CHAPTER TWO — The Fire in Ijebu
The night started like any other.
The air smelled of roasted plantain and kerosene smoke, the stars hung low over the narrow market road, and Mama Kike's laughter filled the darkness like warm light. She was telling one of her endless stories — this one about a talking tortoise who tricked the king into sharing his crown.
Tunde listened, smiling faintly as he brushed sand from the plantains roasting over the charcoal fire. The flicker of the flames danced in his eyes. For the first time in years, he felt almost safe — a feeling he barely remembered from childhood.
But fate, like fire, does not warn before it burns.
🌕 The Warning
It began with silence.
The market, usually full of noise even at night — distant chatter, passing carts, music from a nearby beer joint — suddenly fell quiet. Even the dogs stopped barking. Mama Kike noticed first.
"Tunde," she whispered, "do you hear that?"
He looked up. "Hear what, Mama?"
"Nothing. That's the problem."
Before they could move, a shadow detached itself from the alley — tall, broad-shouldered, and cruelly familiar. Sunkanmi. The same boy who had once ruled the market with fists and fear, now a young man with a scar across his left cheek.
Behind him were three others, carrying sticks and bottles.
"Well, well," Sunkanmi sneered, stepping closer. "See who we have here — the orphan hero and his mother hen."
Mama Kike rose slowly, her face calm but firm. "Sunkanmi, I warned you boys — this is not the way. Go home before you regret it."
He chuckled darkly. "Regret? No, Mama. You're the one who's been causing regret — refusing to pay your share. Today, we end it."
Tunde stepped between them. "Leave her alone."
Sunkanmi's eyes flickered. "Ah. The small rat has teeth now."
🔥 The Spark
The fight was brief but brutal. Tunde fought with everything he had — fists, elbows, rage — but they were too many. He hit one with a burning stick, heard another scream, but a bottle smashed against his back, sending him crashing to the ground. He tasted blood and dust.
Through the haze, he saw Sunkanmi grab Mama Kike's hair. "Maybe you'll learn respect in the next life," Sunkanmi hissed — and kicked the small charcoal stove toward her hut.
The fire caught instantly. The dry raffia walls went up in flames.
"Mama!" Tunde screamed, scrambling to his feet, but strong hands pulled him back. "Let me go!"
He tore free and dove into the burning hut. Smoke clawed at his throat, heat burned his arms, but he didn't stop until he saw her — Mama Kike, trapped under a fallen wooden beam.
"Tunde," she coughed, her eyes wet with smoke, "go!"
"I won't leave you!"
She smiled weakly through the flames. "My son… you must live. Promise me—"
The roof cracked, sending a shower of sparks. He tried lifting the beam, but it was too heavy. Her hand slipped from his grasp.
"Tunde!" she cried one last time — and then, silence.
The world turned red.
⚡ The Birth of Fury
By the time the villagers arrived, it was too late. The hut was gone. Only ashes and smoke remained. Someone found Tunde lying nearby, barely conscious, clutching a half-burned cowrie shell in his fist.
They said he should have died that night — the burns, the smoke, the pain — but somehow, he lived. When he woke days later in a roadside shed, his body bandaged with palm leaves, his first words were not of pain but of purpose.
"I will find him," he whispered hoarsely. "Sunkanmi."
The villagers shook their heads. "Forget him, boy. The world has always been unfair."
But Tunde only stared into the distance, eyes like embers.
He didn't want fairness. He wanted justice.
🌙 The Road to Lagos
With Mama Kike gone, Ijebu became nothing but ghosts and ashes. Tunde took the few coins she had hidden in a calabash, wrapped them in cloth, and began walking once again — this time toward the great city everyone spoke about: Lagos. The city of fortune and ruin, where dreams were born and buried daily.
He didn't know what awaited him there — only that his destiny was moving, like the river that never stops flowing.
As he left the town behind, an old man selling herbs called out to him.
"Eh, boy! You walk like someone carrying ghosts."
Tunde turned, half-smiling. "Maybe I am."
The man nodded slowly. "Then may the gods guide you, because ghosts can lead to power… or madness."
Tunde kept walking, the cowrie swinging against his chest, its surface cracked but unbroken — just like him.
⚙️ The City of Smoke
Lagos welcomed him not with arms, but with chaos.
The noise hit first — horns, shouting traders, preachers, and the endless buzz of motorcycles. The air was thick with sweat, smoke, and ambition. People brushed past him without seeing him, every face rushing somewhere, chasing something.
For days, he slept under a broken billboard, surviving on leftovers from market stalls. He joined other street boys — thin, barefoot, hardened by hunger — and learned the rules of the street: trust no one, steal if you must, fight if you have to.
Yet something in him refused to rot. He still washed before dawn using gutter water, still whispered prayers his mother once said, still dreamed of a better tomorrow — though he didn't know what that meant anymore.
🚖 A Flicker of Light
Fate, once cruel, began to stir again.
One morning, while Tunde was cleaning car windshields at a junction, a man stepped out of an old taxi. His name was Uncle Gori, a wiry driver with a loud laugh and kind eyes. Instead of chasing Tunde away, he handed him bread and said, "You've got spirit, small boy. Come help me wash this car properly."
That moment would change everything.
Under Uncle Gori's care, Tunde learned how engines worked, how to fix tyres, how to navigate the maze of Lagos roads. For the first time in years, someone saw him — not as a burden, but as a human being.
🌤 The Name Returns
But even as new hope bloomed, the past whispered constantly.
Sometimes, while wiping grease from his hands, Tunde would see faces in the crowd — faces that looked like Sunkanmi's men — and his fists would clench. Uncle Gori noticed once and said, "Revenge is fire, my boy. It warms you for a while… but it burns you longer."
Tunde didn't reply, but deep down, he knew the truth — the fire inside him hadn't cooled. It had only learned to wait.
That night, as Lagos lights shimmered like a thousand restless spirits, Tunde lay awake in Uncle Gori's shed, staring at the cracked cowrie shell on his chest.
He whispered, "I'm still here, Mama Kike. I'm still alive. I refuse to die."
And somewhere in the noise of the city, the wind carried back a whisper — faint, like memory:
"Then live well, my son. Live well."