathes."
Tope allowed herself a faint smile. "Then breathe carefully."
As he slipped into the darkness, she leaned against the wall, trembling. For the first time in days, she felt truly alone.
The city she had known—the city that never slept—had finally gone quiet enough for fear to speak.
And in that silence, she whispered, "Bayo, I hope you're still standing."
Her own breath fogged the air. The candle sputtered once, then died—leaving her in complete darkness.
---
Ikoyi — Chief's Residence — Same Night
The blackout was total, yet the Chief's mansion remained a pool of dim, private light. Quiet hums of backup batteries powered the security lamps.
In the study, the Chief sat before a row of muted monitors showing dead feeds—his city, blind and obedient.
He took a slow drag from his cigar, the ember glow painting his face in the dark.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he murmured. "A city so loud, silenced by one command."
Across the room, the sharp-eyed man from the SUV—his fixer—stood with hands clasped behind his back.
"The networks are down, sir. The radio stations too. Only mainland clusters have partial power."
"And Adeniran?" the Chief asked, voice calm, almost amused.
The fixer hesitated. "Still active, we believe. His office lines went dead after ten. But the movement is scattered."
The Chief leaned back, eyes gleaming. "Scattered is good. Scattered people beg for order. And when they beg, they forget who broke them."
He stubbed out the cigar, rising. "Let him shout into the dark. Tomorrow, the city will wake craving silence."
The fixer nodded, though unease shadowed his expression. "And if he rallies again?"
The Chief paused at the window, lightning cracking over the lagoon—briefly illuminating his face. "Then we remind them what silence costs."
For a brief moment, he wasn't power incarnate but a man afraid of losing it. He could feel something slipping through the cracks—something that didn't obey fear.
---
Island, Lagos — Dawn
By dawn, the generators groaned back to life. The island's skyline flickered weakly—patches of yellow against the gray of early morning. Lagos was waking up, confused and angry, radio stations filled with contradictions.
National maintenance exercise, one report said.
Sabotage, claimed another.
But Bayo knew the truth. He'd seen the patterns, read the messages, heard the silences. This was no accident—it was a warning, maybe even a purge.
He stood on the balcony, his face shadowed by exhaustion but his eyes alert. Down below, the street vendors were already setting up again—survivors of every storm. Lagos didn't stop; it adapted.
He thought of Tope. Of the silence between their last words. The night had stolen her voice from him, but he could still feel her resolve moving like current through the city.
He picked up his phone again. Nothing. Dead network.
He turned to his desk, flipping through scattered papers—permits, blueprints, contracts—all useless now. But among them lay a small flash drive. Not Tope's, but his—a mirror of everything they'd built, and everything worth protecting.
He pocketed it. "You can bury light," he murmured, "but not the spark."
Outside, the air carried faint chanting. At first, he thought it was a dream. Then it grew—dozens of voices swelling from distant streets.
He stepped onto the balcony, straining to listen.
The words were faint but clear: We can't breathe in silence.
A protest chant. Born from the blackout itself.
Bayo smiled grimly. "Then we rise."
He looked once more toward the mainland, where the smoke of disrupted transformers curled into the sky. For the first time in days, he felt something close to clarity—not peace, but purpose.
Lagos had held its breath. Now, it was ready to exhale fire.