Yaba Psychiatric Institution
Four Years Earlier
The room was white.
Not clean white.
The kind of white that came from cheap paint layered over decades of things nobody wanted to remember. Scratches scored the walls. Stains had been scrubbed so many times the tiles themselves looked exhausted.
The fluorescent lights overhead hummed constantly.
One of them flickered.
Buzz
The air smelled like antiseptic… and something older beneath it.
Sweat.
Medication.
Something had soaked so deep into the walls it had become part of the building.
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.
Thud.
Thud.
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.
Badly.
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.
He'd been here before.
Always came in the morning.
Easier to pretend the rest of the day could wash it off.
Every firstborn male in my bloodline hears voices, he thought.
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.
Wide.
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.
Lanre clenched his jaw.
They were getting louder.
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.
Dust drifted lazily through it.
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.
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.
His breathing grew shallow.
Because for the first time…
He wasn't looking at strangers anymore.
He was looking at the future.
And he hated how familiar it felt.
The voices pressed in again.
Next—
"—Oh shut up," Lanre muttered under his breath.
He turned.
Looked directly at the old woman now.
"My daughter is off limits."
He stepped closer.
Crouched slightly to meet her eye level.
"To you… or the curse."
The woman adjusted her wrapper calmly.
No surprise.
No argument.
Just patience.
"We'll see," she said.
And somehow…
That was worse than a threat.