[The camera lens is slightly smudged, giving the video a soft, ethereal glow. Omi is sitting in the back of the SUV, her silver hair reflecting the passing streetlights. She is cradling a discarded, cracked smartphone she found—not using it, just holding it like a precious artefact.]
Bisi: "We're rolling, Omi. Just tell me what you see when you look at 2026."
Omi: [She looks directly into the lens, her eyes wide and shimmering with a faint, blue light] "I see life, Bisi—so much of it. In the old days, a village was a small world. If a child cried, everyone heard it. If a harvest failed, everyone felt the hunger. But now? Millions. Millions of souls in a single city. It's like the ocean—countless drops, all moving together. It's breathtaking."
Bisi: "You like having so many people around?"
Omi: "I love it. The world is finally full. But..." [She looks down at the cracked phone, her thumb tracing the screen] "...it makes me so heavy with grief. In Ominira, we were siblings. If you walked down a path, you greeted every traveller, because a stranger was just a friend you hadn't shared water with yet. Now, I see people standing side by side on the streets of Lagos, and they look through each other as if they were ghosts. You are all so close together, yet you treat each other like strangers. Why is everyone so afraid to look each other in the eye?"
Bisi: "What do you miss the most? Besides the old villages?"
Omi: "The purity of the water. I can feel the rivers from miles away, Bisi. In the old world, the water was a mirror for the sky. Now, it is choked with plastic and the 'blood' of machines—oil. It hurts to breathe it. It's like the earth is being slowly strangled, and nobody is listening to its heartbeat."
Bisi: "What's your favourite thing about the modern world? Ina said he likes the food and music."
Omi: [A soft, genuine laugh escapes her] "Libraries. And hospitals. To think that you have gathered all the knowledge of the world into one room... and that you can heal a fever that used to take lives. That is the true magic of this age. Not the Ayanfe. The doctors are the real guardians."
Bisi: "And when Ile is defeated? What's the plan for Omi?"
Omi: [Her expression turns solemn, looking out at the darkened landscape] "I want to heal the scars. Not just the earth, but the people. I want to build a place where the 'Ayanfe' and the 'Humans' can sit at the same table again. No more secret wars. No more hiding. I want us to remember that we are all part of the same river, flowing toward the same sea."
Bisi: "That's beautiful. Do you think we can get there?"
Omi: [She reaches out and gently touches the camera lens, her touch leaving a faint mist] "We have to. Because if we don't, then we've just saved a world that has already forgotten how to love itself."