Chapter 59: S3E3: The Pulse Test
The broken hall swallowed sound. High, grime-smeared windows let in shafts of weak afternoon light, illuminating swirling dust motes and the fractured patterns of discarded mosaic tiles underfoot. The air hung thick with damp stone, old neglect, and the sharp tang of Zara’s sweat from the frantic sprint here. They stood in a ragged circle, hands linked – not a gesture of unity, but Lerok’s command.
"Match the rhythm of the person beside you," Lerok ordered, his voice flat, cutting through the stale air. He stood slightly apart, observing."Heartbeat.Breath. Nothing more.Sync."Silence descended, thick and awkward. Then the subtle orchestra began.
To Lerok’s left, Nia and Kelechi, flanking Amara. The twins inhaled as one, a deep, synchronized pull of air that seemed to resonate in the hollow space. Their connection was wordless, instinctive, a biological harmony untouched by the market brawl or the beach fires. Nia’s thumb brushed Kelechi’s knuckle, the faintest acknowledgment. His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly in return.
Amara, caught between their synchronicity, floundered. Her breath hitched, shallow and rapid. She tried to match Kelechi’s deep, measured exhale, choked, then tried Nia’s quicker tempo, gasping. "I can’t–" she whispered, panic tightening her voice. Her hand trembled in Kelechi’s steady grip and Nia’s calloused one. "It’s… too much."
Zara, holding Nia’s other hand and Chike’s, threw her head back and laughed. It wasn’t joyful, but a sharp, jagged sound that bounced off the crumbling walls."Too much? Sister, this is breathing! In…" she sucked in an exaggerated, theatrical breath, making Nia snort despite herself."...out!" She expelled it with a forceful puff, deliberately mismatched to Nia’s now slightly agitated rhythm. "See?Easy-peasy jollof rice." Her eyes, however, held a flinty challenge, fixed on Lerok.
Chike, clasping Zara’s hand and David’s, murmured under his breath. Not a rhythm, but a fervent, fragmented prayer, his eyes closed, scarred wrist tense. "Guide us through this shadow, O spirit unnamed… bind not our pulses but our fractured purpose…" The words wove a counterpoint to the struggling breaths around him, a plea against the forced connection.
And David. David held Chike’s hand loosely in his left, and Lerok’s right hand in his own.But he didn’t move. His chest remained utterly still. No rise, no fall. His gaze wasn’t on the exercise, or the crumbling walls, or even the dust motes dancing in the light. It was locked, unblinking, onto Lerok’s face. His stillness wasn't passive; it was a void, an absolute refusal to participate.
Lerok felt the unnatural chill of David’s unmoving hand in his. He tried to breathe deliberately, to project calm, to set a tempo David should follow. But David remained inert as stone, his eyes pools of dark ink reflecting Lerok’s own strained composure. The silence stretched, punctuated only by Amara’s ragged gasps, Zara’s low chuckle, Chike’s whispered pleas, and the profound, unsettling absence of sound from David.
The tension coiled, tighter and tighter, a wire stretched to singing pitch.Lerok’s jaw clenched. "David," he said, the name sharp in the heavy air."Sync."
David’s lips didn’t even twitch towards his habitual half-smile. His eyes remained fixed, drilling into Lerok’s with an intensity that felt less like observation and more like excavation. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, clear, and carried the unnatural stillness of the grave. It sliced through Zara’s bravado, choked Amara’s panic, silenced Chike’s prayer.
"Can’t sync my pulse," David stated, the words dropping like stones into the silence, "with someone who stole mine."
Silence.
Not the previous awkward quiet, but a sudden, absolute vacuum. It hit the hall like a physical blow, a single, deafening heartbeat too loud in the sudden absence of all other sound. Amara froze mid-gasp. Zara’s mocking grin vanished, replaced by sharp-edged surprise. Chike’s eyes snapped open, wide with shock. Kelechi’s steady rhythm faltered, his gaze darting between David and Lerok. Nia’s hand tightened convulsively around her brother’s and Amara’s.Lerok stopped breathing. The accusation hung in the dust-choked air, reverberating off the broken mosaics. The cold weight of the Arkan medal in his pocket felt suddenly immense.Stole his pulse? The words echoed the phantom howls in his skull, the impossible heartbeat against the mirror glass. He stared back into David’s ancient, knowing eyes, frozen, his own hand limp in David’s chilling grasp. The broken hall held its breath.
===
The broken hall held its breath. Then the world shattered.
Not metaphorically. The high, grime-smeared windows exploded inward. Not glass, but water. A solid, roaring wall of it slammed into them, knocking feet from under them, tearing linked hands apart. The deafening crash wasn't thunder; it was Lagos Island drowning. Cold, filthy water surged around their knees, swirling with debris – plastic bottles, a sodden sandal, torn market posters screaming faded deals. The sudden silence after David’s accusation was obliterated.
"Move!" Lerok roared, the command ripped from him, raw and urgent. He shoved Amara, stumbling, towards a crumbling archway deeper into the derelict building. "Higher ground! Now!" Panic scrabbled at his throat, sharp claws beneath the adrenaline. David’s words – stole mine – echoed in the sudden, terrifying deluge, a ghost clinging to his spine.
Chaos erupted. Nia screamed, a sound swallowed instantly by the water’s roar, scrambling after Kelechi who hauled Amara bodily through the arch. Chike stumbled, going under for a terrifying second before Zara’s iron grip locked onto his arm, yanking him up. "Preach later, swim now!" she bellowed, water streaming down her defiant face, her scars stark against her pallor. David moved last, unnervingly calm amidst the churning brown water, wading with deliberate, unhurried strides, his dark eyes never leaving Lerok’s retreating back.
They stumbled, slipped, cursed in Yoruba and Pidgin, through collapsing corridors choked with floating refuse. The air thickened with the smell of wet rot, diesel, and panic. Rain hammered the remaining roof like a thousand frantic drummers, leaking through in thick, cold streams. Distant thunder boomed, shaking the very stones under their feet. They burst into a larger, domed chamber, marginally drier but open to the storm through gaping holes in the vaulted ceiling. Rain lashed down in diagonal sheets. Outside, Victoria Island was vanishing beneath a churning, grey-brown sea. Cars floated like abandoned toys.
"Jesu Christi!" Amara gasped, collapsing against a slick stone pillar, her yellow dress plastered to her skin, trembling violently. Her laughter from moments before was a distant memory, replaced by wide-eyed terror. She wrapped her arms around herself, small against the monumental ruin.
Chike tipped his head back, bare feet planted wide on the wet mosaic floor depicting forgotten gods. Rain plastered his thin shirt to his chest. "Elarion!" he yelled over the storm’s fury, his preacher’s voice finding surprising power, echoing in the cavernous space. "He washes our sins clean!" He spread his arms wide, embracing the downpour, the scar on his wrist gleaming wetly. "See? Cleansing flood!"
Zara snorted, wringing filthy water from her locs. She leaned against a half-collapsed statue, its stone face eroded into anonymity. "Or testing our lungs, Pastor!" she shouted back, a fierce grin splitting her face despite the circumstances. "See if we can shout louder than this madness!" She took a deep, theatrical breath, chest expanding. "Wheeeeee!" The sound was swallowed instantly by a colossal thunderclap overhead.
Amara flinched, then a strange, high-pitched giggle escaped her. It built, shaky at first, then spiraled into wild, uncontrollable laughter. She slid down the pillar, sitting in a puddle, laughing until tears mixed with the rain on her cheeks. "Lungs! Yes! Tested!" she gasped between peals, the sound edged with hysteria. "Always tested!" Kelechi crouched beside her, a silent, solid presence, his hand resting lightly on her shuddering shoulder. Nia watched her twin, then Lerok, her expression unreadable, rainwater streaming down her bruised cheek.
Lerok stood apart, near the chamber’s center. He closed his eyes. Not against the rain stinging his face, but against the internal storm David’s accusation had unleashed. The rhythm of the deluge pounded on the broken roof, vibrated through the wet stone beneath his boots. Thump-thump-thump. It wasn't random. It matched the frantic hammering in his own chest. Thump-thump-thump. It echoed the impossible heartbeat he’d felt pulsing through the cheap mirror glass in his apartment. Thump-thump-thump. It resonated with the phantom howls that scratched at the edges of his consciousness whenever David was near. The medal in his soaked pocket felt like a lodestone dragging him down into dark water.
He opened his eyes. David stood watching him from across the chamber, partially obscured by the sheeting rain. Unmoved. Unblinking. A statue amidst the chaos. Lerok’s gaze swept the desperate tableau: Chike shouting faith into the storm, Zara defiantly grinning, Amara laughing through tears, Kelechi’s quiet support, Nia’s watchful tension. The storm raged, the city drowned, and David’s ancient eyes held him pinned.
"It’s not washing," Lerok whispered. The words were lost in the cacophony, meant only for the ghosts crowding his skull. He felt the rhythm of the storm, the rhythm of his stolen pulse, the rhythm of a past screaming to be acknowledged. His voice was a rasp, barely audible even to himself, raw with a dawning, terrifying certainty. "It’s remembering."