*PROLOGUE: THE FIRST GHOST*
The desert was quiet.
Not peaceful—just empty.
Edward crouched in the sand, his rifle steady, eyes on the target two hundred meters away. A convoy of unmarked trucks, armed guards, and an oil minister who'd sold his people out for profit.
He exhaled.
Held his breath.
Pulled the trigger.
The bullet split the air—and the silence.
But he didn't celebrate.
He never did.
Because the boy who pulled that trigger… wasn't born for it.
He was made.
---
*CHAPTER ONE: LAGOS, 2009*
Edward Okoye was just a boy when the sirens first taught him to stop trusting peace.
His father, a principled journalist, disappeared after publishing a report on election rigging. His mother worked two jobs and never spoke of him again.
At 17, Edward was angry. Smart. Dangerous without direction.
That's when the *Black River Program* found him.
They promised structure. Power. Purpose.
They turned orphans into weapons.
---
*CHAPTER TWO: THE BOOT AND THE BLADE*
The Black River camp was hidden deep in the Sahel, far from civilization, far from mercy.
Recruits arrived blindfolded, handcuffed, and renamed. Edward became *E-17*—a number, not a name.
The first lesson was pain.
"Kill your name," the instructor barked on day one. "Kill who you were. Only then will you survive what's coming."
They broke them with drills, heat, and silence.
But Edward didn't break.
He watched. He learned. He adapted.
While others screamed or rebelled, he studied patrol patterns, who was cruel, who hesitated. He didn't fight for approval. He fought to understand.
He noticed the instructors feared one man: *Commander Rhaze*—cold, brutal, precise.
Rhaze had trained child soldiers in Libya, rumored to have killed his own unit for betrayal. He took interest in Edward quickly.
"You think like a wolf," Rhaze said after watching him disable an older trainee using nothing but rope and instinct. "You're meant for more than this."
Edward didn't respond.
He didn't trust praise.
But part of him listened.
Especially when Rhaze showed him the next level: *Blacksite 9*—a hidden facility for training "ghost operatives." Assassins. Infiltrators. Fixers.
"You want answers about your father?" Rhaze whispered one night. "Join Blacksite 9. The truth is buried there."
Edward's heart hardened.
He didn't care about missions, borders, or commands.
He wanted the truth.
And he was willing to become a weapon to get it.
---
*CHAPTER THREE: BLACKSITE 9*
They flew him blindfolded across two countries—low altitude, no chatter, no names.
When the blindfold came off, Edward stood inside a reinforced underground complex carved into rock. Cold lights. Reinforced walls. No windows. No clocks.
*Blacksite 9* wasn't a training camp.
It was a forge.
Only twelve recruits. No ranks. No friendships. Just missions, surveillance, and psychological breaking.
Here, they trained in:
- *Urban assassination*
- *Language mimicry*
- *Torture resistance*
- *Truth extraction*
- *Moral suppression*
The instructors were ex-military. Ruthless. Precise. Former ghosts themselves—until they "aged out."
Edward's file read: "*High composure. Emotional latency. Gifted under pressure.*"
But one test nearly broke him.
---
*THE RED ROOM*
One week into training, they locked Edward in a steel room for 48 hours. No food. Blinding lights. Endless screaming audio.
Then they dragged in a boy—12 years old, blindfolded. A guard placed a gun in Edward's hand.
"Enemy courier," the instructor said coldly. "Kill him or fail. Walk out, and you're scrubbed from the program."
Edward looked at the boy.
He was crying.
Not a threat.
Just a tool.
He didn't pull the trigger.
Instead, he looked straight at the camera and said, "You want a killer? Then test me on killers."
If they don't bleed I"ll make them bleed he said
Later, they told him the boy was an actor.
Just a test.
But something inside Edward changed that day.
He didn't lose his humanity.
He buried it.
---
*THE CALLSIGN*
After surviving a live hostage scenario and escaping a gas chamber trap, Edward earned his code name:
*WRAITH.*
Silent. Deadly. No trace.
The youngest graduate of Blacksite 9. A legend before he was legal to vote.
But Edward didn't feel proud.
He felt *prepared*.
He was coming for the people who made ghosts like him.
---
*CHAPTER FOUR: FIRST BLOOD*
Tripoli, Libya.
Midnight.
Target: Colonel Tariq al-Masoud — ex-intelligence chief turned warlord, responsible for arms deals that funded child militias in West Africa.
Edward's mission was simple: eliminate the colonel during a private meeting in a high-rise suite.
No backup. No mistakes.
He was 19.
He moved through the building dressed as a hotel janitor. Silent. Calculated. Every motion rehearsed in his mind a hundred times.
On the 21st floor, he switched uniforms, disabling a security guard and slipping into his vest. He planted a listening device outside the suite and waited.
Masoud arrived with two bodyguards.
Edward waited exactly 3 minutes.
Then the power cut—engineered by a virus Zee (still unknown to him) had seeded into the building weeks prior.
In the dark, he entered.
Three clean shots.
Bodyguards—down.
Masoud lunged for a panic button.
Too slow.
Edward held the silenced pistol to his temple.
Masoud whispered, "Please… I know who you are. You're one of ours."
Edward's hand trembled slightly.
Not from fear—from *recognition*.
This was the man who once funded the River bank Program.
His father's name had been on one of Masoud's old manifests.
"You made me," Edward said.
Masoud smirked. "And now you're our best product."
Edward didn't reply.
He just pulled the trigger.
***
Later, at the exfil point, Edward sat alone under a flickering streetlight.
He didn't feel victory.
Just a growing, empty space where his soul used to be.
His mission officer radioed in: "Good work, Wraith. Welcome to the real war."
Edward said nothing.
But inside, a vow began to take shape:
*One day, I'll destroy the entire machine.*