The sound wasn't a gentle chime. It was a relentless, electronic trill that drilled directly into Koro's skull. It was the kind of noise that could wake the dead. Or, in his case, the newly reborn.
He groaned, a low, animal sound from the back of his throat. His hand flailed out, smacking something cold and smooth on a nightstand that felt suspiciously like polished marble. His fingers finally closed around a slim, buzzing rectangle.
"What?" he grumbled, his voice thick with a sleep he didn't remember having.
"Good morning, sir." The voice on the other end was like warm honey, smooth and professionally sweet. "I apologize for the early call, but your 10 a.m. reminder is active. You have a consolidated media briefing with CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera at noon."
Koro blinked in the semi-darkness. The room was huge, shadows hinting at shapes of furniture that looked expensive even in the gloom. This wasn't his room. His room smelled faintly of damp cement and old wood, and his mattress had a permanent dip in the middle.
"A media… what for?" he rasped, pushing himself up on his elbows. The sheets felt impossibly soft, like sliding against clouds.
There was a slight, perfectly polite pause on the other end. "The interview, sir. Regarding your… unprecedented financial standing. The world is rather eager to hear how you reached this point in life."
Your unprecedented financial standing.
The words landed not like words, but like a bucket of ice-cold water.
Zoom. The void. The orb. The voice. Five hundred and twelve trillion.
His eyes snapped wide open. He wasn't in Bayelsa. He was in… where had the voice said? Manhattan. The penthouse.
"Hello? Sir?" the honeyed voice queried.
"Who are you?" The question came out blunt, stripped of any social grace. He was too busy trying to stop his heart from trying to escape his chest.
Another pause, this one slightly longer. "This is Anya, sir. Your senior executive assistant. We've… we've spoken every day for the past three days." Her tone suggested she was used to his eccentricities, but this was a new one.
Right. No history. Just appeared. The being's warning echoed in his mind. An uproar.
"Yeah. Right. Anya," Koro said, his brain scrambling. "Okay. Thanks." He ended the call without another word, dropping the phone like it was on fire.
He swung his legs out of the bed. The floor was cool, polished wood under his bare feet. He stood up, and the world felt… different. He was taller. He knew it instantly. The perspective of the room was wrong. He took a few steps, his body moving with a fluid, effortless grace that was entirely foreign. There was no morning stiffness, no creak in his joints. Just pure, silent power.
He needed to see. He needed proof.
He stumbled through the vast, opulent bedroom, his feet finding their way almost instinctively towards a door that he somehow knew led to the bathroom. He pushed it open.
The bathroom was bigger than his entire old house. It was all cream-colored marble and gleaming chrome. But he barely noticed the sunken tub or the waterfall shower. His eyes were locked on the full-length mirror framed in gold.
A stranger stared back.
It was him. Koro. But it was him after being polished by the gods. His face, the one he'd seen every day in his small, cracked mirror, was there—the same nose, the same mouth. But the edges were sharper, the skin clear and glowing with health. The lanky, underfed frame he'd known was gone, replaced by a build that was pure, lean muscle. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, his arms and legs corded with strength that looked both natural and impossible. He looked like a sculptor's ideal of a man, not a boy who'd skipped meals to buy data.
He lifted a hand, and the reflection did the same. He touched his face. The reflection touched its face.
This was real.
The last vestiges of sleep and disbelief evaporated, burned away by a sudden, explosive surge of pure, unadulterated joy.
A slow grin spread across his face, a real one, the kind he hadn't felt since he was a kid. It stretched his cheeks and reached his eyes. Then a chuckle escaped his lips, low and disbelieving. The chuckle grew into a full-bellied laugh that echoed off the marble walls.
He wasn't just rich. He was… this. He was a masterpiece.
"No way," he whispered to his reflection. "No freaking way."
The reflection just grinned back, looking like it was about to star in its own action movie.
And then, he started to move. A little shoulder shimmy at first, then a slow, rhythmic groove. He snapped his fingers, his body moving with an innate rhythm he never knew he possessed. The being had said his physical attributes were maxed out. Apparently, that included dance skills.
He started humming, a low tune that built into the catchy, upbeat chorus of Davido's "Jowo." He wasn't just dancing now; he was performing for an audience of one—the incredibly handsome guy in the mirror.
"Jowo, jowo, jowo!" he sang out, his voice strong and clear, not the hesitant mumble he was used to. He did a slick spin, his bare feet sliding perfectly on the smooth floor, and pointed at his reflection. "Yes! That's me! Look at you! You fine thing!"
He was in the middle of an admittedly impressive body roll when the phone on the bathroom counter—because of course there was a phone in the bathroom—started ringing again, the same insistent trill.
Breathing lightly—he wasn't even winded—he sauntered over and picked it up.
"Anya," he said, his voice now bright and laced with amusement.
"Sir, I just wanted to confirm you're awake and… preparing." She sounded slightly hesitant, probably having heard his impromptu concert through the line.
Koro looked at his reflection again. The guy in the mirror wasn't just prepared. He was born for this.
"Yeah, Anya," he said, a wide, effortless smile in his voice. "Tell them I'm getting ready. And tell them… the world isn't ready for me."
He ended the call, tossing the phone onto a plush towel. He leaned closer to the mirror, studying the face that was now his new reality.
"Okay, Mr. World's Richest Man," he said to his reflection. "Let's go see what all the fuss is about."