The walk home was quiet.
Osaze and Ehizogie moved through the streets side by side, the city lights flickering overhead, the hum of antigrav vehicles fading into the distance. The dinner at Kemi's house felt like a lifetime ago. The laughter. The warmth. The weight of unspoken things hanging in the air.
Ehizogie hadn't said much since they left. Just a few words here and there—comments about the weather, the city, nothing important. But Osaze could feel it. The tension. The same tension from last night's argument, still sitting between them like a stone.
They reached the apartment building. Ehizogie unlocked the door. They stepped inside.
The living room was dark except for the faint glow of the holographic clock on the wall. Ehizogie moved to the couch, sat down heavily, and reached for the remote.
The TV flickered to life—news, muted. Images of the city, traffic reports, nothing urgent.
"You have school tomorrow," Ehizogie said, not looking at him. "Get some rest."
Osaze nodded. "Yeah. Goodnight."
Ehizogie didn't respond. Just stared at the screen, his expression unreadable.
Osaze walked to his room and closed the door behind him.
---
He sat on his bed, pulled out his comm-link, and scrolled through messages. Nothing important. Kemi had sent him a meme. Damian had forwarded an article about vampire folklore that was entirely wrong. Osaze smiled despite himself.
He plugged in his headphones, queued up a playlist, and lay back.
The music filled his head—something soft, instrumental, the kind of thing that let him think without thinking too much. He closed his eyes.
And then he heard it.
A sound.
Not part of the music. Something else. Muffled. Distant.
He frowned, pulling one earbud out.
Silence.
He put it back in.
There it was again. Louder this time. A crash. Something heavy hitting the floor.
Osaze sat up, pulling the headphones off entirely.
The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.
Then—another sound. A grunt. A struggle.
His chest tightened.
He stood, moving to the window. Looked out. The street below was empty except for a few pedestrians, a parked antigrav truck, nothing unusual.
Maybe a gang fight nearby. Maybe someone's TV turned up too loud.
He turned toward the door—
And stopped.
The sounds were coming from *inside* the apartment.
---
Osaze opened his door slowly, stepping into the hallway.
The living room light was still off. The TV still playing, muted images flickering across the walls.
And then he saw them.
Two men. Dressed in black. Faces covered. One holding a knife. The other empty-handed but moving like he didn't need a weapon.
Ehizogie was between them, breathing hard, blood already dripping from a cut on his arm.
But he wasn't cowering. Wasn't begging.
He was *fighting*.
Osaze had never seen his father move like this. Fast. Brutal. Efficient. He ducked under a swing, drove his elbow into one attacker's ribs, spun and blocked the knife with his forearm.
The attacker with the knife stumbled back, surprised.
Ehizogie didn't stop. He grabbed a chair, swung it like a club, shattered it across the second attacker's shoulder.
Osaze stood frozen in the doorway, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.
His father—his *father*, the man who spent his nights watching TV and worrying about bills—was fighting like a soldier.
Then Ehizogie's eyes found him.
"RUN!"
The word snapped Osaze out of his paralysis.
But before he could move, Ehizogie lunged forward, grabbed him by the shoulder, and *threw* him toward the front door.
Osaze stumbled, caught himself against the wall.
The two attackers looked at each other.
One nodded. "I'll get the son."
Ehizogie stepped between them, blood dripping from his arm, breathing hard but steady.
"No," he said quietly. "You won't."
He moved.
Fast.
The attacker barely had time to react before Ehizogie was on him, driving him back toward the kitchen, away from Osaze.
"GO!" Ehizogie screamed, his voice raw. "NOW!"
Osaze ran.
---
He didn't think. Didn't process. Just moved.
Down the hallway. Into the stairwell. His chest was already tight, his breathing shallow, his vision starting to blur at the edges.
But he didn't stop.
He burst through the building's front door, stumbled onto the street, kept running.
Halfway down the block, his body gave out.
He collapsed against a wall, gasping, his lungs burning, his heart hammering so hard he thought it might tear through his ribs.
People walked past, glancing at him with mild concern.
"You okay?" someone asked.
Osaze didn't answer.
His mind was screaming at him.
*Your dad is fighting two men.*
*You ran.*
*You're a grown man and you RAN.*
*He's going to die because of you.*
The thought hit him like a punch to the gut.
He pushed off the wall, turned around, and started running back.
---
His body protested every step. His chest felt like it was collapsing. His vision doubled, snapped back into focus, doubled again.
But he didn't stop.
He reached the building, shoved through the door, took the stairs two at a time.
His legs screamed. His lungs begged him to stop.
He didn't.
He burst through the apartment door—
And saw Ehizogie still standing.
Blood on the walls. Furniture destroyed. One attacker on the ground, motionless.
Ehizogie was facing the second man, breathing hard, blood pouring from a dozen cuts.
The second attacker raised his hand.
Light gathered in his palm—brilliant, searing, wrong.
A blade.
Not metal. Not physical.
Pure light, shaped like a sword, humming with divine energy.
Ehizogie's eyes widened for just a moment.
The attacker swung.
Ehizogie dove to the side—
The blade missed him by inches.
But it didn't stop.
The slash of light tore through the air, cutting through the living room wall like it was paper. Brick, plaster, rebar—all of it parted cleanly. The blade carved through the exterior wall and shattered the window in an explosion of glass and debris.
Night air rushed in, cold and sharp.
The entire side of the room was open now, a gaping wound in the apartment.
Ehizogie rolled to his feet, breathing hard, eyes locked on the glowing blade.
The attacker grinned beneath his mask.
Then Ehizogie turned when he heard the door.
His eyes widened.
"I told you to RUN!"
And in that moment—just a second, just a heartbeat—Ehizogie's attention shifted.
The attacker moved.
Fast.
The glowing blade drove into Ehizogie's chest.
Osaze screamed.
Ehizogie gasped, stumbled back, blood spreading across his shirt, mixing with the light still burning from the wound.
The attacker pulled the blade out, the light flickering, unstable now.
Ehizogie grabbed the attacker's wrist with both hands.
Blood poured down his arms, but he didn't let go.
He twisted, using every ounce of strength he had left, and drove his knee into the attacker's ribs. Once. Twice. The man grunted, staggered.
Ehizogie snatched the knife from the first attacker's corpse and drove it into the second man's shoulder.
The attacker roared, the light blade flickering out.
Ehizogie let go, stumbled, and fell to his knees.
Osaze ran to him, caught him before he hit the ground.
"Dad—Dad, stay with me—"
The second attacker was still standing.
He pulled the knife from his shoulder, tossed it aside, breathing hard.
Then he straightened, adjusted his mask, and laughed.
Osaze looked up, tears streaming down his face, his voice breaking.
"What did we do to you?!"
The man laughed harder.
It was a low, cold sound. The kind of laugh that made your skin crawl.
He started walking toward them, slow, casual, like he had all the time in the world.
"WHAT DID WE DO TO YOU?!" Osaze screamed.
The man stopped, tilting his head, studying Osaze like he was an interesting puzzle.
"Hmm. Should I kill the kid too?"
He paused, thinking.
Then he leaned in, looking closer at Osaze.
"Wait. I remember your father. There was something... funny about him."
His eyes narrowed.
"And you... you have something funny too, don't you?"
Osaze tried to stand, his legs shaking, his hands still covered in Ehizogie's blood.
"I'm going to kill you," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
The man laughed harder.
"You? Kill me?" He pointed at Osaze's chest. "Sickle cell, right? You can barely walk down the staircase. You ran back up here and you're breathing like you just ran ten laps around the city."
He stepped closer, grinning.
"Your father clung to his pagan gods like a monkey clinging to a tree. And you?" He tilted his head. "You're even weaker than he was."
He turned, looked at the massive opening his slash had carved into the wall.
"Convenient," he said, almost to himself.
Then he looked back at Osaze.
"Your father was strong. You?" He smiled. "You're nothing."
He stepped through the shattered opening, casual, unhurried.
Balanced on the edge for a moment.
Looked back one last time.
"Primitives," he said, shaking his head. "Clinging to gods that abandoned you centuries ago."
And then he jumped.
Osaze stumbled to the opening, but the man was already gone—landed on a rooftop below, vanished into the night.
Somewhere in the distance, Osaze heard laughter.
Mocking. Echoing.
Then silence.
---
Osaze turned back.
Ehizogie was still on the ground, hand pressed to his chest, blood pooling beneath him.
Osaze dropped to his knees beside him, his hands shaking.
"Dad—Dad, stay with me. I'll call someone. I can fix this. I can stop the bleeding—"
Ehizogie shook his head, a weak smile on his face.
"You can't... fix this one, son."
"No. No, you're going to be fine. You're—"
Ehizogie reached up, touched Osaze's face with a bloody hand.
"Listen to me."
Osaze went quiet, tears streaming down his face.
Ehizogie's voice was weak but clear.
"You are stronger than you look. Smarter than you think. But you have to decide... who you want to be."
His breathing was shallow now, labored.
"No matter what happens... I will always be with you."
He raised his hand, pressed it to Osaze's chest, and whispered something in Edo.
*"My blood is your blood."*
He smeared the blood across Osaze's chest, his arms, his neck.
And then—
The blood began to move.
Not dripping. Not spreading.
*Writing*.
Lines formed across Osaze's skin—intricate, deliberate, like tattoos being carved in real time. They spread across his chest, down his arms, up his neck, stopping just below his jaw.
His face remained untouched.
But his eyes—
Osaze felt them burn.
He gasped, his vision flaring red.
For a moment, everything was crimson. The world drenched in blood.
Then it faded.
The inscriptions on his skin glowed faintly, pulsing once, twice—
And vanished.
Like they were never there.
Osaze stared down at his hands, his chest, his arms.
Nothing.
Just blood. Normal blood.
"Dad?" he whispered.
Ehizogie's hand dropped.
His eyes closed.
His chest stopped moving.
"Dad?"
No response.
"DAD?!"
Nothing.
Osaze screamed.
---
The neighbors would later say they heard the scream from blocks away.
A sound that didn't belong to a human throat.
A sound that made the air feel heavier, colder, wrong.
But by the time anyone arrived, the apartment was silent.
Osaze Evbuomwan knelt beside his father's body, covered in blood that wasn't his own, staring at nothing.
And deep inside him—buried beneath the grief, beneath the shock—something ancient stirred.
Something that had been waiting.