The harmattan wind was late this year, but Lagos didn't care. It was December 31st, 2025, and the city was throwing the kind of party that made the ancestors sit up and take notice.
Oluwademilade "Demi" Adebayo leaned against the warm bonnet of his yellow Camry, the one with the cracked windshield and the "Oluwa is Involved" sticker peeling off the back. He was parked halfway on the pavement near the entrance to the Third Mainland Bridge, engine still running because the area boys would tow anything that looked abandoned. His white jalabiya was already stained with sweat and the faintest splash of palm oil from the party he'd just escaped.
His phone buzzed. Mama.
"Demilade, where are you? Your father is asking why his only son is not here to break the kolanut with us!"
Demi grinned, the kind of lazy, trouble-making smile that had gotten him out of trouble since primary school. "Mama, I'm on my way. Just one more ride. The money is sweet tonight."
"Liar. You are probably eating suya on the bridge again. Bring some home!"
He laughed and hung up before she could start on the marriage lecture. Twenty-eight years old, Yoruba man in Lagos, still dodging aunties who wanted to introduce him to "good church girls from Ibadan." Life was good. Hard, loud, hot, but good.
He took a bite of the suya wrapped in old newspaper, the pepper making his eyes water in the best way. Around him the city pulsed. Horns blared in a chaotic symphony. A generator across the road was blasting King Sunny Ade so loud the bass vibrated in his chest. Children ran past waving sparkles. A woman in full aso ebi was preaching into a megaphone about repentance while her friend sold pure water and recharge cards from a tray balanced on her head.
Demi loved every chaotic second of it.
He checked the time: 11:47 p.m. Fifteen minutes to midnight. Fifteen minutes until 2026. He planned to be home in Surulere by then, kolanut in hand, praying with the family like a proper Yoruba son.
The sky lit up with the first big fireworks. Green and gold and red exploded over the lagoon, reflecting on the black water like spilled jewels. People cheered. Someone set off a banger right beside his car and Demi jumped, laughing at himself.
Then everything stopped.
Not the fireworks. The world.
Every light in Lagos died at once. Streetlights, billboards, phone screens, the generator across the road — gone. The music cut mid-note. The horns choked off. Even the megaphone preacher's voice disappeared like someone had pulled the plug on reality itself.
A single line of glowing blue text appeared in the air, sharp and cold and impossible to look away from.
[Reclamation Protocol 001 Initiated]
[Welcome to the System, Lost Colony 47.]
[Integration begins in 3… 2… 1…]
The bridge shuddered.
Demi felt it in his bones first — a deep, wrong vibration like the earth itself was clearing its throat. Then the concrete under his feet cracked. His Camry lurched sideways and slammed into the divider. He was thrown hard, shoulder hitting the pavement, the suya flying from his hand.
Screams erupted everywhere.
A danfo bus twenty metres ahead simply folded in half as something massive and scaled erupted from beneath the bridge. Metal screamed. Glass rained. The creature — part crocodile, part nightmare — roared and snatched a man straight out of his car like he weighed nothing.
Demi's leg was pinned under the Camry's front wheel. Pain flared white-hot up his thigh. He tried to push the car off but his arms shook. Blood was already soaking through his jalabiya.
"Jesus… what is this?" he gasped.
Blue boxes kept appearing, faster now, overlapping like spam.
[Warning: Local Mana Density Critical]
[Feral Native Detected. Assigning Starter Class…]
[Class Assigned: Survivor (Common)]
[Health: 38/120]
[You are bleeding internally. Seek healing immediately.]
Another box, this one edged in faint gold like spider silk catching light.
[Hidden Condition Met: Blood of the Story-Weavers]
[Ancestral Resonance: 91% (Yoruba + Distant Akan Lineage Detected)]
[ERROR 404: Primary Administrator Offline – Legacy Protocol Activating]
Demi's vision blurred. The pain in his leg faded to a dull throb as something warm spread through his veins. A small black spider, no bigger than a coin but impossibly detailed, landed on his chest. Its eight eyes glowed like tiny lanterns. On its back were patterns that looked exactly like the adire cloth his grandmother used to wear.
The spider spoke, voice layered — half his late Iya Agba's warm Yoruba lilt, half something ancient and laughing.
"Demilade… you always begged for the stories. Now you will live inside one."
The spider dissolved into threads of liquid gold that sank into his skin like warm rain.
Power hit him like a full bucket of ice water and palm wine at the same time.
[Anansi's Chosen – The Weaver (Unique Legacy) Awakened!]
[Eshu's Whisper Synergy Detected (Yoruba Trickster Resonance 67%)]
[Class Evolution: Survivor → Weaver of Fates (Rare)]
[New Stat Unlocked: Resonance]
[Skill Gained: Thread Sense (Lv.1) – Perceive the hidden connections between all things.]
[Skill Gained: Proverb Binding (Lv.1) – Speak a true proverb to temporarily bend local reality.]
[Title Gained: First Thread on the Continent]
The car that had been crushing his leg suddenly felt lighter. Demi shoved and it rolled off him with a groan of metal. He stood up, leg already knitting together, the tear in his flesh closing like a zipper.
Around him Lagos was ending and beginning at the same time.
A floating chunk of the bridge hovered thirty metres above the lagoon, cars still attached, people screaming inside them. Giant bat-things with human faces dove between buildings. A woman in the distance had grown four extra arms and was using them to climb a streetlight while laughing maniacally. A man in a Chelsea jersey was on fire — actual flames — but he didn't seem to mind as he punched a monster the size of a cow through a bus stop.
Demi looked west, past the smoke and the madness, across the water toward Ghana.
A single golden thread, thin as silk but strong as hope, pulsed in that direction. Like an answer. Like family.
He took a deep breath, tasting smoke and blood and the distant smell of jollof someone was still somehow cooking.
A new box appeared, blood-red and massive.
[Continental Quest Generated: First Thread]
[Survive the first night in Lagos and reach the Ghanaian border before the end of Day 3.]
[Reward: Second Thread + Continental Resonance Map + One Free Class Evolution]
[Failure: Permanent Legacy Lock + Soul Reclamation]
Demi laughed — loud, wild, the kind of laugh that made area boys turn their heads even in the middle of the end of the world.
"Eshu and Anansi both watching me tonight? Then the System never stood a chance."
He flexed his fingers. Thin golden threads flickered between them like spider silk made of starlight. He didn't know how to use them yet, but he could feel the potential humming under his skin.
A small monster — something that used to be a dog but now had too many legs and glowing System text floating above it — charged at him from the shadows.
Demi grinned.
"Alright, little one. Let's see what the stories can do."
He opened his mouth and spoke the first proverb that came to mind, voice steady and carrying like his grandmother's used to when she told the children to behave.
"When the spider weaves its web in silence… even the lion gets caught."
The air shimmered. Golden threads shot from his fingertips and wrapped around the creature's legs. It tripped, confused, and Demi stepped forward, picked up a piece of rebar from the broken bridge, and swung it like a baseball bat.
The crack was satisfying.
[Enemy Defeated: Corrupted Stray (Lv.3)]
[Experience Gained: 45]
[Loot: 1x Minor Healing Crystal + 3x System Coins]
Demi stared at the blue box, then at the rebar in his hand, then at the burning city around him.
He started walking west, toward the water, toward Ghana, threads of gold flickering around his fingers like living promises.
The System had come to reclaim Africa.
Africa was about to reclaim it right back.
To be continued…