Chapter4: The man In the shadows
593 Words
Amara didn’t sleep well. Tunde’s journal lay on her nightstand, its leather cover slightly worn, pages brimming with cryptic scribbles, fragments of poetry, and incomplete thoughts that hinted at a restless mind. She had read it three times already, searching for meaning. None had come—yet.
At dawn, she dressed in silence and headed to the university archives, an annex rarely visited by undergraduates. The air smelled of dust and ink. Rows of cabinets stood like silent sentinels, holding years of forgotten student records, publications, and confidential administrative files.
She found herself in front of the cabinet labeled "2019". Tunde’s final year.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she opened the drawer. Files thudded softly as she thumbed through them. Then she paused. His file was missing.
“Looking for something?”
The voice startled her. A man—mid-fifties, black-and-white hair, neatly dressed in a navy jacket—stood at the edge of the room, holding a folder.
“Who are you?” she asked, recovering quickly.
He stepped forward, offering a tight smile. “Dr. Akinwale. I manage archive records now. You’re Amara, right? Journalism department?”
She nodded cautiously.
“I heard you’ve been asking about Tunde Adedayo.”
Her pulse quickened. “Do you know him?”
“I did,” he said, setting the folder down on a table. “He was brilliant. Stubborn. Asked too many questions for his own good.”
Amara’s eyes narrowed. “Questions about what?”
Dr. Akinwale didn’t answer immediately. He walked over to the window, staring out at the quiet lawn. “There was a time when this campus stood for truth. Inquiry. But things changed. Some inquiries were... discouraged.”
“Like what happened to Tunde?”
He turned to face her. “He was looking into a study conducted by the university years ago. Something about a health trial—an experimental nutrition supplement for students. It was supposed to be a public-private partnership.”
Amara frowned. “Why would that matter?”
“Because several students dropped out suddenly. Others got sick. Tunde believed there was more to the story, that it had been covered up.”
“Did you help him?”
“I tried. But he vanished before we could do much. And after he disappeared, I was transferred here—to the archives. Quiet exile.”
Amara's voice dropped. “Do you have any proof?”
Dr. Akinwale opened the folder he’d brought. Inside were photocopies of memos, redacted emails, and a typed list of participants—some names marked with red ink, others crossed out completely.
At the bottom, handwritten in the margin: “Find Morayo Folarin.”
Amara’s breath caught. That name had been mentioned in Tunde’s journal.
“Who is she?”
“One of the last participants Tunde spoke to,” Dr. Akinwale said. “She disappeared weeks before him. Some say she dropped out and left the country. Others... think she was silenced.”
“And you kept this all these years?”
He looked tired now. “I’m not a hero, Miss Cole. I kept it because I couldn’t forget. But I couldn’t act alone.”
Amara felt the weight of the folder in her hands. It wasn’t just a story anymore. It was evidence. A thread leading back into the shadows.
“Why help me now?”
“Because you remind me of him. Brave. Stubborn. Foolish, maybe. But maybe that’s what it takes.”
She nodded, heart racing. “
Then let’s find out what really happened.”
- Writer
