The lever moved with a deep, satisfying clunk, a sound of heavy machinery surrendering. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, Adekunle felt a subtle vibration through the steel plate as the motor's gear train disengaged. He pulled his arm out of the jagged opening, ignoring the searing pain from the gash on his forearm. Blood, warm and slick, welled from the cut, mixing with the cold rainwater sluicing down his skin. There was no time for that now.
"It's done," he shouted to his uncle over the roar of the storm.
Ben nodded, his face grim in the intermittent flashes of lightning. He grabbed the bottom edge of the massive steel shutter. "Together!"
They dug their fingers into the narrow lip at the bottom of the door and lifted. It was like trying to lift the world itself. The shutter, designed to be moved by a powerful electric motor and a system of counterweights, was an immense dead weight. Their boots slipped on the wet pavement as they strained, their muscles screaming in protest. The shutter didn't budge.
"Again!" Ben roared, his voice a raw sound of pure effort.
They reset their grip, bent their knees, and put every ounce of their fear, their grief, and their desperate hope into the effort. The shutter groaned, a low, metallic complaint, and began to rise. It was agonizingly slow. Inch by inch, they fought gravity, their arms trembling with a violent, spastic energy. The noise was horrific—a loud, scraping, grinding sound that grated on the nerves. Even with the storm raging, the sound felt like a beacon, a declaration of their presence to anyone or anything that might be listening.
One foot. Two feet. They strained until the opening was just high enough for a man to crawl through on his belly. It was all they could manage.
"Go!" Ben grunted, his body shaking with the strain of holding the immense weight. "I'll hold it!"
Adekunle didn't hesitate. He tossed the red toolbox through the gap, where it landed with a heavy thud on the other side. He dropped to his stomach, the cold, gritty pavement pressing against him, and wriggled through the opening. He came out the other side into a darkness that was somehow even more profound than the stormy night outside.
He was in. He scrambled to his feet, turning back to help his uncle. Ben, with a final, shuddering groan of effort, let the shutter slam back down. The BOOM of the impact was like a cannon shot, a sound of finality that sealed them inside. For a moment, Adekunle was plunged into absolute, sensory-depriving blackness. The roar of the rain was instantly muffled, the air still and cold and smelling of floor polish, packaged plastics, and something else… a faint, cloying sweetness, like fruit beginning to rot. They were in a sealed tomb.
A moment later, the feeble yellow beam of Ben's work light cut through the gloom. He was inside, his chest heaving, his face pale and slick with rain and sweat. He swept the light across the entrance. They were in a vast, cavernous space. The high ceilings were lost in the darkness above. Racks of shopping trolleys stood in silent, orderly rows. A faded 'Welcome' mat lay at their feet. It was a scene from a dead civilization.
"Pharmacy," Ben breathed, the single word cutting through the silence. "Back left corner. I remember the signs."
They began to move, Ben leading with the light, Adekunle following close behind, the file held tight in his hand. Their wet footsteps echoed unnaturally in the vast, silent space. The feeble beam of the work light was swallowed by the darkness, creating more shadows than it dispelled. Long aisles stretched away from them like dark, silent canyons, lined with shelves of unseen goods. Every flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, every trick of the light, was a potential threat. Adekunle felt a profound, unnerving sense of being watched. This place had been sealed for days. What if something had been sealed in here with them?
As they moved deeper into the store, the faint, sweet smell of decay grew stronger. They passed the fresh produce section. In the weak light, Adekunle could see mounds of what had once been fresh fruit and vegetables. Now they were collapsing, putrefying masses, covered in a fine, grey fur of mold. A cloud of tiny fruit flies rose as they passed, the only other living things they had seen. The sight was deeply unsettling. This place of abundance was actively rotting from the inside out.
They reached the back of the store, and a large, glowing green cross confirmed they had found their destination. The pharmacy section was a store-within-a-store, with its own counter and behind-the-counter shelving. The security shutter for the pharmacy was halfway down, left open in a hurry by whichever employee had been the last to leave the world.
They ducked under the shutter and into the cramped space behind the counter. And here, Adekunle felt a surge of triumph so powerful it almost brought him to his knees. Shelves. Dozens of them, all neatly lined with boxes, bottles, and blister packs. It was an arsenal of modern medicine. It was salvation.
"What are we looking for?" Ben asked, his voice hushed with reverence.
"Antibiotics," Adekunle said, his mind racing, trying to recall fragments of biology lessons. "Broad-spectrum. Something for a deep tissue infection." He began scanning the shelves, his fingers flying across the boxes, reading the labels. Amoxicillin. Ciprofloxacin. Doxycycline. The names were a prayer, a litany of hope. He grabbed them all, stuffing boxes and bottles into his backpack. He found packages of sterile bandages, antiseptic wipes, surgical tape, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
As he worked, Ben searched the front-of-counter shelves. He grabbed painkillers—paracetamol, ibuprofen. He found rehydration salts, vitamins, anything that looked like it could help fight a fever and restore strength. Their backpacks began to grow heavy with the weight of their haul.
Adekunle had just zipped his bulging backpack closed when he saw it. On a low shelf, next to the cough drops, was a small, familiar box of herbal tea. "Sweet Sleep," the label read. It was his aunt's favourite. She drank a cup every single night before bed, claiming it was the only thing that calmed her mind. In the midst of this frantic, life-or-death scramble, the sight of that simple box, a relic of her quiet, ordinary rituals, hit him with the force of a physical blow. The reality of her, lying in that dark room, fighting for her life, became terrifyingly real. He snatched the box and shoved it deep into his pocket. It felt more important than all the medicine combined.
"We have enough," Ben said, his voice pulling Adekunle from his thoughts. "Let's go. This place… it feels wrong."
Adekunle agreed. The initial euphoria of finding the medicine was fading, replaced by the deep, instinctual feeling that they had overstayed their welcome. They ducked back under the pharmacy shutter and began the long walk back to the front of the store.
They were halfway there when Ben's light flickered and died.
The darkness that crashed down on them was absolute. It was a physical, suffocating presence. Adekunle couldn't even see his own hand in front of his face. He froze, his heart leaping into his throat.
"Uncle?" he whispered into the blackness.
"I'm here," Ben's voice came from just beside him, startlingly close. "The batteries. They're finished."
They were blind. Trapped in the center of a vast, black tomb, with the sound of their own frantic breathing loud in their ears. The smell of rot seemed to be stronger now, closing in on them.
"Okay," Ben said, his voice a rock of calm in the terrifying darkness. "Okay. We do not panic. We walk straight ahead. The entrance is directly in front of us. We will touch the shopping trolleys, and then we will know we are there."
Ben took his hand, his grip firm and reassuring. Adekunle had not held his uncle's hand since he was a small boy. The gesture, a simple act of human connection in the terrifying void, was enough to quell the rising tide of panic in his chest.
They began to walk, shuffling forward into the unknown. Adekunle held the file out in front of him, a blind man's cane. Every step was an act of faith. His mind filled the darkness with shapes, with imagined movements in the peripheral gloom. Was that a flicker of movement down that aisle? Was that the sound of breathing that wasn't their own?
After an eternity of shuffling steps, Adekunle's outstretched hand touched something cold and metallic. A shopping trolley. They had made it.
"We're here," he breathed.
Now came the final, impossible task. Lifting the shutter in the dark.
They felt their way to the front, their hands finding the cold steel of the shutter. They found the bottom lip.
"On three," Ben said. "One… two… THREE!"
They heaved, their muscles screaming, their feet slipping on the smooth tile. The shutter groaned, the sound impossibly loud now that the storm outside had lessened to a steady, drumming rain. They lifted, fighting for every inch, their world reduced to this single, agonizing point of effort. Two feet. Just enough.
"You first!" Ben grunted. "Go!"
Adekunle shoved his backpack through the opening, the weight of it a dead drag. He wriggled after it, his body scraping against the concrete. He came out into the cool, wet night, the rain a blessed, clean feeling on his face. He turned and grabbed the shutter, adding his strength to his uncle's, holding it open.
Ben pushed their other backpack and the precious toolbox through, then scrambled after them. The moment he was clear, they let go. The shutter slammed down with a deafening boom that echoed down the empty, rain-washed street.
They were out.
They stood for a moment in the downpour, two shivering, soaked figures, their chests heaving. They were bleeding, exhausted, and terrified. But their backpacks were heavy with medicine, with bandages, with painkillers. And in Adekunle's pocket, nestled safely against his leg, was a small box of herbal tea.
They had the key. They had opened the lock. They had stolen fire from the gods of the dead world. Now, they just had to make it home.