<100 subscribers
<100 subscribers
Ajegunle, Lagos 3:17 PM. A Tuesday. Hot sun, no light.
Achilles sat on the wooden bench outside Mama Ifeoma’s buka, sweat sliding down his jaw like it had somewhere to go. A plate of cold jollof rice sat untouched in front of him. His eyes were locked on the old HP laptop in front of him, its screen cracked at the edge, the kind of laptop you buy from second-hand dealers who don’t ask questions.
He didn’t buy it because it was fine. He bought it because it was cheap. ₦22,000, no charger. Battery only lasts 35 minutes, but it was better than nothing.
He needed it to write his poems. The ones nobody read. (Such a failure, yes I know)
Ohh, mama Ifeoma generator was running and he saw a plugged-in laptop charging, Achilles decided to borrow the charger to power his laptop.
He powered it on…….
But what he saw on the screen wasn’t poetry. Not today.
It started with a folder called “Private - Do Not Open”.
Of course he opened it.
Inside the folder were video clips. Grainy. Hidden camera style. At first he thought it was normal surveillance until he clicked on one titled “A8_Heart-Patient#12”.
The video showed a dark room. A man, strapped to a metal table. Eyes blinking, mouth gagged.
Two people in scrubs entered the room. One of them was a woman that wore gloves. The other held a bag. Blood bag.
It wasn’t a hospital.
Achilles couldn’t move. His hands were shaking. This wasn’t fiction. This was real.
He clicked on another video. This one clearer. It showed a warehouse. Dozens of girls, some in school uniforms being ushered into a container. One girl tried to run. She was slapped. Hard. Then dragged back by her braids.
He shut the laptop. The buka disappeared around him. Even the loud voice of one agbero cursing about fuel price couldn’t touch him now.
He looked around. Nobody was watching.
“Achilles,” Mama Ifeoma called from inside. “You never chop your food. Wetin happen?”
He forced a smile. “I dey write something, Mama.”
She nodded. “No forget say we go soon close.”
He nodded slowly.
But he knew one thing: whatever he had found… it wasn’t meant for him.
And whoever owned those videos, they would want it back.
Later that night.
Achilles lay on his small mattress in the face-me-I-face-you compound. The power was gone again. Heat wrapped the room like wet wrapper. Mosquitoes buzzed like gossip.
He couldn’t sleep.
He opened the laptop again, this time running it on low brightness. He copied the entire folder to a flash drive. Then he opened a text file. Started typing.
“This is not a story. This is evidence. If you’re reading this… something has already gone wrong.”
He was about to close the file when he noticed something else.
A hidden folder. Protected. Named: R.E.D.S.I.S.T.E.M.
Password required.
His fingers paused over the keyboard. What could be inside?
He didn’t know yet. But deep in his chest, that ache came again, the one that reminded him of the night he lost his parents. Of the fire. Of the smell. Of the silence.
He started having different imaginations, what if…
Was it possible that all of it, the accident, the orphanage, the trauma was connected?
He didn’t know. Not yet.
But sure of one thing:
The moment he clicked that folder, his life would never be normal again.
SEE YA IN THE NEXT EPISODE!!!
Ajegunle, Lagos 3:17 PM. A Tuesday. Hot sun, no light.
Achilles sat on the wooden bench outside Mama Ifeoma’s buka, sweat sliding down his jaw like it had somewhere to go. A plate of cold jollof rice sat untouched in front of him. His eyes were locked on the old HP laptop in front of him, its screen cracked at the edge, the kind of laptop you buy from second-hand dealers who don’t ask questions.
He didn’t buy it because it was fine. He bought it because it was cheap. ₦22,000, no charger. Battery only lasts 35 minutes, but it was better than nothing.
He needed it to write his poems. The ones nobody read. (Such a failure, yes I know)
Ohh, mama Ifeoma generator was running and he saw a plugged-in laptop charging, Achilles decided to borrow the charger to power his laptop.
He powered it on…….
But what he saw on the screen wasn’t poetry. Not today.
It started with a folder called “Private - Do Not Open”.
Of course he opened it.
Inside the folder were video clips. Grainy. Hidden camera style. At first he thought it was normal surveillance until he clicked on one titled “A8_Heart-Patient#12”.
The video showed a dark room. A man, strapped to a metal table. Eyes blinking, mouth gagged.
Two people in scrubs entered the room. One of them was a woman that wore gloves. The other held a bag. Blood bag.
It wasn’t a hospital.
Achilles couldn’t move. His hands were shaking. This wasn’t fiction. This was real.
He clicked on another video. This one clearer. It showed a warehouse. Dozens of girls, some in school uniforms being ushered into a container. One girl tried to run. She was slapped. Hard. Then dragged back by her braids.
He shut the laptop. The buka disappeared around him. Even the loud voice of one agbero cursing about fuel price couldn’t touch him now.
He looked around. Nobody was watching.
“Achilles,” Mama Ifeoma called from inside. “You never chop your food. Wetin happen?”
He forced a smile. “I dey write something, Mama.”
She nodded. “No forget say we go soon close.”
He nodded slowly.
But he knew one thing: whatever he had found… it wasn’t meant for him.
And whoever owned those videos, they would want it back.
Later that night.
Achilles lay on his small mattress in the face-me-I-face-you compound. The power was gone again. Heat wrapped the room like wet wrapper. Mosquitoes buzzed like gossip.
He couldn’t sleep.
He opened the laptop again, this time running it on low brightness. He copied the entire folder to a flash drive. Then he opened a text file. Started typing.
“This is not a story. This is evidence. If you’re reading this… something has already gone wrong.”
He was about to close the file when he noticed something else.
A hidden folder. Protected. Named: R.E.D.S.I.S.T.E.M.
Password required.
His fingers paused over the keyboard. What could be inside?
He didn’t know yet. But deep in his chest, that ache came again, the one that reminded him of the night he lost his parents. Of the fire. Of the smell. Of the silence.
He started having different imaginations, what if…
Was it possible that all of it, the accident, the orphanage, the trauma was connected?
He didn’t know. Not yet.
But sure of one thing:
The moment he clicked that folder, his life would never be normal again.
SEE YA IN THE NEXT EPISODE!!!
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