In the dusty twilight of Nasarawa State, under the fading orange sky that kissed the rooftops of Lafia like a tender mother wishing her children goodnight, Jude sat cross-legged on the cracked cement floor in front of the small, dilapidated library. His back rested on a stone pedestal, still warm from the day's heat, and his mind swirled with questions no adult seemed able to answer. Nathaniel, his friend since the day they fought over the last bite in the school cafeteria, approached him silently, a small notebook and a bottle of malt in his hand.
"Do you still remember the dream?" Nathaniel asked.
Jude didn't respond at first. Instead, he pointed to the horizon, where the slow burn of sunset bathed the world in purple and hope. "Do you think dreams can warn us?" he finally asked.
Nathaniel sat down beside him and shrugged. "Depends on what you saw."
Jude closed his eyes, dredging the memory from the shadows. In his dream, the ground crunched like overripe fruit and a bloated bananafish emerged, whispering its name. Behind the fish stood a faceless man wearing silent Velcro shoes. He held a notebook: Nathaniel's notebook.
"Same fish again?" Nathaniel asked, laughing nervously. "You and the fish. Maybe we shouldn't eat suya before bed."
Jude smiled weakly. "Or maybe... it's warning us about something. About this city. About something hidden. About something awaiting us."
They fell silent again, interrupted only by the chirping of crickets and the distant hum of generators. Nasarawa had always kept stories, buried beneath layers of forgotten history and silent superstition. The elders spoke of spirits who roamed the sugarcane fields at dusk, whispering truths to those who dared to listen.
Jude stood up suddenly. "Let's go."
Nathaniel blinked. "Where?" "To the old teachers' quarters. The one behind the school. I think... I think the dream told us to look there."
Nathaniel hesitated. "That place? You know what they say. It's haunted. You can hear crying from the walls."
"Exactly," Jude said, his eyes twinkling. "If there's something there, maybe it's trying to make itself heard."
Nathaniel sighed and stood up. "Okay. But if we die, I'll blame you."
They made their way through the narrow streets of their neighborhood, past women frying akara, children playing with plastic bags twisted into soccer balls, and goats that seemed to understand the language of twilight better than most people.
The school rose in the darkness like a forgotten fortress. Its walls were faded, its sign chipped, and its windows looked like sunken, staring eyes. They slipped behind the building into the living quarters, where former teachers had once lived and where legends were now born.
The door opened with an almost reluctant creak. Dust swirled in the flashlight. In one corner, a blackboard still stood, chalked from who knows how long ago. The desks were overturned. A photograph of Nigeria's early leaders hung crookedly on the wall.
Then they heard a whisper, faint and broken.
"Did you hear that?" Nathaniel whispered.
Jude nodded. "It came from the back room."
They approached cautiously. The room was filled with boxes: old books, papers, and a rusty cabinet. On the floor, amidst the junk, lay a single sheet of paper. Jude picked it up.
Written in bold, faded ink was a sentence: "The past is a story we tell ourselves so we can sleep better at night."
She turned to Nathaniel. "What do you think that means?"
Nathaniel rubbed his chin. "Maybe... we're not meant to forget. Maybe something happened here, and someone left a clue."
Suddenly, a cold wind swept through the room, stirring up papers like startled birds. The door slammed. The flashlight flickered and went out.
And then, as if whispered simultaneously in both ears, came the words: "Like a..... the truth is hard to swallow."
The room seemed to expand, the shadows grew longer, thicker, swallowing the corners. Jude grabbed Nathaniel's hand.
"I think we've awakened something," she whispered.
The wind howled outside.
Interlude: An Unearthed Diary
The boys returned the next day, this time with Aunt Asheezi, the literature teacher who believed every myth had its roots in history. They told her everything, and although she was skeptical, she agreed to accompany them.
In daylight, the room seemed ordinary, but Aunt Asheezi found a locked drawer in the rusty wardrobe. With a hairpin and a prayer, she opened it, and inside she found a diary.
It belonged to a teacher named Mr. Musa, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances five years ago. The journal described strange dreams, visions of a fish that spoke truths, and students who disappeared after hearing whispers in the night.
"Here," Jude said, pointing to a line: "It circles itself, like a never-ending story."
Aunt Asheezi gasped. "He went mad."
"Or maybe he saw something real," Nathaniel said.
That night, Jude couldn't sleep. He felt drawn back to the school, as if the building itself were calling him. He returned alone. The door was open, the wind calm.
Inside, everything had changed.
The walls now bled words, ink that flowed like veins: "We are the Forgotten. We are memory."
Then he saw it: the bananafish, floating in the air, glowing dimly. "You came," he said.
Jude stopped. "What are you?"
"I am what remains. Of the truth. Of what they did."
"Who?"
"The men who came with promises. Who took the land. Who buried secrets beneath the school floor."
Jude looked down. The floor shimmered beneath him. When he blinked, he was standing in a classroom full of shadows: children without eyes, their mouths sewn shut.
"They can't speak," the bananafish whispered. "But you can."
And then Jude screamed.
When Jude woke up, he was in the principal's office, surrounded by Aunt Asheezi, Nathaniel, and two police officers.
"You collapsed at headquarters," Aunt Asheezi said. "What did you see?"
Jude sat up slowly. "A story. A buried story."
The authorities searched the grounds. And under the library, they found bones.
It's not old. It's recent.
A mass grave.
The news reverberated throughout Nigeria: "Shocking discovery on Nasarawa school grounds: Remains of children found beneath an old library."
Protests erupted. Investigations were launched. And suddenly, people began talking: about the years when political thugs used schools as hideouts, about students who disappeared and were never found, about the unspoken silence that had reigned for so long.
Jude and Nathaniel witnessed the development; their story spread like wildfire or perhaps, as if justice had been served.
Years later, a new school building was built on the grounds, and at its center was a memorial.
A pedestal in the shape of a book, with the children's names engraved on its pages.
A plaque read: "We tell stories to remember. We remember to heal."
Jude became a journalist. Nathaniel became a historian. Together they wrote a book: "What We Leave Behind," a story about dreams, truth, and the haunting power of forgetting.
In the final chapter, they wrote:
"We dug into nightmares to find reality. And when it emerged, it was neither bitter nor sweet.
Thank you guys I still remain Nathaniel Gabriel Ameka a k a 
