People think journalism is glamorous.
It isn’t.
Nobody tells you that most investigative reporting involves sitting in uncomfortable places for unreasonable amounts of time while questioning your life choices.
For instance: At the moment I am writing this, it is 2:17 a.m. Mosquitoes have declared war on my existence. My back hurts. My phone battery is at eleven percent. And I am hiding inside my car near a lagoon because I have spent the last three months following a man who may or may not be impossible.
I realize that sounds dramatic.
Unfortunately, it also happens to be true.
The story started six months ago.
Back then, I was a junior journalist. Not the exciting kind. Not the kind that exposes corruption or uncovers international conspiracies. I mostly wrote stories nobody read. Community events. Press conferences. Politicians pretending to care about potholes. The usual.
My editor liked to describe my career as “promising.”
Which is newspaper language for: “You’re not successful yet, but we don’t want you to quit.”
Then the strange coincidences started.
At first, they seemed harmless. Random. Unrelated. The kind of things people notice and immediately forget. I didn’t. That’s one of my flaws. When something doesn’t make sense, I keep pulling at the thread.
Eventually, either the mystery unravels…
…or my sanity does.
So far, the results have been mixed.
The first coincidence involved a businessman named Chief Adebayo. Everybody in Lagos knows him. Or at least knows of him. Billionaire. Philanthropist. Investor. The sort of man whose photographs appear in magazines next to words like visionary and influential. The sort of man politicians smile nervously around. The sort of man who somehow always seems to be one step ahead of everybody else.
Three companies he invested in avoided disasters that nobody could have predicted.
A major fire.
A building collapse.
A financial crash.
Each time, he withdrew money shortly before it happened. Not long before that, he purchased land that later became extremely valuable.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Nobody gets that lucky.
Not repeatedly.
Not for decades.
I began digging. The deeper I looked, the stranger things became.
A pastor with an impossible record of predictions.
A lawyer who never seemed to lose important cases.
A transportation mogul who somehow knew which routes would become profitable years before government development plans were announced.
Different industries.
Different backgrounds.
Different lives.
Yet somehow they all appeared connected. Invisible lines connecting visible power. Most journalists would have written an article and moved on. I followed the lines. The lines led somewhere. Somewhere strange.
Three months later, I found myself sitting in a car overlooking a lagoon. Watching Chief Adebayo. Waiting.
It had become my routine.
Follow.
Observe.
Document.
Repeat.
Most nights nothing happened. Tonight was different. The billionaire arrived alone. No security. No assistants. No convoy. That was unusual enough. Powerful men rarely travel without witnesses.
He stepped out of his vehicle and walked toward the water. I raised my camera. Prepared to take photographs. Prepared to record evidence. Prepared for many things. What happened next was not one of them.
Chief Adebayo continued walking. Straight toward the lagoon. The water reflected moonlight like polished glass. The shoreline ended. The water began. And he didn’t stop.
He took another step. His shoe touched the water. Instead of sinking, he remained standing.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The result remained unchanged. The billionaire was standing on water. Not swimming. Not floating. Standing.
Then he began walking. Slowly. Calmly. As though this was the most natural thing in the world. As though gravity had simply decided not to bother him.
My mouth went dry. My heart accelerated. My brain immediately began searching for explanations.
A hidden platform.
Optical illusion.
Special effects.
Mass hallucination.
Anything.
Something.
Nothing fit.
Nothing made sense.
I watched him walk farther from shore.
Twenty metres.
Thirty.
Forty.
Then something even stranger happened. The water beneath him began glowing. At first, it looked like reflected moonlight. Then the glow intensified. Symbols appeared. Ancient symbols. Bright blue shapes moving beneath the surface.
Circles.
Lines.
Patterns.
They spread outward beneath his feet like ripples. The lagoon seemed alive.
Breathing.
Watching.
Waiting.
A chill ran through me. For the first time that night, I considered leaving. Getting into my car and driving home. Pretending I had never seen any of this.
Then the billionaire stopped. Completely still. The lagoon became silent. Even the insects seemed to disappear. The night itself felt suspended.
Waiting.
Holding its breath.
Slowly, very slowly, Chief Adebayo turned around. The distance between us should have protected me.
It didn’t.
Because somehow…impossibly…he looked directly at me. Not in my direction. Not generally toward the shoreline. At me. Directly at me. As though he had known I was there the entire time. As though he had allowed me to follow him. As though this entire night had been arranged.
The smile that appeared on his face made my blood run cold. Not because it was threatening. Because it was amused. The smile of somebody watching a child discover a secret.
Then he lifted one hand. And beckoned. Once.
Just once.
A simple gesture.
Come closer.
I didn’t move.
Couldn’t move.
My entire body had forgotten how.
Then, across the water, I heard a voice.
Clear.
Calm.
Impossible.
“Mr. Lanre.”
My stomach dropped. Nobody should have been able to hear me from that distance. Nobody should have known my name. Yet the voice continued.
“You’re asking the wrong questions.”
The symbols beneath the water brightened. The lagoon glowed. The air trembled. And for the first time in my career, I realized something terrifying.
This wasn’t a story. It was an invitation. And I had a feeling I was already too deep to refuse.