Yaba Psychiatric Institution
Four Years Earlier
The room was white. Not clean white. Not bright either. The kind of white cheap paint becomes after years of trying too hard. Stare long enough and it turned cream. A color exhausted from pretending to be something else. Scarred walls, scrubbed stains, exhausted tiles all pitched in.
The fluorescent lights overhead hummed constantly.
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, tearing strands of his own hair out one by one. He placed them carefully beside him.
Neatly.
Patiently.
Like he was organizing evidence for a trial no one else had been invited to.
A third lay flat on the tiles.
Calmly smashing his forehead against the floor.
Over.
And over.
The dull sound echoed through the room like footsteps from a restless neighbor upstairs.
No nurses rushed in.
No alarms sounded.
The morning shift was late.
Places like this didn't stop madness.
They contained it.
In the middle of the wall sat a heavy metal door, Industrial grade.
Paint chipped along the edges.
A square observation window cut into its center.
Behind that glass stood Lanre.
He watched the men quietly.
His fellow sacrificial lambs.
He always came to visit on Monday mornings.
It's for comparison at least he'd know what it looked like if he slips. Imagine making your Illness someone elses problem.
"Every firstborn male in my bloodline hears voices" he said.
Eventually… they die.
His gaze moved across the room again.
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 directly at him.
Then the patient smiled, looked wrong, too many teeth.
Lanre's stomach tightened.
I'm next.
The voices answered immediately.
Thin.
Whispering.
Dragging themselves through his skull like nails across glass.
next
next
next
The word stretched long and crooked in his mind.
Outside the room, the hallway was dim.
Most of the lights had been turned off to save electricity.
Only the fluorescent glow from the white room spilled through the observation window, cutting a pale rectangle across the corridor floor.
Lanre stood inside the light.
Beside him stood an old woman.
Her back bent slightly with age, wrapped in a faded wrapper cloth.
But her eyes—
Her eyes were sharp enough to cut through excuses.
"As the first of the Olatunji family, Lanre you should be here it's unbefitting of your status" she said.
Lanre didn't look at her.
"They said only the males were affected," he muttered.
The woman sighed.
"I'm sorry about your sister."
Lanre said nothing.
"The curse is growing," she added quietly.
His hands twitched.
His knuckles were split open.
Fresh blood smeared across his skin.
He hadn't noticed when it happened.
The woman glanced at them.
"I know you're agitated, but—"
Lanre's gaze drifted to the door.
The metal surface was dented in several places.
Small impacts.
Fist-sized.
As if someone had tried to beat their way out…
or beat something out of themselves.
Dark streaks of dried blood dragged across the steel.
Lanre looked away.
"I heard your wife had a newborn girl," the woman said.
Lanre went still.
The woman lowered her head slightly.
But her eyes lifted to meet his.
Cold.
Practical.
"You know what happens to first sons… and now daughters."
A pause.
"Sometimes…"
Her voice softened.
"Mercy should come early."
Lanre frowned slightly.
For a second, he didn't understand.
Then he did.
The meaning settled in slowly.
Rot spreading through clean air.
Kill your child.
The words weren't spoken.
They didn't need to be.
Lanre nodded once.
Not agreement.
Just… comprehension catching up.
Then his face twisted.
Pure disgust.
For a moment, he couldn't speak.
The voices surged.
next
Louder now.
Closer.
Lanre turned back toward the observation window.
Inside, the man on the floor was still smashing his head against the tiles.
Thud.
Blood had begun to spread beneath his forehead.
A slow… red halo.
Nobody inside the room reacted.
Lanre felt something tighten in his chest.
Not fear.
Something worse.
Recognition.
Next—
"If Dem born you well, talk am again," Lanre muttered under his breath.
He turned.
Looked directly at the old woman now.
"My pikin?."
He stepped closer.
Crouched slightly to meet her eye level.
"Abba. After wetin you and my papa don do me."
YOU WANT MAKE I GIVE YOU MY CHILD!!
He banged his leg against the metal door
"Fuck!"
His voice cracked against the hallway.
"Fuck!"
Again. Louder this time.
"I blame my self"
"no one fit give you the liver, ask for my pikin"
"Shebi you have me nau, you greedy bitch"
After that rant silence followed.
The woman adjusted her wrapper calmly.
Not surprised.
"You knew our family's curse," she said.
"It was a girl," Lanre snapped.
"You had half a chance" she replied.
She tapped her stick once against the metal door.
"come tomorrow we will be expecting something useful."
Lanre stared at her.
Useful.
Not child. Not granddaughter.
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," Lanre said.
He stepped closer.
"keep your agendas away from my daughter."
Then he touched his chest.
"Put everything on my tab."
"Firstborns were currency in the Olatunji family. Lanre simply lasted the longest."
Taking her leave with an assist from her cane
"All hail Lanre the first blood"