Kamcy

  Seated at the long mahogany table, I could feel the silence pressing against my skin like damp cloth.

  It stretched.

  And stretched.

  And stretched some more.

  No one had given their names yet, even after Mr. Adeyemi had instructed us to do so. The air felt thick, humid with unspoken suspicion. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to break first.

  I sat at the far end of the table, directly opposite Mr. Adeyemi. That alone made everything worse. It felt deliberate. Like I had been pced there to be observed. Examined.

  It was unsettling to look up and see him sitting there in person.

  Not a projection.

  Not a distorted simution avatar. Just Him.

  Real.

  And watching.

  I wanted the attention off me, so I shifted my gaze toward the first two who had eagerly accepted his invitation to sit and eat. They had walked to the table without hesitation, like this was a casual dinner and not a gathering of trapped subjects in some morally bankrupt experiment.

  They seemed carefree enough, the kind to do well with crowds, not at all seeming to question their situation.

  Meanwhile, my mind was still wrestling with three separate battles.

  Struggling to get used to the weirdness of the entire situation.

  Wondering if this was reality.

  And most importantly, fighting the overwhelming urge to leap across the table and punch Mr. Adeyemi square in the face.

  And yet, looking over at these two, there they were, stuffing their mouths with food, and the longer I looked at them, the more bewildered I became.

  How were they eating?

  How were they chewing so calmly?

  Their fingers were greasy. Their mouths full. Sauce staining napkins.

  I was sitting here trying to decipher the metaphysical integrity of my existence, and they were licking stew off their thumbs.

  Most of all, weren’t they taught not to accept things from strangers?

  Fighting the urge to facepalm like a disappointed older brother, I forced myself to look away before irritation made me irrational. I joined the rest of the table in silently observing one another.

  It was like an unspoken game of chicken.

  You go first.

  No, you.

  Mr. Adeyemi opened his mouth to speak again—

  But someone beat him to it.

  “What’s with the m’wood, are we kids or s’womething, well s’wince we are w’all….”

  The girl from earlier, 070, paused mid-sentence. She had clearly forgotten she was still chewing.

  She swallowed.

  “Mmhhm, I’m subject 070. I was contacted by Mr. Ads here for ‘PROJECT REBIRTH,’ so… nice to meet y’all.”

  Her tone was carefree. Casual. Like she was introducing herself at a university orientation.

  But what she said lodged in my brain like a splinter.

  Mr. Ads.

  PROJECT REBIRTH.

  She said it like they were familiar. Like she knew him personally. That alone sparked questions.

  And that project name…

  Rebirth.

  So we weren’t all recruited under the same proposal.

  Different narratives. Different hooks.

  Tailored bait.

  It made sense strategically. Appeal to ideology. Manipute desires. Customize the lie.

  But why that name for her?

  Why rebirth?

  Before my thoughts could spiral into a thousand paranoid theories, a loud voice cut through the room.

  “Why everybody con dey shame na?”

  The young man from earlier wiped his mouth with tissue, speaking in pidgin. His tone was animated, almost amused.

  “Anyways, to do you all some good, I’m subject 1010, but my real name na Orezioghene Uzezi, but you can all call me Orezi.”

  His introduction was fluid — half pidgin, half standard English. It was oddly grounding.

  Listening to his name, I could now be certain.

  He was Nigerian.

  “Well, what Orezi here did is what I was actually expecting for an introduction from you guys,” Mr. Adeyemi said, turning to look at subject 070.

  She smiled sheepishly with a faint blush and cleared her throat.

  “Mm, well sorry. In that case, I’m Ijeoma. You can call me IJ. No surname since I’ve never known my dad.”

  She said it casually.

  Too casually, in fact, that it could have been a form of deflection. Or maybe she had made peace with it long ago.

  “Um, I’m Chigozie. It’s a pleasure meeting you all,” another man said. He had a low taper fade and carried himself with quiet maturity. He looked older than most of us — maybe early thirties — being the only one whose age I could accurately tell, as he looked the oldest, while the rest of us, based on appearance, ranged from early to te 20s.

  “Hi, I’m Khadija.”

  My gaze flickered toward her instinctively.

  I had stared at her quite inappropriately earlier — a reflex action, sure, but still not right. I should probably apologize at some point.

  Okay, so he’s Igbo and she’s Hausa.

  The thought drifted through my head as more people introduced themselves. One by one. Names. Some adding tribes. All serving as confirmation.

  We were indeed all Nigerian.

  That couldn’t be coincidence.

  Eventually, the introductions circled the entire table.

  Until they stopped at me.

  Every single gaze settled on my face.

  To be honest, I didn’t feel like speaking.

  Sitting here, exposed, knowing so little while they possibly knew more… it made me feel vulnerable.

  Were we all here against our will?

  Or just some of us?

  Somewhere in between.

  “I’m Kamcy, subject 1004.”

  I made it short and curt.

  Because like it or not, we were in this together. And if I wanted information, I would need proximity.

  “Oh, so you’re the one ranked 1st.”

  Khadija’s voice cut through the air.

  Ranked 1st?

  “What?” I asked. “Ranked number 1?”

  “Oh, so you are the one. Well, you don’t look much like the troublemaker Ms. D made you out to be,” IJ added.

  “What?”

  More confusion.

  “Yeah, you didn’t know? Well, you are ranked first on the mission clear rankings,” Khadija crified.

  “How could you not know, though? It was announced just a little while after I cleared my mission. I thought it was the same for everyone.”

  Around the table, heads nodded in confirmation.

  I felt something twist in my stomach.

  “According to Ms. D, he was a naughty boy and had to go through a form of punishment,” IJ said.

  Mr. Adeyemi’s expression was somewhat funny — having the look of a father silently warning a child they were saying too much.

  “Wait oo, so na you cause the whole nonsense abi.”

  Orezi’s voice had lost its humor.

  “What nonsense?” I asked.

  “No be you cause all this malfunction for the system for the past few days? You know wetin your nonsense put me through.”

  He stood up abruptly.

  His chair scraped violently against the floor.

  Now I understood.

  My escape attempt.

  The disruptions.

  The ripple effects.

  I had deemed them colteral. Minor in the grand scheme.

  Clearly, they were not.

  “I’m sorry for the discomfort my stunt caused you. I’ll find a way to make it up to you if given the chance.”

  I bowed my head.

  Palms open on the table.

  I was being genuine. I knew my escape attempt would cause disturbance, but I had no other pn that could work at the time, so I was indeed sorry.

  “See this one oo, you still have the mouth to be speaking English for me, ehhn English man.”

  His voice rose.

  Each word sharper than the st.

  I understood his anger.

  But it was escating.

  “Abeg no vex,” I said quietly, using pidgin in hopes of appeasing him.

  I was wrong, as that only seemed to enrage him further.

  “Wetin you take me for? You know wetin you put me through, you bastar—”

  The word never fully left his mouth.

  Something in me snapped.

  I looked up.

  Brows knitted.

  And I felt it.

  Not anger.

  Not exactly.

  Pressure.

  It erupted from me like an unseen detonation.

  The air thickened instantly, turning viscous and heavy.

  Orezi’s body jerked mid-word.

  Like a puppet whose strings had been severed.

  His body lost bance.

  Then—

  SLAM.

  His face smashed into the table with a sickening crack. Teeth smacked against polished wood. Blood burst from his mouth in a violent spray, painting the table in bright arterial streaks.

  The sound was wet.

  Cartige crunching.

  Bone grinding.

  He slid off the table and hit the floor limp, blood pooling beneath his cheek. One of his mors y a few inches away, slick with red.

  The room went silent.

  Not quiet.

  Silent.

  The pressure intensified.

  Everyone else’s faces were driven down against the table as if gravity had multiplied tenfold. Foreheads smashed into wood. Noses bent awkwardly. Some cried out before their lungs were compressed too tightly to produce sound.

  Sweat exploded from their pores.

  Eyes strained.

  Terror.

  They looked like they were staring at a demon.

  Their muscles trembled violently as an invisible force pinned them down. I could hear the faint cracking of wood as the table groaned under compounded pressure.

  I was standing now.

  I hadn’t realized when I stood.

  “I believe that’s enough.”

  Mr. Adeyemi’s voice.

  Calm.

  Controlled.

  Then—

  Another pressure descended.

  If mine had been a tidal wave, his was a pnet colpsing.

  It smmed into me with surgical precision.

  My raised head was forced downward. My spine bent against my will. My neck strained violently as I tried to resist on instinct alone.

  Pain shot down my vertebrae.

  For a split second, I thought my cervical spine would snap like dry twigs.

  Beads of sweat formed on my skin instantly.

  But what terrified me wasn’t the physical force.

  It was the feeling beneath it.

  Cold.

  Ancient.

  Predatory.

  The beast from my punishment simution had filled me with dread.

  This?

  This was primal.

  This was evolutionary fear — the kind buried in DNA.

  The kind prey feels before jaws close around its throat.

  My knees buckled.

  My teeth ground together.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “Please, let’s be civil.”

  His aura vanished.

  Just like that.

  The weight lifted.

  Air rushed back into my lungs violently.

  Orezi coughed on the floor, blood bubbling from his lips.

  Around the table, people slowly raised their heads — foreheads bruised, noses bleeding, eyes wide and shaken — taking in air like they had been underwater previously.

  The silence returned.

  But it was no longer awkward.

  It was fearful.