Kade screamed.
The creature screamed with him.
And something passed between them.
It wasn’t light. It wasn’t blood. It wasn’t anything Kade had ever felt before.
It was cold.
Terribly cold.
Like someone had reached into his chest, wrapped their fingers around his heart, and started pulling.
The Hollow Wraith thrashed.
Its long fingers clawed at the floor, carving deep lines into the tiles.
Kade tried to release it.
He couldn’t.
A translucent window flickered before his eyes.
[DEVOUR IN PROGRESS.]
[TARGET RESISTANCE: 41%]
[WARNING: HOST BODY INCOMPATIBLE WITH SPIRITUAL ENERGY.]
"Then stop!"
[PROCESS CANNOT BE INTERRUPTED.]
"Of course it can’t!"
The creature’s mouth stretched open.
A sound poured out.
Not a scream this time.
Voices.
Dozens of them.
Men. Women. Children.
All speaking at once.
Kade clutched his head.
Then the bedroom disappeared.
He was running.
Bare feet slapped against wet earth.
Trees towered overhead.
Something was chasing him.
No.
Not him.
Someone else.
A girl.
She couldn’t have been older than twelve.
Her white dress was stained with mud. Blood ran down her left arm.
She stumbled.
Behind her, something laughed.
Don’t look back.
The thought wasn’t Kade’s.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t—
The girl turned.
And Kade saw what was chasing her.
A shadow wearing a man’s face.
Its mouth opened.
The memory broke.
Another replaced it.
A dark room.
A woman kneeling beside a bed.
Someone was crying.
A voice whispered:
"Please. I don’t want to die."
Then darkness swallowed everything.
Kade felt hunger.
Not his own.
A terrible, desperate hunger that had nothing to do with food.
He wanted warmth.
He wanted breath.
He wanted the bright little things burning inside the people around him.
He wanted—
"No!"
Kade fought against the sensation.
The darkness shuddered.
Something inside it noticed him.
For one dreadful moment, he felt another consciousness pressing against his own.
Then a sharp sound rang through the void.
DING!
[DEVOUR COMPLETE.]
[TARGET: HOLLOW WRAITH]
[SPIRITUAL ENERGY ACQUIRED: 17 UNITS.]
[ABILITY ACQUIRED: NIGHT SIGHT.]
[MEMORY FRAGMENTS DETECTED.]
[WARNING: FOREIGN INSTINCTS MAY PERSIST.]
The world returned.
Kade landed on his knees.
His forehead struck the bedroom floor.
For several seconds, he couldn’t move.
His lungs burned.
His throat felt as though he had swallowed broken glass.
He coughed.
Nothing came out.
Then he vomited.
When the spasms finally stopped, he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
The creature was gone.
Only deep scratches remained where its fingers had torn through the tiles.
Kade lay still.
"Okay."
His voice sounded strange.
"Okay."
He swallowed.
"I just ate a ghost."
No response.
He waited.
"System?"
A blue window appeared.
[DIVINE DEVOURER SYSTEM ACTIVE.]
Kade closed his eyes.
"Unfortunately, so am I."
He remained on the floor for another minute.
Then he remembered his mother.
He sat up so quickly that the room spun.
"Mum!"
Nothing.
Her slippers were still beside the bed.
The curtains moved in the night breeze.
And the message remained on the wall.
DON’T LET IT FIND YOU.
Kade approached it.
The blood had begun to dry.
He wanted to believe it was paint.
He wanted to believe his mother had left for some ordinary reason and that the creature had been a nightmare brought on by too little sleep.
But the scratches in the floor were real.
So was the smell.
Something had burned in the room.
Not wood.
Not cloth.
Something worse.
Kade reached toward the writing.
Stopped.
Then pulled his hand back.
"Think."
His mother had disappeared.
Something had attacked him.
And a strange voice inside his head had saved his life by forcing him to consume that thing.
Those were the facts.
Everything else was speculation.
Kade had always been good at separating the two.
It was one of the few talents that had ever helped him survive Lagos without money, connections, or influential relatives.
He looked at the wall again.
Don’t let it find you.
"What is it?"
The System remained silent.
Kade frowned.
"You were very talkative when I was dying."
[QUERY INSUFFICIENT.]
"Fine. What attacked me?"
[HOLLOW WRAITH.]
"What is a Hollow Wraith?"
[A LOW-ORDER SPIRITUAL PREDATOR.]
"Why was it in my house?"
[UNKNOWN.]
"Where is my mother?"
[UNKNOWN.]
Kade stared at the window.
"You’re not nearly as useful as you think you are."
[HOST OPINION NOTED.]
Despite everything, Kade almost laughed.
Almost.
Then something moved at the edge of his vision.
He turned.
The corner beside the wardrobe glimmered.
Faint blue threads hung in the air.
He blinked.
They remained.
He looked toward the doorway.
More threads.
Some were green. Others were almost colorless.
A dark stain hovered above the scratches in the floor.
Kade rubbed his eyes.
"What now?"
[NIGHT SIGHT: ACTIVE.]
[PASSIVE ABILITY.]
[ENHANCED PERCEPTION UNDER LOW-LIGHT CONDITIONS.]
[MINOR SPIRITUAL RESIDUE VISIBILITY UNLOCKED.]
Kade looked around.
The room was dark, yet he could distinguish every object clearly.
Even the smallest crack in the plaster stood out.
He switched off the torch he had picked up from his mother’s bedside table.
Nothing changed.
He could still see.
"Useful."
Then his gaze returned to the dark stain.
It pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
A strange sensation rose in his chest.
Hunger.
Kade took a step toward it.
His mouth watered.
He stopped.
"What?"
The stain pulsed again.
Something inside him whispered.
More.
Kade stumbled backward.
"No."
The sensation faded.
He stood motionless, breathing hard.
That hadn’t been his thought.
He was certain of it.
He had never looked at a patch of darkness and wanted to swallow it.
He hoped that remained true.
"System."
[AWAITING QUERY.]
"What did you put inside me?"
[DEVOUR TRANSFERS TARGET ENERGY AND COMPATIBLE ATTRIBUTES TO HOST.]
"That wasn’t what I asked."
A pause.
[MEMORY FRAGMENTS AND RESIDUAL INSTINCTS MAY ACCOMPANY ABSORPTION.]
Kade remembered the girl running through the forest.
The crying woman.
The hunger.
"Can I get rid of them?"
[CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE.]
His stomach tightened.
"Currently?"
[HOST CAPABILITIES INSUFFICIENT.]
Kade looked at his hands.
They were still trembling.
For twenty-one years, people had told him what he couldn’t do.
He couldn’t cultivate.
Couldn’t sense Ase.
Couldn’t strengthen his body like the gifted students whose achievements appeared in whispered conversations and strange online rumors.
He hadn’t even known how much of those rumors was true.
Now he had power.
And the first thing it had given him was someone else’s nightmare.
"Wonderful."
Kade searched the house.
Properly this time.
He checked the kitchen cupboards, the back door, the windows, and the narrow passage behind the building.
Nothing appeared stolen.
His mother’s handbag remained on the table.
Her phone was still connected to its charger.
He picked it up.
The screen lit immediately.
That made him pause.
His own phone had died outside, despite having plenty of battery.
He took it from his pocket and pressed the power button.
Nothing.
He tried again.
Still dead.
"Selective electricity. Fantastic."
He returned his attention to his mother’s phone.
Locked.
He knew the passcode.
At least, he thought he did.
He entered the six digits.
Incorrect passcode.
Kade frowned.
He tried again.
Incorrect passcode.
His mother had used the same code for years.
His birthday.
She’d once told him it was the easiest date to remember.
"Since when did you change it?"
He tried one more combination.
Incorrect passcode.
A warning appeared about further failed attempts.
Kade stopped.
He couldn’t afford to lock himself out.
Instead, he examined the notifications visible on the screen.
Two missed calls.
No names.
One message preview.
Are you certain he hasn’t noticed?
Kade went still.
The message had arrived at 1:47 AM.
Twenty-six minutes before the street went silent.
He read it again.
Are you certain he hasn’t noticed?
"Noticed what?"
He tapped the notification.
The phone demanded its passcode.
Kade resisted the urge to throw it across the room.
He took a photograph of the screen with an old tablet from the living room.
Then he wrote down the time.
1:47 AM.
Two missed calls.
Unknown sender.
It wasn’t much.
But it was something.
He looked toward the bedroom.
The blood on the wall was still visible from the passage.
His chest tightened.
"Mum, what were you involved in?"
No answer came.
Only the faint hum of the refrigerator as electricity returned to the house.
Kade glanced at the clock.
2:39 AM.
Less than half an hour had passed.
It felt like years.
He found the second clue by accident.
His mother’s bedroom window was open.
He approached it, intending to close it before the mosquitoes decided the night hadn’t been terrible enough.
Then Night Sight revealed something on the frame.
A thin streak of silver.
Kade leaned closer.
It wasn’t paint.
The substance shimmered faintly against the wood.
He reached toward it.
A notification appeared.
[SPIRITUAL RESIDUE DETECTED.]
[ANALYZE AVAILABLE.]
Kade paused.
"Analyze?"
[FUNCTION: ANALYZE.]
[EXAMINES OBSERVABLE PROPERTIES OF TARGETS.]
[ACCURACY DEPENDENT ON AVAILABLE DATA.]
Kade stared at the streak.
"All right. Analyze."
A faint blue outline surrounded the window.
[TARGET: UNKNOWN SPIRITUAL RESIDUE.]
[ATTRIBUTE: CONCEALMENT.]
[ORIGIN: UNDETERMINED.]
[ESTIMATED AGE: LESS THAN 6 HOURS.]
[CAUTION: TRACE INFORMATION INCOMPLETE.]
Kade read the message twice.
Concealment.
Someone had used supernatural power at his mother’s window.
Someone other than the creature?
Possibly.
He couldn’t know.
But the residue looked nothing like the dark stain left by the Hollow Wraith.
He examined the floor beneath the window.
There were no footprints.
No broken glass.
No obvious signs of a struggle.
He remembered how neatly his mother’s slippers had been placed beside the sofa.
Her handbag hadn’t been disturbed.
Her phone had been left charging.
Whatever happened here hadn’t looked like an ordinary kidnapping.
That frightened him.
Because his mother was careful.
Adunni Adeyemi checked locks twice.
She never opened the door without asking who was there.
And she had taught Kade, from childhood, that if something felt wrong, he should leave first and ask questions later.
He used to laugh at that advice.
He wasn’t laughing now.
Kade took a clean piece of paper and pressed it gently against the silver residue.
Nothing transferred.
He tried the tablet’s camera.
The photograph showed an ordinary wooden window frame.
No silver streak.
Kade lowered the device.
"So only I can see it."
He looked toward the System.
"Can you save what you’re seeing?"
[OBSERVATION RECORD CREATED.]
[TARGET DATA STORED.]
"Good."
He hesitated.
"Can you find another trace like it?"
[SEARCH CAPABILITY LIMITED TO HOST PERCEPTION RANGE.]
"Of course."
Kade sighed.
"Everything comes with conditions."
By three o’clock, Kade had made a list.
He used an exercise book from a drawer in the sitting room.
At the top of the page, he wrote:
WHAT I KNOW.
Underneath:
1. Mum is missing.
2. Something supernatural attacked me.
3. It happened shortly after 2:13 AM.
4. Someone contacted Mum before the attack.
5. Spiritual concealment was used at her bedroom window.
6. The thing I killed left memories inside my head.
He stared at the sixth point.
Then added:
7. I have no idea who to trust.
He tapped the pen against the page.
His first instinct was to call the police.
He still might.
But how would he explain the bedroom?
A monster had crawled out of the darkness, tried to eat him, and been consumed by a floating screen only he could see.
He could already imagine the questions.
Have you been drinking?
Are you taking anything?
Where is your mother really?
He needed evidence they could understand.
The blood.
The disappearance.
The phone.
Those were real.
The rest would have to wait.
He reached for his mother’s phone again.
Then stopped.
Someone was outside.
Kade heard footsteps beyond the compound wall.
Slow.
Measured.
He switched off the sitting-room light.
The footsteps stopped.
Kade moved toward the window.
Night Sight sharpened the darkness beyond the curtains.
A figure stood across the road.
Not a monster.
A person.
Average height.
Dark clothing.
Their face was hidden beneath the shadow of a hood.
Kade held his breath.
The stranger looked directly toward the house.
Then raised one hand.
For a moment, something pale glimmered between their fingers.
Kade activated ANALYZE.
[TARGET OUTSIDE EFFECTIVE RANGE.]
He cursed quietly.
The stranger lowered their hand.
Then turned and walked away.
Kade waited until the figure disappeared around the corner.
Only then did he move.
He unlocked the front door and stepped onto the veranda.
The street had returned to normal.
A generator rattled somewhere nearby.
A dog barked.
A motorcycle passed at the far end of the road.
Lagos had remembered how to make noise.
Kade stared at the spot where the stranger had stood.
Something lay beside the gutter.
A small folded piece of paper.
He approached cautiously.
No movement.
No strange shadows.
No warning from the System.
He picked it up.
The paper was ordinary.
Cheap.
Slightly damp.
Inside was a single sentence.
YOUR MOTHER WAS WARNED.
Kade’s fingers tightened.
There was no signature.
No address.
Nothing else.
He looked up and down the road.
Empty.
Then he noticed a faint silver mark on the corner of the paper.
The same shimmer he’d seen on his mother’s window.
His pulse quickened.
"Analyze."
[SPIRITUAL RESIDUE MATCH DETECTED.]
[MATCH CONFIDENCE: 96%.]
[ATTRIBUTE: CONCEALMENT.]
Kade stared at the message.
The person who had left the note was connected to whoever had been near his mother’s bedroom.
Or at least had used the same kind of power.
He couldn’t yet tell which.
He unfolded the paper again.
Your mother was warned.
Warned about the creature?
Warned about him?
Warned about whatever had made Lagos fall silent?
Kade looked toward the house.
The blood-written message waited inside.
DON’T LET IT FIND YOU.
Two warnings.
One missing woman.
And a System that seemed perfectly willing to let him die while answering questions.
Kade folded the note and placed it in his pocket.
"All right, Mum."
His voice was barely a whisper.
"I don’t know what you were hiding."
He looked toward the dark road.
"But somebody does."
A faint pulse moved through his chest.
The hunger stirred.
Devour.
Kade clenched his jaw.
"Not now."
For a moment, he thought the whisper would return.
Instead, a blue window appeared.
[NEW QUEST GENERATED.]
[QUEST: FIND THE SOURCE.]
[OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE THE SPIRITUAL DISTURBANCE CONNECTED TO ADUNNI ADEYEMI’S DISAPPEARANCE.]
[AVAILABLE CLUES: 2.]
[REWARD: UNKNOWN.]
[FAILURE CONDITION: UNKNOWN.]
Kade stared at the final line.
"Failure condition unknown?"
The System offered no explanation.
He looked at the note again.
Then at the road.
Somewhere in Lagos, a stranger knew what had happened to his mother.
And Kade had just been given the first reason to believe she hadn’t vanished by accident.
He turned toward the house.
He needed answers.
But first, he needed to understand the thing now living inside him.
Because the hunger was growing quieter.
And somehow, that frightened him more.