WHEN LAGOS FELL

At 6:17 a.m., Rónkẹ́ Adéyẹmí received a message from a number she did not recognise.

STOP LOOKING FOR FẸ́MI.

She stared at the screen.

Then another message arrived.

HE ISN’T THE PERSON YOU REMEMBER.

Rónkẹ́ read it twice before checking the number. No name. No profile picture. No previous messages.

She typed, Who is this?

The message refused to send.

“Wonderful,” she muttered. “Even my network has decided to abandon me.”

Outside her hostel window, Aderinola University was slowly waking up. Somewhere downstairs, a girl was arguing with her roommate over a missing wig. A generator rumbled behind the cafeteria. Two boys hurried across the courtyard, late for a morning lecture they would probably spend sleeping through.

Everything looked normal.

That was what bothered her.

Three days ago, Fẹ́mi Adébáyọ̀ had disappeared.

He had left his hostel room on Monday evening, telling his roommate he needed to meet someone near the old science block. He had taken his phone, his student ID and a black backpack.

He had not returned that night.

By Tuesday morning, his roommate had reported him missing. By Tuesday afternoon, rumours had spread across campus. Some people claimed he had travelled home. Others said he owed someone money. One particularly creative person suggested he had run away with a married woman.

By Wednesday, the jokes had stopped.

His phone was switched off. His family had been contacted. Campus security had questioned his friends, including Rónkẹ́, who had known him since their second year.

Nobody knew where he was.

Or nobody was talking.

She dressed quickly, shoved her phone into her pocket and headed downstairs.

Bísí Ọlátúnjí was waiting near the hostel entrance, holding two sachets of water and looking unusually serious.

“You saw the messages?” Bísí asked.

Rónkẹ́ stopped. “What messages?”

Bísí glanced around before lowering her voice. “The ones going around about the old science block. Someone said security officers were there all night.”

“Who said that?”

“I don’t know. Someone sent it to the hostel group.”

“Then why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

“Because my brother called me at midnight and told me not to go near that building.”

Rónkẹ́ frowned.

Bísí’s older brother worked with the university’s security department. He rarely discussed his job, and when he did, it was usually to complain about students sneaking into restricted buildings.

“What exactly did he say?”

“That I should stay away from the science block. That if anybody asked me whether I knew Fẹ́mi, I should tell them the truth and nothing else.”

“That doesn’t sound suspicious at all.”

“I’m serious, Rónkẹ́.”

“So am I. Your brother works in security. Maybe they found something.”

“Maybe.”

Bísí said it too quickly.

Rónkẹ́ studied her face. They had been roommates long enough for her to recognise the difference between Bísí keeping a secret and Bísí trying to decide whether a secret was worth telling.

Before she could press further, a commotion rose from the main gate.

Students were gathering near the security post.

Someone shouted, “He’s back!”

Rónkẹ́’s stomach tightened.

She ran.

Bísí followed, calling after her, but Rónkẹ́ barely heard.

By the time she reached the gate, a crowd had formed around a young man standing beside the security post.

Fẹ́mi.

For one suspended second, relief washed through her so intensely that she nearly laughed.

He was alive.

He wore the same dark trousers she remembered from Monday, but his shirt was crumpled and dirty. His backpack was missing. His trainers were coated in dried mud, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes.

He looked as if he had not slept in days.

“Fẹ́mi!”

His head turned.

Their eyes met.

Rónkẹ́ pushed through the crowd. “Where have you been? Do you have any idea what people have been saying? Your family has been calling everyone—”

“Rónkẹ́.”

He said her name quietly.

She stopped talking.

Something was wrong with his voice. Not the sound itself, but the way he spoke, as though every word required more effort than it should.

She reached for his arm.

He flinched.

It was a small movement, almost too quick to notice. But Rónkẹ́ noticed.

“Sorry,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Then look at me.”

He did.

His eyes moved over her face, lingering on her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. It was not the look of someone recognising an old friend. It was the look of someone checking whether she was really there.

“Where were you?” she asked again.

“I had to leave.”

“Leave where?”

He glanced towards the security officers.

One of them was watching him with an expression that made Rónkẹ́’s skin prickle. The man held a radio close to his mouth but did not speak into it.

Fẹ́mi noticed him too.

“I can’t stay here,” he whispered.

“Then let’s go to the clinic.”

“No.”

“Fẹ́mi, you’re shaking.”

“I’m not sick.”

“You look terrible.”

“Rónkẹ́.”

There was something desperate in his voice now.

“Please. Don’t take me downstairs.”

She stared at him.

“Downstairs where?”

His lips parted.

For a moment, she thought he was going to answer.

Then a security officer stepped forward.

“Mr Adébáyọ̀, we need you to come with us.”

Fẹ́mi backed away so abruptly that he struck the metal barrier behind him.

“No.”

“Sir, please cooperate.”

“No!” His voice cracked across the courtyard.

The surrounding students fell silent.

The officer reached for him.

Fẹ́mi grabbed Rónkẹ́’s wrist.

His fingers were ice-cold.

“Don’t let them take me back,” he whispered.

Then he released her and began to tremble.

The officer exchanged a look with his colleague.

“Get the vehicle,” he said.

Rónkẹ́ stepped between them. “He’s clearly not okay. Let us take him to the university clinic.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“How can you say that? He has been missing for three days!”

“Miss, step aside.”

“Not until you tell me what’s happening.”

The officer’s expression hardened.

For the first time, Rónkẹ́ noticed the identification badge clipped to his shirt. It bore the university crest, but beneath it was another small logo: a silver circle crossed by three narrow lines.

She had seen that logo before.

Where?

She couldn’t place it.

Then Fẹ́mi sagged against the barrier.

Bísí caught his other arm, and together they guided him towards a bench. The officers hesitated, apparently unwilling to create a scene in front of so many students.

Rónkẹ́ crouched in front of him.

“Listen to me. I’m going to get you help. But you have to tell me what happened.”

Fẹ́mi stared at the ground.

“I heard them talking about you,” he said.

“Who?”

“The people downstairs.”

“Fẹ́mi, what people?”

He looked up.

“Your mother.”

The world seemed to pause.

Rónkẹ́’s mother had been dead for six years.

“What did you just say?”

Fẹ́mi swallowed. His gaze flicked towards the security officers, then back to her.

“She wasn’t supposed to have that report.”

Rónkẹ́ felt the blood drain from her face.

“What report?”

Before he could answer, a harsh buzzing sound came from his pocket.

Fẹ́mi jerked as though the sound had hurt him.

He pulled out a phone Rónkẹ́ had never seen before. Its screen was cracked, and a red notification flashed across it.

PROJECT LAZARUS — SUBJECT RETURN CONFIRMED.

Rónkẹ́ read it once.

Then again.

“Fẹ́mi,” she whispered. “What is Project Lazarus?”

He snatched the phone away.

“I never showed you that.”

“You didn’t have to. I can read.”

His breathing quickened. He looked suddenly frightened—not of the officers, not of the crowd, but of her.

“Forget what you saw.”

“Are you mad? You disappear for three days, come back talking about my dead mother, and now you want me to forget—”

“Because if they know you saw it, they’ll come for you too.”

A scream erupted from somewhere behind the crowd.

Everyone turned.

A student had collapsed near the cafeteria entrance. Another knelt beside him, shouting for help. People began pushing forward, eager to see what had happened.

The security officers abandoned their conversation and hurried towards the disturbance.

For the first time since Fẹ́mi had returned, nobody was watching him.

Rónkẹ́ seized the opportunity.

“Come with me,” she said.

He did not move.

“Fẹ́mi!”

He stared beyond her shoulder.

She turned.

Across the courtyard, beside the old administration building, stood a woman in a cream-coloured suit. She held a phone to her ear and watched them without expression.

When Rónkẹ́ looked directly at her, the woman lowered the phone.

Then she smiled.

Not warmly.

Not with surprise.

With recognition.

A moment later, she turned and disappeared through the administration building’s side entrance.

Rónkẹ́ looked back at Fẹ́mi.

He had gone pale.

“Who is she?” Rónkẹ́ asked.

He shook his head.

“You know her.”

“No.”

“Then why do you look terrified?”

Fẹ́mi leaned closer, his voice barely audible.

“Because she’s the reason I came back.”

Before Rónkẹ́ could ask another question, his unfamiliar phone vibrated again.

A new message appeared.

RETURN THE EVIDENCE. YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT.

Below it was an attachment.

A photograph.

Rónkẹ́ leaned in.

It showed a woman standing beside a laboratory door, holding a folder against her chest. The photograph was old, its edges faded, but the woman’s face was unmistakable.

Her mother.

On the wall behind her, partly obscured by shadow, was the same silver logo Rónkẹ́ had seen on the security officer’s badge.

And written across the bottom of the photograph, in black marker, were five words:

SHE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO LEAVE.

Rónkẹ́ forgot how to breathe.

Then Fẹ́mi whispered something that made the entire morning feel unreal.

“Your mother didn’t die because she was sick.”

He looked straight into her eyes.

“She died because she found out what they were doing.”

End of Chapter One.