2025-10-03 23:16:22The Victoria Island party laughter of Uche was ringing, only to be succeeded by a more deadly, nearer silence at Elian's home. The social humiliation had been an open, psychological wound, but the ensuing days had with them a threat that was physical, material, and ultimate. It began with a sheet of paper.
It was a Tuesday morning, sunny and taunting. The sun was shining with a nasty cheer, highlighting the dust motes whirling in the air and the cracks in the walls of the Bariga bungalow. Elian, his frame moving through the motions of despair, was strolling out for yet another day of torment at Bello & Associates when he saw it. A neat, canary-yellow piece of paper, stapled to his front door. It flowed in the soft wind, a garish banner of defeat.
EVICTION NOTICE.
The words yelled at him, black and unrelenting. He stood like a statue, his battered leather briefcase like a boulder on his shoulders. The notice stated "non-payment of rent for four consecutive months" and ordered him to either pay the amount due in full within seventy-two hours or vacate the building. The amount on the list was a fortune, a naira mountain he could never climb. He pulled out a shaking hand and tore the notice from the door, the tearing sound of the staple through the wood ringing in his ears like it was ripping his skin.
He didn't tell Adeshewa. What was the point? It would be another stick on her pyre of dislike. He folded the notice and shoved it far back in his pocket, where it lay like a lump of lead, a source of shame burning a hole through the fabric.
There were two the following day. A second yellow notice, and along with it, one in white from the Lagos State Water Corporation, a final warning of disconnection. The. The following day, a third eviction notice appeared, this one more threatening in language, referring to "legal action" and "forcible removal." His front door., which had once been a symbol of sanctuary., once., now a neighborhood bulletin board for. his. demise,. plastered with these callous. notices. that told him. story. for. all the. neighbors to see. He saw the pitying looks, the averted gazes, the whispered conversations that stopped when he approached. He was no longer just a man; he was a cautionary tale.
The seventy-two hours expired on a Friday. The air in the house was thick with dreadful anticipation. Adeshewa had been quieter than usual, a simmering pot about to boil over. She had spent the previous evening on the phone in low, intense discussions, her back to him. Tobe had been packing a small duffel bag with a grim determination that broke Elian's heart. Zola alone was unaware of the impending disaster, clinging to the fragile normalcy of her childlike daily habits.
Elian returned from work, the eviction time having expired at noon. He had done nothing all day, staring at his computer screen as fantasias of padlocks and bailiffs stewed in his mind. When he got home, he knew straight away that something was wrong. The front door was open.
His heart pounded against his ribs. He pushed it open and the scene in the small living room stopped him dead.
Adeshewa was there, but not by herself. A stranger to Elian, a man in a snug-fitting polo shirt, stood in front of the door, his massive, imposing body a silent presence. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his expression a bored mask. And he stood with one foot beside two large, wheeled suitcases—Adeshewa's suitcases.
There were Tobe and Zola as well. Tobe wore the backpack, his face a storm of fury and bewilderment. Zola clutched her mangled teddy bear, her eyes wide and full of tears.
"What… what is this?" Elian could hardly manage to whisper, his voice cracking.
Adeshewa turned to face him. She was dressed in her best, a garish blue wrapper and head-tie she hadn't worn in years. Makeup lay on her cheeks and under her eyes, stippling the darkness with care. She was beautiful and utterly alien.
"We are leaving, Elian," she said to him. Her voice was flat, without the flame and rage of their previous arguments. This was worse. This was final.
"Leaving? Where? Shewa, please.".
"To my sister's in Ibadan. For the time being." She inclined her head towards the taciturn man. "This is Gabriel. He's… a friend. He's got a car. He's giving us a ride."
The employment of the term "friend" struck like a blow to the body. Gabriel inclined his head, almost imperceptibly, his eyes flicking over Elian with an attitude of measured appraisal, as if gauging the value of an item of second-hand furniture.
"You… you are taking my children?" Elian's legs failed her.
"Your children," Adeshewa replied, her tone growing stern. "And I am taking them away to where there is light and running water. Where the landlord is not banging on the door every other day. I am taking them away to an opportunity, Elian. Something you have failed to provide.".
Tobe stepped forward, his youthful face contorted. "I don't want to stay here with you! You can't even protect us! You're… you're worthless!"
Elian flinched as if hit. He glared at Zola. "Zola, baby… please."
His daughter attempted a small, hesitant step toward him, but Adeshewa's voice cut through the air like a whip. "Zola. Come here. Now."
Zola looked from her mother's bitter face to her father's broken one. A single tear had carved its path across the grime on her face. Then, with a cry that shattered her own heart, she fell to her mother's side and buried her face in the apron of her wrapper.
It was the final defeat. The last piece of his world fell into dust.
Adeshewa picked up her handbag. She looked at Elian, and in that moment, all those shared dreams, all those whispered promises at night, all those laughter that had once echoed in these rooms, perished.
You had it all, Elian," she replied, her voice low and abnormally level. "You made your choice. You chose your pride over your family. You are a good man, Elian Athen. The world will tell you that. But you're not a solid one. You're a failure. And we can't go down with you any longer.".
The words—You are a failure—did not echo off the walls. They were lost in the silence, absorbed into the air itself, an indelible stain upon the soul of the house. They were more gentle than thunder, but they broke him all the more completely than any storm could.
He was quiet. No response. He remained immobile, stony, as Gabriel picked up the bags. He watched Adeshewa drive their children—her children now—out through the front door. Tobe never glanced over her shoulder. Zola turned once, her face a pool of bewilderment and loss, and then vanished.
There was the roar of a car engine outside, hesitated for a moment, and then faded into the distance.
Elian alone.
The silence that descended was absolute. Not the quiet of an empty space, but a vacuum, an emptiness which sucked the very life from the air. He looked around the room. The worn sofa upon which Zola would sit and read. The stains on the floor where Tobe would kick his football. The faint, lingering scent of Adeshewa's perfume.
He stepped, and his legs gave out. He came crashing down onto the cold, concrete floor of the living room, the shock knifing through his bones. A scream tore from his throat, a raw, animal moan of raw pain. And the tears. Not the gentle tears of sorrow, but great, shaking sobs that wracked his body. He wept for his wife, for the abducted children, for the life which had been taken from him. He wept until his throat felt raw and his eyes hurt, his tears creating wet patches on the parched floor.
He wept into a silence that was no comfort, a silence that agreed with his wife's final verdict. He was a failure. He had given up everything to integrity—his youth, his toil, his hours, his friendships. And for it all, in the end, it had cost him the one thing that ever truly mattered. It had cost him his family.
The tension within his head, the existence of the System, had been a low, constant thrum all along. Now, as his finally spent tears surrendered to a numb, hollow exhaustion, it exploded. Colors around him faded, bleached out of being gray. In the focus of his vision, text materialized, not as a flash, but as a dense, unshakeable reality.
SYSTEM OF MORAL EQUILIBRIUM: FULLY SYNCHRONIZED.
USER: ELIAN ATHEN. STATUS: BETRAYED.
CORE INTEGRITY: UNBREACHED. DESPITE TOTAL LOSS.
FINAL CATALYST: FAMILIAL ABANDONMENT. REGISTERED.
INITIATING REBIRTH SEQUENCE.
THE PATH OF RETRIBUTION AND RESTORATION IS NOW OPEN.
WELCOME.
Elian lay back on the ground, exhausted and hollowed out. He had lost everything. But as the System's cold, analytical words burned in his head, one new emotion began to glimmer amongst the ashes of his heart. It was not hope. I was not angry either.
It was permission. Permission to no longer be the victim. Permission to fight back.
Integrity had lost it all for him. Now, perhaps, it would give him the strength to take it all back.
-----
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Chapter 12 – The First Quest
The emptiness did not reclaim him. Instead, Elian Athen forced himself awake through a haze of constant, cyan light. The announcements that had declared his rebirth were gone, but their stamp remained in a permanent, ghostly exhibit seared into the very fabric of his perception. In the lower left of his field of view, a pulsing status bar: [Vitality: 12%]. In the lower right, another: [Willpower: 9%]. They were not metaphors; they were quantifiable realities, as real to him now as the damp, cold concrete he rested against.The storm still stormed. The rain still came down in relentless sheets, and the wind screamed its scorn under the bridge. But the bitter cold, the bone-freezing chill that had been draining the life from him, was… contained. It was still present, a body sense, but not the kiss of death anymore. His physical body, while weakened, no longer trembled with spasmodic convulsions. Low-grade, systems-whir of energy was maintaining his vital systems humming, fighting the hy
Chapter 11 – System of Betrayal and Integrity
The vacuum no longer spoke.It was filled with a low, thrumming vibration, the thunder of a huge engine accelerating from the bottom of emptiness. Elian Athen did not awaken so much as he was restarted. Perception slammed into him not as a golden dawn, but as a lightning strike. The physical ache of hunger, the chill ache of rain, the crushing weight of hopelessness—all were stripped away. Or better still, it was listed, recorded, and stored as data points.He was swimming in a sea of pure blackness, but he was seeing his own hands, white and whole, before him. The rot, the filth, the shakes—vanished."Integrity logged," a voice said. It was not male or female, not human or divine. It was simple information, presented as sound—cold, mechanical, absolute. It originated from everywhere and nowhere, resonating in the very core of his being."Betrayal registered."Elian was shocked, or felt the specter of shocking. His eyes, or the impression of them, opened wider. The shadow before him b
Chapter 10 – Collapse Under the Bridge
The golden command—[AWAKEN.]—had been a spark in nothing, but nothing was ravenous and vast. It had devoured him not, but illuminated the gulf of his descent before he continued to fall. The days after the laughter of children blended together in a grayscale smear of agony. Starvation was a constant, grinding stone in his stomach, but it had become the normal, almost mundane, suffering, like the persistent hum of the generator. The real wound was to his soul, which was hollowed and left empty, a vacancy where a man used to be.The sky, which had been so hot, brassy blue, began bruising later in the afternoon. Dark grey-bottomed clouds piled up on the horizon, and the air thickened, swollen with the threat of a storm. The city held its breath. To the house and the safe, it was a minor inconvenience. To Elian, it was a death sentence in action.He had been walking in a daze, his body a zombie marionette whose strings were cut. He was drawn to the underground area beneath the Third Mainl
Chapter 9 – Hunger's Bite
The cold ember of rage that Deji’s betrayal had forged was a feeble defense against the slow, methodical siege of the body. The resolve that had felt like granite on the bridge and in the aftermath of Ojuelegba began to crack under a far more ancient and inexorable force: hunger.The first day of fasting had been bearable, a hunger he could attribute to tension. The second day had been a dull gnaw, a whine of want in the back of his mind that colored everything. But today, on the fourth day, it was no longer something he sensed; it was something he felt. Something alive had formed in his stomach, a worm or a snake, twisting and contorting, its demands dominating all else—pride, recollection, even the soothing numbness of the System's equations.His body, kept up by constant meals though plain, now consumed itself. A relentless shudder had taken up residence in his hands. His eyes would spin on a sudden motion, the ground on a greased axis. Walking from his generator camp to the highwa
Chapter 8 – The Friend Who Looked Away
The ember of rage that had flashed on the Third Mainland Bridge did not burn him up into a flame overnight. It smoldered, a slow, constant warmth in his gut that kept at bay the freezing clutch of despair. It gave his rambling a new, sinister purpose. He was no longer just a ghost drifting towards dissolution; he was a spy in a strange land, reconnoitering the boundaries of his own destruction.His days settled into a bleak routine. He discovered the relative safety of a concealed space behind a screaming generator near the Obalende motor park, where the perpetual, pounding noise deterred most and the waste heat from the generator gave some semblance of heat in the damp nights. His world had contracted to a few square kilometers of relentless city wilderness, a circuit of pavements, under-bridges, and bazaar alleys where he was as much of a fixture as the mounds of discarded plastic and the ubiquitous potholes.It was on a scorching afternoon in the demented whirlpool of Ojuelegga tha
Chapter 7 – Streets of Lagos
The four walls of the house he once knew had been a cell, but they were his cell. They had held within them the ghosts of his past, the shreds of a life defective but nonetheless his own. The notice to vacate, now enforced, had taken even that away from him. The bailiffs, abrupt and faceless, had fitted new locks in place with a few efficient turns of screwdriver, piling his few remaining belongings—a box of clothes, a folder of dusty documents, the old family photo album—onto the dirty sidewalk outside. The door, his once, now became one of exclusion, closed to him.Homelessness did not creep up on Elian Athen slowly; it engulfed him in one brutal swallow.His first night was a master class in surrealist displacement. He moved through the familiar streets of Bariga, his briefcase—the last pathetic symbol of his working life—under his arm. The sounds of the neighborhood remained the same: the cackling of families behind doors, the stridence of televisions, the distant thump of music.
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