Yaba Psychiatric Institution
Four Years Earlier — 2021
The room was white.
Not clean white.
Not bright, either.
It was the kind of white cheap paint became after years of trying too hard. Stare at it long enough and it turned cream.
Exhausted from pretending to be something else.
Inside the room, several men were slowly losing arguments with their own minds.
One sat in a corner, chewing his fingernails until the skin around them split open. Blood dotted the floor around his feet.
He didn't seem to notice.
Another rocked back and forth on a plastic chair, plucking strands of his own hair one by one.
He laid each strand carefully beside him.
Neatly.
Like he was arranging evidence for a trial no one else had been invited to.
Poor chair.
A third lay flat on the tiles.
Calmly smashing his forehead against the floor.
Over.
And over.
The dull thud echoed through the room like footsteps from a restless neighbor upstairs.
No nurses rushed in.
The morning shift was late.
Places like this didn't stop madness.
They contained it.
---
Set into one wall was a heavy industrial-grade steel door.
Its paint had chipped along the edges.
A square observation window sat at its center.
Behind the glass stood Lanre.
He watched the men quietly.
His fellow sacrificial lambs.
He visited every Monday morning.
Compassion?
No.
Comparison.
At least he'd know what insanity looked like when it finally came for him.
"Every firstborn male in my bloodline hears voices," he said quietly.
"Eventually..."
"They die."
His gaze drifted across the room.
"Or they end up here."
One of the patients suddenly stopped rocking.
Slowly...
He lifted his head.
For a moment, Lanre thought the man was looking straight at him.
Then the patient smiled.
Wrong.
Too many teeth.
Lanre's stomach tightened.
I'm next.
The voices answered immediately.
Thin.
Whispering.
Dragging themselves across his skull like nails on glass.
Next.
Next.
Next.
The word stretched long and crooked inside his head.
---
Outside the room, the hallway was dim.
Most of the lights had been switched off to save electricity.
Only the fluorescent glow spilling through the observation window cut a pale rectangle across the corridor floor.
Lanre stood inside it.
He had a slime build, with thin braids packed in a neat bun. He wore a wore a black senator outfit. Fancy, rich, mourning well not exactly no one technically died.
Beside him stood an elderly woman.
Her back bent slightly beneath a faded wrapper.
But her eyes—
Her eyes were sharp enough to cut through excuses.
"As the firstborn of the Olatunji family, Lanre, you shouldn't be here. It's beneath your station."
Lanre didn't look at her.
"They said only the men were affected," he muttered.
The woman sighed.
"I'm sorry about your sister."
He didn't answer.
"The curse is growing," she said quietly.
His hands twitched.
"It is a good thing."
"Our family grows stronger."
His knuckles were split open.
Fresh blood streaked across his skin.
He hadn't noticed when he'd done it.
The woman glanced down.
She sighed.
Then sighed again.
"I know you're agitated, but—"
Lanre's attention drifted to the steel door.
It was dented in several places.
Fist-sized dents.
As though someone had tried to punch their way inside.
Dark streaks of dried blood stained the metal.
He looked away.
"I heard your wife gave birth to a baby girl."
Lanre froze.
The woman lowered her head.
Only her eyes rose to meet his.
Cold.
Practical.
"You know what happens to first sons."
A pause.
"And now... daughters."
Her voice softened.
"Sometimes..."
"Mercy should come early."
Lanre frowned.
For a second...
He didn't understand.
Then he did.
The meaning settled inside him like rot spreading through clean air.
Kill your child.
The words were never spoken.
They didn't need to be.
He nodded once.
Not in agreement.
Only because understanding had finally caught up.
Then his face twisted.
Pure disgust.
The voices surged.
NEXT.
Louder now.
Closer.
Lanre turned toward the observation window.
His breathing quickened.
Inside, the patient was still smashing his forehead against the floor.
Thud.
Thud.
Blood spread beneath his face.
"Talk am again," Lanre scoffed.
He turned.
Looked directly into the old woman's eyes.
"My pikin?"
He stepped closer.
"Ehen?"
He crouched until they were eye level, his hands clasped together as if pleading.
"You know..."
His voice trembled.
"You know wetin you and my papa don do me."
"Would you calm down—" Madam Kike began.
"YOU WAN MAKE I GIVE YOU MY CHILD?"
Lanre stomped twice.
"Dara!"
He slammed his shin against the steel door.
"Fuck!"
The hallway swallowed the word.
"Fuck!"
Louder this time.
"I blame myself."
"No one fit give you liver, una dey ask for my pikin."
"Shebi una get me already."
"You greedy bitch."
Silence followed.
Madam Kike adjusted her wrapper.
She wasn't surprised.
"You knew our family's curse," she said.
"It was a girl," Lanre shot back.
"You had half a chance."
She tapped her walking stick once against the steel door.
"Come tomorrow."
"We'll be expecting something useful."
Lanre stared at her.
Useful.
Not granddaughter.
Not child.
Useful.
"You'd think this rebellion of yours would die with age," she said.
"You'd think this family would stop feeding children to its problems."
He stepped closer.
"Keep your agendas away from my daughter."
Then he touched his chest.
"Put everything on my tab."
In the Olatunji family, firstborns were currency.
Lanre had simply lasted longer than most.