POV: Iyanu "Storm Warden" Balogun
They called it Peacehaven.
Lies.
Peacehaven was a 40-acre pit on the edge of Lagos where pandora Dynamics dumped everything they didn't want people to see. Bodies,Failed God-Machine part,souls.
I was 24. Night shift. Cemetery Guardian, Class D.
My job was simple,Walk the perimeter,Log the drones,Don't look at the pits,Don't listen to the wind.
I lied on my application. I told them I was numb.
Truth was, I saw too much.
Since I was 9, I've always been able to see extraordinary and really bizarre things,the moment a life ended, I'd see a silver thread snap. Then a pale shape would rise. Most of the time it drifted up and was gone.
Since "The Silence", the shapes weren't drifting anymore. They were being,pulled.
Tonight the wind was wrong.
It came from the center pit,Hot,Metallic. It smelled like burnt hair and old pennies,The kind of smell that sticks to the back of your throat.i could see this blue like glow of souls, probably victims of Pandora dynamic inhumane scientific test,but they seem to have a way to harvest back this blue souls,like i have grown to call them.
"Guardian Balogun," my comm crackled. "Report."
"Quiet night," I lied. "Just wind."
"Copy. Drones on sweep in 20."
20 minutes.
The wind picked up. Papers, plastic, and ash started swirling,Not random,it was circling the pit. Like water going down a drain.
I should've called it in,but my curiosity got the best of me.
I walked to the edge instead.
The pit was 30 meters deep,at the bottom, pandora had set up 12 black pylons in a circle. Between them, something was happening.
The air was tearing.
Silver threads. Dozens. Hundreds. Rising from mass graves all over Peacehaven and
Sweeping toward the center,Each thread ended in a pale, screaming shape. A soul.
And the pylons were drinking them but something bizarre happened at this point,
Some of this blue glow started floating towards me,they seem to have a powerful
Impact on my soul because i could feel my spirit sending a cooling like sensation
"Unauthorized harvest detected," a cold voice said behind me.
Not my comm. Real.
Three men in matte-black pandora armmor stepped from the dark,Soul-Reapers,Not human,Not machine. Something in between.Their faces were smooth masks. No eyes. Where their hearts should be, a blue light pulsed.
"Guardian," the middle one said. "You seems to have something interesting going on inside you"the three soul reapers had no expression but i could feel their eyes building
Up with evill intent
I reached for my stun baton.
Pathetic.
The first Reaper moved. Too fast. His arm became a blade of black light and opened me from shoulder to hip.
I hit the ground.
Pain was distant. Shock, probably. I could see my own blood steaming on the concrete. I could also see the silver thread attached to my chest. Thinning. Snapping.
This was it.
I thought of my brother. Tunde. We got separated in the Lagos riots 5 years ago. I never found his body.
"Don't go quietly," a new voice said. Female. Old. Tired. And furious.
The wind died.
Then it _screamed_.
From the center of the pit, from the sky, from inside my own bones. A gale that had no source.
The three Reapers staggered.
Standing at the edge of the pit was a woman. Or something wearing a woman. Nine feet tall. Skin like stormclouds. Hair that was a tornado. In her hand, a sword made of wind and bone.
Ọya.
Goddess of wind. Of change. Of the cemetery gates.
She looked at me,dying On the ground.
"You are weak," she said. Not cruel. Factual. "You are tired of watching."
"I... I'm not afraid," I whispered,Blood in my mouth.
"Liar," Ọya said. And smiled. "Good. Fear makes you fast."
She pointed her sword at me. The tip touched my chest, right over my heart.
Cold. Then fire.
"Choice, child. Die here. Or become my Warden. Guard the gates. Cut the threads of those who harvest, not those who die. It will hurt. You will be hated. You will almost die a hundred times."
The silver thread snapped.
I felt myself falling.
"Yes," I said.
The world exploded into wind.
---
I woke up choking on air.
I was on my knees in the pit,the 12 pylons were gone. Shattered. The Reapers were gone too.,just scorch marks and strips of black armor.
My body didn't hurt.
My back did. I reached back,Two ridges of scar tissue ran down my shoulder blades. When I breathed, they moved. Like wings trying to form.
Àṣẹ. The Gale Path.
I could feel it. The wind was in me now. In my lungs. In my blood. I could feel every piece of trash in a 50-meter radius. I could feel the air pressure changing 3 kilometers away.
Initiate → Vessel. I'd skipped the middle.
A sound. Footsteps.
The man from before. Not a Reaper. Civilian clothes. Corp ID missing. He'd been watching from behind a hauler.
He looked at the destruction. Then at me. Then at the scars on my back.
"You're not Corp," he said. "You're one of them."
My first instinct was to cut him down. The wind in me wanted to.
But his eyes. Tired. Like mine.
"Who are you?" I asked. My voice had an echo now.
"Just a janitor," he said. "Name's Emeka. I've been logging the soul shipments for 6 months.trying to find my daughter."
He held up a data-chip.
"I think you just killed her kidnappers."
I took the chip. My fingers were steady.
From the sky, the pandora sweep drones were coming. Red lights. Sirens.
Emeka looked terrified. "You have to run. They'll kill you."
I stood. The air moved with me.
"No," I said. And the wind agreed. "They'll remember me."
I stepped forward. The trash and dust lifted off the ground. Formed a wall between us and the drones.
First test.
"Storm," I whispered.
The wall became a blade and shot into the sky.
One drone fell, split in half. The others scattered.
My knees buckled,Too much, too fast.
Emeka caught me.
"You're bleeding light," he said, staring at my eyes. They were glowing faint grey.
"That's Àṣẹ," I said. "And we have to move. Now."
As we ran from Peacehaven, I looked back one last time.
At the edge of the pit, written in the dirt by the wind, were 4 words:
THE GATES ARE OPEN
And somewhere, far away, I felt three other heartbeats light up like beacons.
One made of iron.
One made of lightning.
One made of gold.
The Orishas were choosing.
And the treacherous man would not be ready.