06/04/2025
**Title: Midnight Power**
In the buzzing heart of Lagos — where danfos honked like angry beasts and streetlights flickered with unreliable energy — lived Amara Blake, a 20-year-old university student with beauty that turned heads and a secret that made souls tremble.
Tall, dark, and effortlessly stunning, Amara’s skin shimmered under the harsh Lagos sun like burnished bronze. Her eyes weren’t just brown — they burned with a golden hue when she was irritated, and in a city like this, that happened often.
She studied psychology at the University of Lagos. But Amara didn’t need textbooks to read people. Her power — something ancient and inherited — allowed her to feel emotions, twist them, and push fear straight into a person’s chest with nothing more than a glance. It wasn’t a learned skill. It was blood-deep.
Unlike her grandmother, who used her gift to heal and protect, Amara wielded hers like a blade. Lagos was not a city for the soft. Boys who catcalled her near the hostel? They ended up stammering apologies in broken Yoruba. A lecturer who demanded favors for grades? He developed a sudden fear of looking her in the eye.
“Respect is not given here,” she once whispered to her reflection. “It’s *taken*.”
At night, she walked the dimly lit streets of Mowe where she stayed off-campus. Her boots clacked with confidence, and even the dogs stayed silent when she passed. Once, a group of cult boys tried to block her path by the roadside. She didn’t raise her hand. She simply *looked* at their leader and whispered in Igbo, “Do you want to see your ancestors tonight?”
They scattered like dust in harmattan wind.
Still, Amara wasn’t heartless. Just tired. Tired of being underestimated, overlooked, or threatened because of her beauty, her gender, or her silence. The world didn’t respect soft voices. So she sharpened hers with power.
But power came with loneliness. Her classmates avoided her. Rumors swirled — *witch*, *spirit wife*, *possessed*. She laughed them off, but sometimes, at night, the silence in her room felt heavier than any curse.
Then came Chike — a transfer student from Enugu. Quiet, observant, and strangely unaffected by her aura. She tried to bend his fear once. He blinked, unimpressed.
“You scare people too much,” he said softly. “Power isn’t always about fear.”
Amara stared at him for a long time.
That night, for the first time, she smiled at someone… and didn’t need her magic to be seen.
But only for that night
