Uche Obi never believed in curses.Not when he grew up in a house where the roof leaked every rainy season.Not when his father vanished before his tenth birthday.Not when life constantly punched him in the throat.But the moment he stepped into Blackridge University, curse or not, the air changed.It was too still. Too watchful.Like the school was waiting for him.Students swarmed the hostel allocation board, shouting, arguing, shoving. The sun was high, the heat wicked, and everyone looked stressed. But the moment Uche squeezed in to check his name, people suddenly went quiet behind him.He found it:OBI UCHECHUKWU — BLOCK C, ROOM 49.A low hiss rose from the crowd.“Ah. God don catch this one.”“Room 49 again? Blood of Jesus.”“Another mumu don enter.”Uche turned. Faces shifted away. Some pitied him, others smirked. A few backed up like he carried a contagious disease. His stomach tightened.“What’s wrong with Room 49?” he asked.Nobody answered.Nobody ever did.Block C stood a

Uche didn’t blink for almost a full minute.The two papers in the wardrobe stared back at him:YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO PROVE YOU’RE WORTH THE ROOM.OR YOU WILL BE REMOVED.His breath came out in short, broken bursts. Removed? Removed how? Removed where? By who?“Seyi?” he whispered.Silence.He checked the bathroom. Empty.Checked outside the room. Nothing.Seyi was gone.Again.His chest tightened. “This is madness. This is real madness.”He closed the wardrobe slowly. The metal hinges squeaked like they were laughing at him.24 hours.24 hours for what?He sat on his bed, hands in his hair, trying not to panic. His phone vibrated suddenly. He jumped.A message from an unknown number:1/24.Just that.Nothing else.He almost threw the phone in fear.“God, what have I entered?”By morning, Uche’s head felt heavy. His eyes stung. His body vibrated with restless energy. Every second felt like a countdown he couldn’t stop.He reached the faculty building earlier than everyone else. He didn’

Uche didn’t sleep.He couldn’t.The mirror.The whisper calling him “Subject 49.”The wall taps answering Seyi’s knocks.The cold breath seeping from the wardrobe…Everything replayed nonstop in his head.By sunrise, his nerves were fried.His hands still shook.His mouth was dry.But he wasn’t leaving.Not yet.He needed answers.Seyi owed him.Morning light didn’t soften Room 49. It actually made it worse—revealing scratches along the wardrobe frame, a tiny crack in the ceiling, and strange faint markings on the wall that looked like thin, long fingerprints dragging downward.Seyi sat on his bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed. He looked exhausted… but calm. Too calm.“Are you ready?” he asked without looking up.“No,” Uche said honestly.“Good.”Seyi lifted his head.“Being ready is how they get you.”Uche swallowed.“Tell me everything. Start from the beginning.”Seyi nodded.“You deserve the truth. But you won’t like it.”“Just talk.”Seyi exhaled, rubbed his face, and then bega

Uche didn’t expect the blindfold to come off so suddenly.One moment, he was being dragged through a corridor—arms twisted behind him, boots hitting his shins—then a bright white light hit his eyes like a slap. He blinked hard.A metal chair.A table with chains.One camera blinking red.Cold room. No windows. No clock.Interrogation.Across the table sat a man in a grey tactical vest, his face unreadable, fingers drumming the metal like a countdown.“Uche Obi,” the man said. “Age eighteen. Freshman. Room 49.”He tilted his head like he was examining an animal.“You survived longer than expected.”Uche swallowed. “Where am I?”“Somewhere beneath campus.”The man leaned forward.“Tell me what you’ve figured out so far.”Uche kept quiet.He didn’t know if speaking would save him or kill him.He only knew one thing: they wanted information, and anything he said could put him deeper into their game.The man sighed, annoyed.“You think staying quiet helps you? You think silence equals stre

CHAPTER 9 — THE DIRECTOR’S GAMEUche ran through the campus streets under the cloak of darkness, lungs burning, heart hammering like it wanted to escape his chest. The night air was thick with smoke from the burning maintenance shaft behind him. Sirens still wailed somewhere below ground. The Director’s forces were organized, precise, and deadly—they didn’t chase blindly. They hunted.He didn’t look back. Every instinct screamed to keep moving. His father had pushed him toward the west exit, but that was no longer safe. The facility was crawling with Execution Units, and Room 49 itself seemed to pulse through his veins, whispering, judging, taunting.Seyi had vanished somewhere along the tunnels, leaving a faint trail only Uche could follow, guided by instinct, fear, and the flickering light of distant exit signs.Then the whisper came—not from the walls, not from the shadows, but inside his mind:“Stop running, Uche Obi. You cannot outrun me.”It wasn’t Seyi. It wasn’t his father. It