2025-11-28 03:16:48Uche knew from the moment the sun went down that something was wrong.
The air in Room 49 usually felt cold.
Tonight, it felt charged—like electricity humming under the walls.Seyi felt it too.
He kept checking the corners of the room, looking at the ceiling, glancing at the wardrobe like he expected it to burst open.“This is the Instruction Test,” Seyi said quietly.
“It always feels like this.”Uche’s chest was tight. “What… exactly happens?”
Seyi didn’t look at him.
“The room gives a command. You follow… or you don’t.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You fail.”
“And if I follow?”
“You pass.”
“But what does ‘fail’ mean, Seyi?!” Uche snapped.
Seyi looked at him with eyes that had seen too much.
“You don’t want to find out.”
Uche swallowed hard.
2:00 a.m.
The air grew heavier.
The taps in the walls stopped completely—like the thing inside was holding its breath.Seyi sat cross-legged, staring at the wardrobe.
“Whatever happens,” he whispered, “don’t scream.”
Uche froze. “Why?”
“Because screaming means surrender. And the room loves when you surrender.”
Uche could feel his heart thudding against his ribs.
2:05 a.m.
Silence.
Stillness.A kind of quiet that felt alive.2:07 a.m.
The mattress under Uche vibrated faintly.
Seyi didn’t react.
He just said: “It’s noticing you.”2:10 a.m.
The wardrobe breathed.
Not tapped.
Not creaked.Breathed.
Cold air drifted out through the gap under the door, brushing over Uche’s bare feet like icy fingers.
His body stiffened. Seyi grabbed his wrist.
“Whatever it shows you… don’t touch it.”
2:12 a.m.
The wardrobe handle twitched.
Then twisted.
Slowly.
Deliberately.Mockingly.Uche’s throat closed.
“This is it,” Seyi whispered. “The command is coming.”
The wardrobe door opened.
No slamming.
No violence.Just a smooth, silent swing… like someone invisible had calmly stepped out.The air in the room turned freezing.
Uche held his breath.
A piece of paper slid out of the wardrobe and landed at his feet.
Seyi hissed.
“No. Not this test.”
“What test?” Uche whispered shakily.
Seyi didn’t answer.
He looked… terrified.
The paper lay facedown.
Uche’s hand trembled as he reached for it.
“Wait,” Seyi said sharply.
“Once you flip it… the command starts.”Uche hesitated.
Then flipped it.
Just four words:
TURN OFF THE LIGHT.
Uche froze.
“That’s it?” he whispered.
Seyi’s voice shook. “Yes. But don’t obey.”
“Why?”
“Because that seems harmless,” Seyi said, “and the harmless commands are the traps.”
Uche’s heartbeat went wild.
“What happens if I obey?”
“You’ll see something you’re not meant to see.”
“And if I refuse?”
“The room escalates. Hard.”
Uche’s body felt like it wasn’t his.
The light bulb above him flickered—once… twice… like it was getting impatient.
Then the voice came.
A whisper that seemed to crawl directly into Uche’s ear.
“Turn it off… Uche…”
He nearly jumped off the bed.
It knew his name.
His voice.His fear.Seyi grabbed his shoulder.
“Don’t respond.”
Then the voice came again.
More urgent.
Lower.Hungrier.“Off.… now…”
Uche’s throat felt like sand. “Seyi, I can’t—”
“You MUSTN’T obey,” Seyi warned.
The light flickered violently.
Then…
CLICK.
The switch on the wall moved downward by itself, halfway.
The room dimmed.
Seyi hissed sharply.
“It’s testing you.”
The whisper deepened.
“Uche. Turn it off completely.”
Uche covered his ears.
“I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can,” Seyi said. “Say it.”
“Say what?!”
“The rejection.”
“There’s a rejection?!”
“Yes!” Seyi whispered harshly. “Every command test has one sentence that protects you.”
“What is it??”
But before Seyi could answer—
All the taps in the walls started at once.
Dozens of fingers tapping. Drumming. Urgent. Frantic.
Like the walls were warning the voice to stop wasting time.
The wardrobe door SLAMMED shut—
then opened again.Something black moved inside.
Not a shadow.
Not smoke.Something shaped like a person crouching, long-limbed, bent backward.
Watching.
Waiting.
Uche’s mind nearly snapped.
“Seyi…” his voice cracked. “Tell me the rejection!”
But Seyi’s face twisted in horror.
“I—I don’t know which test you got! Each command has its own rejection!”
The whisper roared now, filling the room, shaking the air:
“TURN. IT. OFF.”
The light flickered furiously, begging to die.
The wardrobe creature jerked forward an inch.
Just one inch.
But that was enough.
Uche screamed and covered his mouth instantly.
Seyi grabbed him.
“You have SECONDS—decide! Obey or refuse!”
Uche’s mind raced.
If he obeyed—he’d see something monstrous.
If he disobeyed—it might attack.He had to choose.
The whisper transformed into something deeper, layered, like multiple voices overlapping.
“OFF. OFF. OFF. OFF.”
The bulb cracked slightly.
The light dimmed on its own.
The creature in the wardrobe rose slowly, its spine bending, limbs unfolding like a spider.
Uche couldn’t breathe.
Then—something snapped inside him.
He stood.
Facing the wardrobe.
Facing the thing watching him.
Seyi hissed, “Uche, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Uche didn’t feel brave.
He felt desperate.His voice shook as he said:
“I choose my own light.”
Everything stopped.
The whisper vanished.
The tapping died.The wardrobe froze.Even Seyi stared, stunned.
“What did you just say?”
“I—I don’t know,” Uche stammered. “It just came out.”
The room held its breath.
Then—
The light stabilized.
The switch flipped back up by itself.The wardrobe door slowly… closed.And a new paper slid out from under it.
Uche’s heart hammered as he picked it up.
Two words:
LEVEL PASSED.
Seyi collapsed to the floor in relief.
“You lucky idiot,” he whispered.
“That wasn’t even a standard rejection. You made your own.”“What does that mean?” Uche asked.
Seyi’s voice trembled:
“It means the room tested your instinct instead of your obedience.”
“And?”
“And you passed something you weren’t supposed to pass at this stage.”
Uche blinked. “Meaning what?”
Seyi looked at him like he was staring at a ghost.
“The Program will escalate faster for you.”
His voice dropped.“It already marked you as advanced.”Uche sank onto his bed.
“That’s not fair.”
Seyi shook his head.
“It’s not a school exam. It doesn’t care about fairness.”
He paused.
“Uche… nobody has ever passed their first instruction test with a self-made rejection.”
“So is that… good?”
“No,” Seyi said, voice hollow.
“It’s VERY bad.”“Why?”
“Because the room now knows something about you.”
“What?”
Seyi met his eyes.
“That you’re not easy to break.”
Before Uche could respond—
CREAAAAK.
The wardrobe opened again by one inch.
A voice—different from before—soft and almost amused, whispered:
“Next test… sooner.”
And the door shut.
Uche’s stomach twisted.
“What does ‘sooner’ mean?”
Seyi backed away from the wardrobe.
“It means the room won’t wait for midnight again.”
“Then when?”
Seyi stared at the walls like they were alive.
“It could test you anytime,” he whispered.
Morning.
Afternoon.Even in class.“Uche…” Seyi said quietly.
“You’re no longer living in Room 49.”
Uche frowned. “What am I living in then?”
Seyi swallowed.
“You’re living in its attention.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 18 — THE BOY WHO WALKED OUT
The ground didn’t stop shaking when they reached the tunnel.It got worse.Concrete split open behind them, the Origin Wing folding in on itself like a dying animal. Fire alarms wailed. Emergency lights popped one by one, plunging long stretches of the passage into darkness.Uche half-carried, half-dragged his father forward. Obiora was conscious now, barely, his weight heavy but real.Alive.That single fact anchored Uche.“Keep moving,” Uche said, voice steady even as his chest burned. “We’re almost out.”Obiora coughed, a weak sound. “You… you’re inside it now.”Uche didn’t deny it.“I know.”The hum followed them—low, constant, like a distant engine. The fear-feedback systems were collapsing, but fear itself wasn’t gone. It bled through the tunnels, thick and metallic, soaked into the walls.Uche felt it all.Every panicked technician.Every soldier realizing the guns weren’t enough.Every system screaming because its center no longer obeyed commands.He wasn’t controlling people.
CHAPTER 17 – THE DAY FEAR TURNED
The alarms didn’t just scream.They howled—a raw, metallic shriek that clawed through the underground facility, rattling glass, steel, and bone. Red lights spun violently, casting the halls in pulsing blood-colored flashes.Uche stood still in the center of it all.Calm.Terrifyingly calm.The mark on his wrist burned, spreading heat through his veins, syncing with the pounding hum beneath the floor. He felt the facility the way one feels their own heartbeat—every corridor, every door, every moving body.Fear wasn’t flooding him.It was feeding him.“LOCK DOWN THE ORIGIN WING.”The Director’s voice echoed through the speakers, sharp now. Controlled—but strained.Steel shutters slammed down across corridors. Armed units poured in from every access point, boots pounding in perfect rhythm.Uche turned slowly, eyes glowing faint gold.“Too late,” he whispered.1. THE FIRST STRIKEThe first Purge unit rounded the corner—six men, rifles raised, visors glowing.“TARGET ACQUIRED!”They opened
CHAPTER 16 – THE TRUTH THEY BURIED
The light burned.Not just his eyes—his mind.Uche stumbled forward as the white glare swallowed him whole, stripping away sound, gravity, even time. His thoughts fractured, memories slipping through his fingers like sand.Then—Silence.Absolute.Heavy.Oppressive.His feet touched solid ground.Uche blinked hard, vision slowly returning.He stood inside a glass chamber.Walls, floor, ceiling—transparent, spotless, cold. Beyond the glass stretched a massive underground facility, far larger than anything he had seen before. Rows of observation decks circled the chamber like a coliseum. Screens flickered to life one by one.Every screen showed him.Heart rate.Neural activity.Adrenal spikes.Fear response metrics.He staggered back.“No… no no no…”This wasn’t ancient.This wasn’t supernatural.This was designed.A voice echoed calmly through hidden speakers.“Welcome to the Origin Wing.”Uche’s blood ran cold.That voice.Older now. Colder. Controlled.“The Director,” Uche whispered
CHAPTER 15 – THE FALL AND THE FACE
Uche expected the fall to kill him.The wind roared past his ears as he plummeted downward, darkness spinning around him in a dizzying spiral. His arms flailed, reaching for anything—air, light, a ledge—nothing existed. Just the void.He screamed until his throat burned.Then—FWOOOM!He hit something soft.Not ground.Not water.Something… alive.He bounced slightly, tumbling onto a cold surface, gasping. His hands gripped the floor, feeling the strange texture beneath his palms—smooth, rubbery, pulsing faintly.Like skin.He jolted upright.He wasn’t in the chamber anymore.He was inside a long, dimly lit corridor—narrow walls arching overhead like the ribs of a giant creature. Blue veins glowed faintly inside the walls, pulsing in rhythm… like a heartbeat.An entire underground hallway made of a living organism.His stomach churned.The air smelled metallic, sharp enough to sting his nostrils. The floor beneath him vibrated softly with each pulse of the glowing veins.He forced him
CHAPTER 14 – THE WHISPERING STAIRS
The darkness swallowed Uche instantly.No lights.No walls.No sound except the faint echo of his own footsteps spiraling downward.The staircase felt endless.Cold, damp air wrapped around him like a second skin, making every breath heavy. The deeper he went, the more he felt the pressure—like an invisible hand was slowly tightening around his lungs. There was no turning back; the floor above had already sealed shut, cutting him off completely.Step.Step.Step.His footsteps sounded wrong—too loud, then too soft, as if the space around him kept changing size with every turn of the spiral.Then it began.The whispers.Faint at first.So faint he wasn’t even sure they were real.“Uche…”He stopped.The voice drifted from somewhere behind him.Or ahead?Or inside his skull?He listened.Silence.He kept moving.Then—“Uche… turn back.”He froze again. This time the voice was clearer, too clear.A voice he recognized.His father’s.His throat tightened painfully. “Dad?”A whisper moved
CHAPTER 13 – THE ROOM THAT BREATHES
Uche woke up gasping.Not because of a dream… but because Room 49 was breathing.The walls rose and fell like lungs expanding, slow and heavy, releasing a deep, vibrating hum that crawled across the floor and into his skin. For a moment he sat frozen, his chest tight, unable to tell if he was awake or trapped in another layer of the Room’s illusions.Then he felt it—a cold draft brushing his ankles.He looked down.The floor tiles had shifted halfway open on their own.A thin line of pale blue light spilled out from the cracks, pulsing like a heartbeat.No.Not a heartbeat.A signal.Uche swallowed hard, shoving off the bed. “Not now… not today…” he whispered, but Room 49 didn’t care. It never cared.The Program wanted him downstairs again.He crouched slowly and pressed a palm against one of the tiles.It was warm.Alive.As if something beneath the floor was waiting.Suddenly—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!Three violent knocks slammed into his door, loud enough to rattle the frame. Uche jumped
You may also like
VINCENT MILES: AND THE FIST OF FIRE
Kurt Dp.16.7K viewsREBIRTH OF A WARRIOR
Highpriest 18.4K viewsBEAST EMPEROR
Xamo32.0K viewsThe Greatest Martial Arts Cultivator
KidOO96.0K viewsTHE GOD'S OF CHOSEN WARRIOR
Alfonzo Perez5.9K viewsA tale of Magic
Kyng1.5K viewsThe Academic God
NB LMO83 viewsRise Of Hades' Hellborn: Trumpets Of The Damned
Calvary666 views