Title: Bloodlight: Rise of the First Night
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Supernatural, Drama, Slice of Life
Tags: Vampirism, Nigerian Protagonist, Power Discovery, Inner Conflict, Slow-burn, Realism, First-Person Narrative
Prologue: The Night I Died... and Lived
Some people say your life flashes before your eyes when you die.
That didn't happen to me.
I saw a void… then I heard laughter—mocking, ancient… and oddly familiar.
And when I woke up again, the world no longer felt like mine.
Chapter 1: The Road to Lagos is Never Just a Road (Part 1)
"Mumsi, I go reach before nightfall. Traffic no too bad."
"Okay o. No stop for them roadside suya, I dey warn you!" she barked over the phone, her voice still thick with concern despite her attempt at a joke.
I smiled. My legs ached from sitting in the cramped backseat of the danfo for almost two hours. We had just passed Ibadan tollgate, and the sun was beginning its lazy descent behind clouds.
This was supposed to be a normal day. End of semester. Me, Tobi Martins—a regular 19-year-old Nigerian boy from Ogun State, 200-level architecture student at FUTA—was going home for the semester break.
Then everything went black.
Like, real black.
It started with a flat tire.
Driver pulled over. All of us groaned like we were one choir. The road was too quiet. The air too still. You know that feeling when even the trees seem to be holding their breath?
That's when they came.
Five of them. Machetes. Charms. Red cloths. One of them muttered incantations like he was chewing hot pepper and yam. I didn't even have time to react before they dragged me off into the bush like a sack of garri.
"No shout. Just dey thank your god say we pick you. Your blood clean. You go make money for us."
I thought it was a joke at first. A mad prank. Until I saw the blood already on the floor—fresh blood… and a headless body lying limp on the altar.
They began the ritual.
I wanted to scream.
I couldn't.
Whatever they sprayed on me made my body feel like air, like I wasn't in my skin anymore. They chanted in something older than Yoruba, older than anything I'd heard in Nollywood rituals.
"Orí ẹ̀jẹ̀! Ẹ̀mí ajé! Ẹ̀yà tá a bọ, wá gba àbọ rẹ̀!"
Then the world tore open.
Literally.
Like a cloth being ripped from above.
And I fell.
I fell through.
Another Realm...
The sky was red. The ground was pale ash. I could hear heartbeats—millions of them—beating in my head. And then… I saw her.
Tall. Pale. Eyes like a thousand burning moons.
"You were not meant to survive the ritual," she said, her voice echoing inside my mind. "But fate has a cruel humor."
"Who... who are you?" I croaked.
She smiled. Or maybe bared fangs.
"I am the Bloodmother. And now, so are you… my Son."
The First Vampire Was Born
They all died.
Every one of the kidnappers.
Their life... it poured into me.
Not like a sip of zobo, but like a flood of fire down my throat.
Their deaths were never reported. No one knew. No one ever will.
I woke up back at the edge of the expressway.
Like nothing happened.
Like I hadn't just become something else.
Present Day – Abeokuta
Two days later...
"Tobi! Guy howfar na! You reach house since?"
I forced a smile as my guy Kunle slapped my back. "Yeah bro. Just dey try settle in."
"Guy I hear say you dey find job for summer break?"
"Yeah, just to keep busy."
We talked. We laughed.
But my skin… it was burning.
Even under the weak morning sun, I could feel my hands tingling.
By noon?
Blisters.
Like actual burn blisters.
I wore hoodie and gloves the next day. I told Mum it was for fashion. She called it Lagos madness.
But I knew something was wrong.
Something inhuman.
The Hunger
It started as an itch.
Then a craving.
Then a need.
The smell of sweat on people's necks was suddenly intoxicating. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat.
Blood.
My body wanted blood.
One week after the ritual, I snapped.
I found a homeless man sleeping near the abandoned railway line.
I didn't think.
I just… bit.
When I came to, his body was cold.
Mine wasn't.
Mine felt more alive than ever.
That's when I knew…
This was no dream.
This was the new me.
Next Chapter Teaser: "Testing Limits"
Tobi begins to isolate himself, carrying out private experiments—how fast can he move, how strong is he, what happens when he doesn't feed, and most of all… is there a way back?
But something ancient awakens beneath the soil of Nigeria... something Gaia has created in response to his birth.
And it's hungry too.