The air in Lagos usually smelled of diesel exhaust, roasted corn, and the salty humidity of the Atlantic. When David inhaled, he expected the metallic tang of the Void—that soul-choking vacuum he had called home for the last five standard years. Instead, his lungs filled with the scent of suya spice and rain on hot asphalt.
He was sitting on a rusted yellow bench at the CMS bus stop.
David blinked, his eyes stinging. His hands, scarred and calloused from swinging a bone-shard blade against Void-beasts, were trembling. He was wearing his old, faded university hoodie—the one he'd been wearing the night the rift swallowed him outside a convenience store.
"Five years," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "I'm back."
He checked the giant digital billboard overlooking the marina. The date flashed in bright LED red: October 14th. The time: 8:45 PM.
His heart gave a tiny, joyful skip. This was the exact night he disappeared. The five years of agony, the near-death encounters with Star-Devourers, the cold loneliness of the Outer Planes—it was as if they hadn't happened. To the world, he had only been gone for five minutes.
"David? Why are you sitting there like you saw a ghost? Move o, the conductor is calling for Obalende!"
David spun around. Standing there was his younger sister, Joy. She was holding a plastic bag of gala and a chilled bottle of soda. She looked exactly as she had when he was twenty-one—vibrant, annoyed, and very much alive.
"Joy," David choked out, his eyes blurring with tears. He stood up, his legs feeling strangely heavy, like he was walking underwater. He reached out to pull her into a hug, to feel the warmth of a human being who wasn't trying to eat his soul.
THUMP.
A heavy, sickening vibration rattled David's ribcage. It wasn't a heartbeat; it was a warning.
The Pulse of Providence.
The "cheat" he had merged with in the depths of the Void—the mysterious Ancestral Heart fragment that had kept him alive—suddenly acted as if a grenade had gone off in his chest. It wasn't the light, airy rhythm of a happy reunion. It was the Thump of Dread. Slow. Oppressive. Violent.
David froze, his arms inches from Joy's shoulders.
Why? he screamed internally. I'm home! There are no monsters here!
He looked into Joy's eyes. She was smiling, but as he stared, he noticed something. Her pupils didn't dilate when the bus headlights flashed past. They stayed perfectly circular. And behind the brown iris, there was a faint, flickering blue lattice—like the motherboard of a computer.
"David? What's wrong? You're acting weird," Joy said. Her voice looped perfectly, the pitch and tone identical to the last time she'd spoken.
THUMP. THUMP.
The warning was getting louder. David backed away, his survival instincts screaming. He looked around the bus stop. The danfo drivers were shouting, the street hawkers were weaving through traffic, and the commuters were grumbling. It was a perfect scene. Too perfect.
He focused his inner vision, a trick he'd learned in the Void. He looked past the "skin" of the world.
The sky above Lagos didn't transition into space. If he squinted, he could see a faint, hexagonal seam running across the horizon. The clouds didn't drift; they scrolled on a loop.
A cold realization washed over him, sharper than a Void-blade. He wasn't home. He had just moved from a chaotic hell into a structured cage