The air in the room changed. It didn't become cold—that would have been a cliché, a cheap trick from a horror movie David had watched a hundred times. Instead, the air became heavy. It thickened, pressing against his eardrums like the descent of an airplane, a sudden shift in pressure that made the cheap plastic clock on the wall sound like a sledgehammer: Tick. Tick. Tick.
The shadows in the corner of the studio apartment didn't just stretch; they stood up.
David Kingsley remained in his chair, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the termite-eaten table. He wanted to run. His legs, acting on a primal instinct buried beneath layers of modern civilization, screamed at him to bolt through the door and into the chaotic, rainy streets of Yaba. But his spirit was too tired to obey his biology. He was anchored by a fatigue so deep it felt like sediment in his blood.
From the coalescing darkness, a shoe stepped out.
It was an Oxford brogue, polished to a shine that seemed impossible in the dusty humidity of Lagos. Then a trouser leg, charcoal grey and creased with razor-sharp precision. Then a torso, wrapped in a suit jacket that fit too perfectly to be off-the-rack.
The man who materialized in David's living room was not a monster. He had no horns. He had no tail. He looked like a man who had just stepped out of a Board of Directors meeting at a Fortune 500 company, or perhaps the man who owned the company. He was tall, with skin the color of polished mahogany and hair cropped close, peppered with distinguished grey at the temples.
But it was the eyes.
They were dark, yes, but they lacked the wet, reflective quality of human eyes. They were matte. Like voids. Like the bottom of a well where light goes to die.
"Mr. Kingsley," the stranger said.
The voice was smooth, baritone, and terrifyingly familiar. It sounded like David's own internal monologue, but deeper, stripped of all anxiety.
David tried to speak, but his throat was dry, clicking shut. He reached for the whiskey, his hand trembling so violently the amber liquid splashed onto his wrist. He drank it straight from the bottle, the burn grounding him.
"Who... who are you?" David choked out. "How did you get in? The door is bolted."
The stranger smiled. It was a practiced smile, the kind a politician gives to a crowd he despises but needs. "Doors are for people who require permission, David. I rarely require permission. Only invitations. And you..." He walked further into the room, inspecting the peeling paint on the walls with the detached curiosity of a health inspector. "...you sent out a very loud invitation."
"I was talking to myself," David stammered. "I was just... venting."
"Were you?" The stranger turned, his matte eyes locking onto David. "The human soul is a frequency, David. Despair has a specific pitch. It vibrates. Most people whine. They complain. But you? You were screaming. You were bargaining before I even arrived."
The stranger pulled out the single wooden chair opposite David. He dusted the seat with a handkerchief that looked like silk, then sat down, crossing one leg over the other. He looked painfully out of place amidst the squalor—a diamond in a dustbin.
"I am a Benefactor," the stranger said. "A venture capitalist for the spiritually insolvent. I locate distressed assets—men like you, broken by patterns they cannot see—and I offer... restructuring."
David laughed. It was a wet, hysterical sound. "Restructuring? Look around you. I have nothing to restructure. I have three hundred Naira in my account. My fiancée left me because she thinks I'm cursed. My landlord is coming tomorrow with police to throw my things in the gutter. I am not a distressed asset. I am a liability."
"That is because you are looking at the balance sheet of today," the stranger said calmly. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a silver cigarette case. He didn't offer one to David. He lit a cigarette with a gold lighter that clicked with a satisfying, heavy sound. The smoke didn't smell like tobacco; it smelled like ozone, like the air after a heavy lightning storm.
"I look at projections," the stranger continued, exhaling a perfect ring of grey smoke. "I see your bloodline, David. It is... robust. There is energy there. Creativity. Brilliance. But there is a dam. A blockage."
"The curse," David whispered.
"Call it what you will. A curse. A pattern. A systemic failure. Your grandfather died screaming at shadows. Your father died drinking to forget them. And you? You are poised to die of mediocrity, which is, in my opinion, a far worse fate."
The stranger leaned forward, the smoke curling around his face like a living thing.
"I can remove the dam, David. I can blow it wide open. The river of fortune that has been diverted away from your family for three generations? I can redirect it. Straight into your pocket."
David felt a pull in his chest. It was hunger. Not for food, but for the dignity he had lost. He remembered the look in the bank manager's eyes when he denied the loan. Disgust. He remembered the pity in his fiancée's eyes.
"What do I have to do?" David asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Nothing labor-intensive," the stranger assured him. "I do the heavy lifting. I clear the obstacles. You simply... live. You walk through the doors I open. You accept the wealth. You accept the power."
"And the price?" David asked. He wasn't naive. He was desperate, but he was still a man of the world. "Nobody gives money for free. What do you want? My soul?"
The stranger waved his hand dismissively, ash falling onto the table but vanishing before it hit the wood.
"Please. Stop reading medieval literature. I have no use for your soul in the way you imagine. I am not a collector of jars. I am an investor. I want equity."
"Equity in what?"
"In the intangible assets of your new life," the stranger said, his voice dropping an octave. "I will take a percentage. A commission. Sometimes it will be a memory you no longer need. Sometimes it will be a sensation—the taste of strawberries, perhaps. Sometimes it will be a specific moment in time. Small things. Things you won't even miss amidst the billions you will possess."
David stared at him. It sounded too easy. Too clean.
"I want to see the contract," David said suddenly. The banker in him flared up, a last line of defense. "If we are doing business, let's do it right. Draft it. I want to read the clauses. I want to see the terms and conditions. I want to know the termination date."
The room went silent. The rain outside seemed to pause.
The stranger's smile didn't fade, but it changed. It became tighter. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees in a second. The candle flame, which had been blue, suddenly elongated, standing straight up like a needle.
"A contract?" the stranger purred. "Written on paper?"
"Yes," David said, trying to keep his voice steady. "So I know what I'm signing."
The stranger stood up slowly. He towered over the table now.
"David, David, David," he sighed, sounding disappointed. "Writing is for men who do not trust each other. Writing is for the courts of men, for lawyers who twist syntax to hide the truth. Writing is... limiting."
He walked around the table, standing behind David. David could feel the cold radiating from the man's suit.
"Ink fades," the stranger whispered into David's ear. "Paper burns. Hard drives crash. Clouds get wiped. If we write it down, David, we are bound by the limitations of language. Words are clumsy. If I write 'wealth,' and the economy crashes, the contract is void. If I write 'health,' and a new virus emerges, the contract is debated."
The stranger placed a hand on David's shoulder. The touch was heavy, like a lead weight.
"But a Verbal Clause? An Unwritten Contract?" The voice was seductive now, wrapping around David's mind. "It is fluid. It is alive. It adapts. If the world changes, the contract changes to protect you. It is stronger because it is not bound by the fragility of ink. It is bound by Will."
"I... I don't know," David hesitated. "My father always said, 'get it in writing.'"
"And your father died broke in a gutter," the stranger snapped. The cruelty in his voice was sharp and sudden, like a slap. "Your father was a fool who played by rules that were rigged against him. Are you your father, David? Or are you the man who breaks the cycle?"
David closed his eyes. He saw the eviction notice. He saw the empty fridge. He saw the leaking roof. He saw the sneering faces of his former classmates who drove Mercedes Benzes while he took the Danfo bus.
"I want to be free," David whispered.
"Then accept the covenant," the stranger said, his voice softening again. "No paper. No trail. Just two gentlemen agreeing to change the course of history. Trust me, David. The unwritten law is the only law that matters in the deep places of the world."
The stranger moved back to the other side of the table and extended his right hand.
"Do we have a deal, Mr. Kingsley?"
David looked at the hand. It was perfectly manicured. It looked like the hand of a man who could sign a check for a billion dollars without blinking.
David thought about the risks. He knew, somewhere deep in his lizard brain, that this was a trap. He knew that a contract you cannot read is a contract you cannot escape. He knew that "intangibles" was a word big enough to hide horrors.
But then he looked at the water dripping into the bucket on the floor. Plip. Plip. Plip. The rhythm of poverty.
"I am tired of the rain," David said.
He stood up. He reached out.
His hand met the stranger's.
The shock was immediate. It wasn't an electric shock; it was a thermal one. David's hand was warm, sweating with fear. The stranger's hand was aggressively neutral—neither hot nor cold, but possessing a density that felt like gripping a solid bar of iron.
"Agreed," David said.
As he spoke the word, a sensation rippled through his arm, shooting up his shoulder and detonating behind his eyes. For a split second, David saw things that weren't there. He saw a skyscraper burning. He saw a child crying with no sound. He saw a throne made of black glass.
Then, it was gone.
The stranger squeezed his hand, a grip that threatened to crush the bones, then released it.
"Excellent," the stranger said. He adjusted his cufflinks. "The transaction is complete. The blockage is removed."
"That's it?" David asked, cradling his throbbing hand. "Nothing happens?"
"Everything has already happened," the stranger corrected. He walked toward the door—the door that was still bolted shut. "You will find your circumstances... adjusted. I will be in touch regarding my commission."
"Wait," David called out. "Who are you? What do I call you?"
The stranger paused with his hand on the doorknob. He didn't turn around.
"You can call me The Benefactor," he said. "Or you can call me a Silent Partner. It doesn't matter. I respond to results, not names."
"And where are you going?"
"To prepare the way," the stranger said. "You have a busy day tomorrow, David. Try to get some sleep. You'll need the energy for the ascent. The view from the top is breathtaking, but the air is very thin."
The stranger turned the handle. The deadbolt, which had been rusted shut for two years, clicked open smoothly.
He stepped out into the dark hallway.
David blinked. He rushed to the door and pulled it open, looking into the corridor.
The hallway was empty. There were no wet footprints. There was no smell of ozone. Just the dank, familiar smell of the Lagos tenement building—urine, boiled yam, and damp concrete.
David stood in the doorway, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Had he hallucinated it? Was it just the whiskey and the stress?
He turned back into his room.
The candle was burning normally again, a warm orange flame. The shadows were just shadows.
But then he saw it.
On the termite-eaten table, right where the stranger had been sitting, was his wallet. David knew it was empty. He had checked it ten times that evening.
He walked over to it slowly, his breath catching in his throat. He picked it up. It felt heavier.
With trembling fingers, he opened the leather fold.
It was full.
Crisp, mint-condition notes. Dollars. Hundreds of them. Packed so tightly the leather was straining.
David pulled out a bill, holding it up to the flickering candlelight. Ben Franklin stared back at him, stoic and real.
It wasn't a hallucination.
David Kingsley sank onto his bed, the money clutched in his hand. He started to laugh, a sound of pure relief that slowly, terrifyingly, twisted into a sob. He had money. He finally had money.
Outside, the thunder cracked again, sounding less like a gavel this time, and more like a door slamming shut. An invisible door, locking him in.
The contract had begun.