The night had not lifted, but the city was already awake.
Somewhere between twilight and dawn, Lagos breathed like a tired god. The air was thick with moisture, the kind that clung to your skin and seeped into your clothes, refusing to let go. In the rusted belly of Ebute Metta, where the train lines spidered like veins through forgotten districts, Adesuwa stood alone before a locked gate.
The old railway station was a mausoleum. Vines clawed the walls. The once-glorious colonial facade was pocked with bullet scars and graffiti. Rusted signs dangled from chains like pendulums, measuring time's cruelty. On the walls, slogans from protests past bled into each other: We no go gree!Free the People!Silence is Treason.
She slid the bolt aside.
Inside, dust stirred as if waking from its slumber. Her boots crunched broken glass and rat bones. Every creak of the floorboards beneath her feet sounded like a whisper from the dead. The air was different here, heavier, and almost sacred. A hush enveloped her, the kind reserved for cathedrals and cemeteries.
It had taken her weeks to decode the references in the ledger. Most had led to nowhere. Dead ends. Empty warehouses. People who had disappeared. But deep within a ciphered footnote in the Broad Street archives last night, she had found it: Obinna Station Log, July 2002. The note had been burned halfway through, but one phrase remained intact:
"The Circle never truly left. They went underground. Below the old station. Where the dust remembers."
Now, here she was.
She descended a stairwell caked in grime, each step groaning beneath her. Her flashlight cut a narrow beam through the darkness. Rats scattered. She passed old ticket booths, vending machines that hadn't dispensed anything in decades, and a collapsed map of train lines that once stitched Lagos together like muscle across bone.
At the far end, behind a rusted security gate, she found the office.
The nameplate still read: Stationmaster Obinna O.
She kicked the door. It cracked and gave way.
Inside, everything was preserved under layers of dust. Files were stacked neatly on shelves. A faded poster of the Nigerian Railway Corporation hung behind the desk. A pair of child-sized sandals sat beneath the window, oddly clean. On the desk lay a leather-bound diary, the ink faded but legible. She opened it.
July 12, 2002: The third batch came in tonight. Children. Some are barely old enough to speak. They weren't on any manifest. Orders were to say nothing.
July 15, 2002: One girl kept asking for her mother. She said her name was Amaka. I gave her water. They took her anyway. I haven't slept.
July 22, 2002: They say it's a program. It helps the country. These children are gifted. But I see their faces. These aren't prodigies. They're just scared kids.
Adesuwa swallowed hard. Beneath the desk, she found a trapdoor.
It led to a narrow passage, walls lined with cement and rebar. The air was metallic and dry. Half a kilometer in, she found a chamber.
There were beds. Tiny ones. Most were rotting and mold-infested. Chains hung from the walls. On a blackboard was scribbled a phrase in chalk, childlike handwriting:
"We are still here."
Adesuwa touched it. The chalk was smeared beneath her fingers.
Footsteps.
She killed her light. Drew her blade.
A silhouette emerged. Small. Gaunt. Not an adult.
A boy.
"You shouldn't be here," he whispered.
His face was hollow, and his lips were cracked. He looked no older than eleven.
"Neither should you," she replied softly.
"They'll come. They always come."
"Who?"
He pointed at the walls.
"The ones who burn memories. The ones who made us forget."
Adesuwa knelt, holding his gaze.
"What's your name?"
"Femi. But they called me Subject Nine."
She blinked.
"How long have you been here, Femi?"
He looked past her. Into the dark.
"Time doesn't move down here. Just the screams. And sometimes, the smell of fire."
She took his hand. Cold. Bone-thin.
He led her deeper.
The tunnels became more elaborate. Carvings on the walls, symbols she'd seen in the Circle's files. Symbols of initiation. Of exile. Of punishment. In one chamber, a wall of photos of children, dozens of them. Most were labeled. All were missing.
"They used us to test memory suppression," Femi whispered. "To see if they could erase the pain. But it never left. The dust remembers. It always remembers."
One photo caught her eye. A girl. Eight, maybe nine. Eyes wide with terror. Beside her, a man in a lab coat. Dr. Elebiju.
Her blood ran cold.
She turned to Femi.
"Did this man work here?"
He nodded. "He ran everything. He called us projects. Said pain makes the mind more obedient."
Footsteps again. Louder.
Not Femi's.
"We have to go," he hissed.
They doubled back. Past the chains. Past the diary. Past the chalkboard.
But at the exit, a figure blocked the way.
"You went too far, Adesuwa."
Dr. Elebiju.
She drew her blade.
"You're supposed to be dead."
"So were they."
He gestured at the tunnel behind her.
Femi clung to her leg.
"The city buried them," he continued. "But you? You dug them up. Now they'll never sleep again."
"Good."
She lunged.
The fight was brutal. Metal against flesh. Fists. Screams. Echoes.
She was faster. Angrier. She wanted every cry she had heard in that place to matter. To be paid for.
When it was done, Elebiju lay bleeding. Laughing.
"You think the truth helps? It'll burn you too."
She stood over him.
"Then let it."
She lit the match.
As they emerged into dawn, smoke curling behind them, Femi turned to her.
"You can't save everyone."
She nodded.
"But I can make them remember."
And behind her, as fire consumed the forgotten, the dust whispered again, not with fear this time, but with release.