Morning crept over Ajegunle in fractured light, slipping through broken solar cloths and rusted piping like secrets too old to confess. The city stirred—not with peace, but with pulse. Hawkers shouted beneath glitching neon signs, drones buzzed past with battered propellers, and the scent of frying akara clashed with burnt engine oil. Everything was alive. But to Afolabi, it all felt… out of sync.

  Ajegunle hadn't changed. But he had.

  A sharp whisper cut through the usual din. “Taiwo!”

  Kehinde crouched behind the crates beside the old tailor's shop, her eyes wide with disbelief.

  Taiwo looked up from his makeshift console. “What is it?”

  She pointed.

  A silhouette had emerged from the alley. Dust swirled around his feet. His tunic was torn at the shoulder. Soot marred his skin. And his eyes—

  “Afolabi?” Taiwo’s voice cracked.

  Afolabi nodded, slow. Unsure.

  They were on him in seconds. Kehinde reached him first, her hands hovering around his shoulders as if afraid touching him would break him. Taiwo circled, mouth half open.

  “You—” Taiwo exhaled. “You came back.”

  Kehinde’s voice caught in her throat. "I didn’t think you’d make it back... not in one piece." Her eyes scanned him, searching for the boy who had vanished five days ago. But the one who stood before her now felt... larger. Older. Changed in ways no training or time could explain.

  “I didn’t know if I would.”

  For a moment, the three of them stood in a hush that the city couldn’t touch. Then Kehinde stepped back.

  “You were gone five days.”

  “It felt like one,” Afolabi said. “But enough to change everything.”

  They slipped into the tailor’s shop—just as planned, should anything ever go wrong. Kehinde bolted the door behind them. Taiwo lowered the solar blinds. The interior was quiet, thick with dust and the smell of old cloth and zobo.

  “You look... different,” Taiwo said, eyes narrowing as he took in the subtle but unmistakable shifts. Afolabi’s frame had filled out—shoulders broader, his arms taut with new muscle, his chest rising with the calm steadiness of someone who had wrestled something cosmic and lived. His clothes hung tighter at the seams, the fabric at his back pulled snug across freshly built strength. His posture was no longer hesitant—it carried the stillness of something newly forged. His eyes were sharper, steadier, as if they no longer belonged to a boy but to someone who had seen something sacred—and survived it. Even the air around him carried a strange pressure, a faint tension like the pause before a storm.

  “I am,” Afolabi replied, his voice low but certain, each word weighted like it had passed through fire.

  “Stronger,” Kehinde said. “But there’s something else. Like you’re still halfway somewhere else.”

  “I might be.”

  He sat, his voice steady, and told them everything.

  "The portal... it didn’t lead to another place. Not like space does. It led inward—into something deeper. A memory. A scar. It felt like falling into the bones of the world itself. I was alone at first. I thought I’d be alone the whole time. But then the Ajogun came. Not just a monster—it was fear. Grief. Twisted memory. It spoke without words, and it tried to unmake me."

  Taiwo and Kehinde leaned in, their attention fixed.

  "I fought it. Not just with strength. With something else. The pendant from my mother burned in my chest—like it was reacting. Calling. The golems had been there from the start—emerging with me the moment I crossed the threshold into that sacred realm. Not summoned. Not commanded. As if the portal itself had chosen us all together. They moved like ancient memories given form, each of them watching, waiting—not for orders, but for resonance. Their presence wasn’t sudden. It was inevitable."

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Afolabi paused.

  "Not summoned. Not forced. They answered. Each one moved like they remembered who I was—before I even knew. We fought together. I didn’t control them. I resonated with them. That’s the only way I can explain it."

  He glanced at his hands.

  "The Ajogun bled into nothing—but not before it revealed the truth of what it was. I think you two should understand: the Ajogun aren't just beasts. They're not well-known, not like Orisha or spirits from folktales. Most people don’t even know they exist. But they’re real. Ancient. They're the corrupted memories of the world—born from unresolved grief, broken oaths, forgotten prayers. They wear fear like skin. They feed on what people try to bury.

  When I saw it... it was like the embodiment of every unspoken thing in my bloodline. It knew my fear, and it used it like a weapon. It didn’t just want to defeat me—it wanted me to disappear. To un-become.

  I don’t think many even know they exist,” Afolabi continued. “They’re not legends or named spirits. They’re buried. Forgotten. But not gone.”

  “They’re waking up.” Visions of past Disciples. Yoruba. Igbo. Tiv. Idoma. Nupe. Gwari. So many faces. Some triumphant. Others shattered. All of them carried weight. All of them were alone—until they found their people. Their anchors."

  He looked up.

  "That’s what brought me back. You two. I remembered where home was. That’s why the portal let me go."

  He paused again, voice lowering.

  "And when I stepped out... something stayed with me. My body didn’t just survive. It changed. That trial—it burned away what I wasn’t. And what’s left is what I’m becoming. I don’t even think I’m done changing."

  Kehinde listened without blinking. Taiwo paced in widening circles, muttering “damn” under his breath.

  Kehinde’s voice dipped, uncertain. “You said they answered something inside you... but what if that thing keeps changing?”

  She looked up. “What if it turns you into someone we won’t recognize?”

  Afolabi rubbed his thumb across his palm. “One of them… Ayanfe-Oya… she said something. Not with words. It was like the meaning moved through my bones.”

  Kehinde blinked. “She spoke?”

  Afolabi hesitated. “Only one of them spoke. Ayanfe-Oya. Her voice wasn’t like ours—it moved through my bones. Not sound, more like meaning. She said, ‘You do not command. You carry legacy.’”

  Taiwo blinked. “That’s... heavy.”

  “She was the only one who spoke,” Afolabi said quietly. “The others... they watched. And I realized—trust has to be earned. Voice by voice.”

  Afolabi nodded. “And I don’t know why.”

  Taiwo dropped into a chair. “You saw other Disciples?”

  “From everywhere. Yoruba. Igbo. Tiv. Ibibio. Hausa. Gwari. Some shattered. Some survived.”

  Kehinde crossed her arms. Her eyes lingered on Afolabi a moment longer, then flicked downward. “You said all those Disciples walked alone,” she said. “Is that what’s coming for you too?” Her voice lowered, not quite accusing—more afraid of being left behind. “And us? Where do we fit into this?”

  “You’re my anchor,” Afolabi said. “You keep me... here.”

  Taiwo grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s a heavy job.”

  “Then we’d better start training,” Kehinde said. “Because if there are more trials—”

  “There are,” Afolabi confirmed.

  “—then we’re not letting you walk into them alone.”

  Later, when the hum of the outside world softened and the zobo kettle hissed in the corner, Afolabi sat alone in the back of the shop. Taiwo joined him quietly, placing a small holo-projector on the crate beside them. A 3D map of Makoko flickered into view—specifically, a partially submerged fishery rigged with Taiwo’s modifications.

  “This place still work?” Afolabi asked.

  “Mostly. Solar grid’s patchy, but the lower chambers are dry. And no cameras. Off-grid. Perfect for training,” Taiwo said.

  Kehinde entered, holding three chipped metal cups. “You’re not going back in there unprepared,” she said. “We need to be ready. All of us.”

  Afolabi took the cup, grateful. “The next trial won’t be like the first. This one is watching already.”

  Taiwo glanced at the glyph on Afolabi’s hand. “Think they’ll come again? The golems?”

  Afolabi nodded slowly. “Not if I call them. When I’m ready... they’ll answer. But only if I’m clear in purpose. They’re not tools. They’re legacy. I’m not their master. I’m their voice.”

  They sat in silence for a while, sipping zobo. The hum of the preacher’s chant drifted across the rooftops, but even that felt distant—like the city itself was holding its breath. Somewhere in the background, a drone buzzed low, dropping a wrapped package that cracked open against the pavement. Old charms and scribbled prayers spilled out, scattered by the wind.

  Kehinde watched from the window, her brow furrowed. “People are looking for answers,” she said. “And they’ll follow anything that feels like power.”

  Afolabi nodded. “Then we have to make sure what they find is truth.”

  Then, Taiwo leaned forward. “So what’s next?”

  Afolabi’s eyes flickered with reflection. “We disappear. We train. We prepare. And when the next portal opens—we walk in ready.”

  Kehinde placed her hand over his. “Then let’s begin.”

  Afolabi touched the glyph again.

  It shimmered more clearly now. Responsive.

  He closed his eyes. And a single phrase, not his own, echoed in the quiet:

  "?m? ina, ?m? omi... Child of fire, child of water... the storm has not forgotten you."

  A memory—or perhaps the first words of something waking.

  The glyph on his hand pulsed sharply, a sudden flare of heat that seared into his nerves. He winced and opened his eyes.

  The lights in the room dimmed for a breath. The zobo kettle let out a hiss—as if exhaling fear. Outside, the chant of the street preacher stuttered, caught mid-loop by interference.

  A gust of wind pushed through the seams of the old tailor’s door.

  A presence.

  Not fear. Not yet.

  But a warning.

  Something beneath the city had stirred.

  The next trial would not ask permission.

  It was already coming.