The Warden's office cottage was burning and the cafeteria was besides it so Lekan could feel the heat burn and the smoke fill her lungs until she was bent over and coughing hard into her elbow.

She stood shakily, backpack long forgotten and abandoned. She didn't bother with it as she made for the door, swaying lightly on her feet. She was exhausted, and her chest hurt as if the smoke had found a way to settle in her lungs.

Lekan was fighting, she was losing.

As she reached the door, she felt her legs weaken again, and this time when she fell, there was someone there to catch her.

"I've got you, Lekan." Noah said, he was repeating the words over and over again as if to remind himself and when she let herself lean into him, his chest was racing.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" She attempted to joke as he held her, he smelt of smoke, of ashes, of blood.

"Not trouble we can't fight." He said. It was a lie though but Lekan could tell he believed his own words. When he led her out of the cafeteria, she began to speak.

"Cook, she's done something to everybody, and everyone's still in the dorms." She said hoarsely.

"They are paralysed, she used a plant from this compound, luckily there is another plant that is a cure." He told her. "We have to find the revenants first, I don't want to think of how many of us are dead in there already."

Lekan coughed. "And so what?"

She could tell he was taken aback because he let her go and she had to stand on her own.

"What do you mean what?" He asked sarcastically.

"I am being realistic here!" Lekan shouted at him. "We aren't going to make it out alive, and we don't have the time to feed every single person the cure, assuming we have enough of it. It is over, Cook wins."

She collapsed on the steps, and gathered her knees around her so she could rest her head on them. She waited for Noah to leave, to scream at her but he didn't, he chose to settle down besides her, uncaring that the building next them was aflame.

"Someone left the gates open." He told her.

Zeke, Lekan realised, the gates had been locked when Lekan had ran to them minutes ago, and she had never even thought of opening them or trying to, she had let herself panic and forget that there was even a possible way out.

"We cannot get everybody out, we cannot save everybody, people will die." He listed, ticking off each finger with another. "But we will save somebody, I think your problem is the fact that you want to save everybody, you want to do everything and do it well, but you forget that in every war, there are always losses - it doesn't make you a loser."

"Now will you come up with a Supergirl worthy plan or let us all die and let Cook win?" Noah asked, he got up, he didn't wait for her answer, but he knew she'd follow.

Lekan did follow, limping and bleeding. She halted in her steps when she noticed another person hurrying to meet them, Noah was not startled though and her heart filled with hope. Someone other than them was awake.

"The kids got out, and hopefully are somewhere safe." The boy told them, on a closer look, Lekan realized she recognized him, he was one of the boys Noah had spoken about from his past, one of the boys he had gotten into a fight into but right now, that animosity had put aside for survival, it seemed.

"Anyone want to tell me what the hell is going on?" Lekan cut in.

"Dinner was poisoned, every one's paralysed except for the few of us who skipped it. Now we're trying to wake them up with the golden shower." The boy pointed at the tall shrubs of yellow flowers in front of the classrooms.

"You better make sure you do that before the fire spreads to them." Lekan said bitterly. "Has anyone checked out the staffs quarters?"

The stare Noah shared with the boy told Lekan they hadn't even thought of it. Already Lekan was already mulling over a new idea.

"We have to wake them up first, let them know Cook is behind it."

The boy didn't look surprised, when he saw Lekan's gaze, he shrugged.

"We split up now," Lekan continued. "You, take that to the staffs quarters, me and Noah will try to wake some people inside."

The boy did not flinch.

"Something is inside our dorms, the killer."

Lekan wanted to laugh, it was a good thing he knew the truth, o r at least the softest version of it, the truth would keep him alive. She nodded.

"Good luck." She told him and when they split, Noah said; "Maybe Jordan isn't all that bad."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, we aren't the good guys in this story, Noah, we are just the lesser of the two evils."

"At least we aren't trying to kill anyone." Noah added jokingly as they snapped a whole branch of the golden shower flower, Lekan stared at them, wondering how ordinary looking plants could pose the most threat or the most relief.

As the marched to the dorms, she looked at Noah, really looked at him, and he looked at her. Strangely, they were both smiling.

"We are not going to die, we are going to head in there and we are going to save Feyi and everyone we can." Noah told her, Lekan nodded firmly.

And together they entered into the lobby, there was blood right at the entrance where one of the revenants had taken a chunk of her skin, a wound that Lekan had half forgotten in the heat of the adrenaline.

The lobby was empty, but they were not fooled, the lobby was quiet and they played its game, tiptoeing, it was almost like they were children again playing boju boju.

But death was the seeker.

Lekan swallowed, removing her knife from her waistband as Noah took hold of the fire extinguisher at the base of the stairs. The fierce look that clouded his face told her he was not afraid to use it.

Up they went, and at the beginning of the hallway, the first door was open and they didn't have to look to see that all the room's occupants were dead. Lekan felt a pang of guilt even then.

Room after room, they met the same thing, until the trail of blood stopped at the end of the stairway and right there was the green eyed revenant, sitting on the cold tiles and munching on a girl that looked familiar to Lekan and when she peered closer, she almost threw up, it was Julianna, the same Julianna Lekan had had her arm broken.

The same Julianna Lekan claimed to despise was dead.

Noah did not hesitate, he threw the extinguisher with all his might and it connected with the bowed head of the revenant with a sickening thud. Lekan wanted to scream his name, because Alisha would have mourned him, because he wasn't the evil one, it was his sister who started something she had been so sure she would finish.

And as realization dawned on Lekan, she sagged to the bloody floor, with Cook's reason for living gone, what would she do now?

"That was her brother!" Lekan screamed at a pale looking Noah, although it could have been the florescent bulbs making him appear that way.

"She'll definitely burn Mary Slessor to the ground now." Lekan added tiredly. "Attacking these revenants won't solve our problem," Lekan swallowed, knowing the decision they would have to make.

"I will drag this body outside now, and I will draw Cook out, while you make your way through the rooms here, waking everybody you can, and if I fail, if I cannot kill Cook, then she will kill us."

"If we succeed, and I kill Cook, the revenants won't matter anymore because we will be burning Mary Slessor to the ground, along with everybody we couldn't save."

***

Noah worked quick, he didn't let himself pause and see the faces of dead girls he had known for over a year, he didn't let himself pause to think of any of them and he told himself he didn't care too, that was until he barged into an untouched room and found Feyi still alive, paralysed but still alive.

He set to work quickly, shoving petals of flowers into open mouths, usually, golden shower took minutes to jolt the person out of the paralysis, but those few minutes felt like forever to Noah now as he sat, rocking himself back and forth, more shaken that he had let Lekan know.

When Feyi let out a sneeze, Noah reached out to hug the girl, crushing her tight until she was pushing him away.

"What is going on, Noah?" Feyi asked, the other girls were slowly moving until they sat upright, twisting their joints as if they were brand new.

"Fire, Cook, Revenants." He explained as quick as he could. "We have to get out now!"

The intensity in his last words had all seven of the girls stumbling to their feet.

"It is a long story, but if you follow me quick, nobody else has to die."

***

There was so much blood on her hands, hers, his, just too much that she felt like the murderer. She couldn't look as she dragged the corpse outside into the night, couldn't let herself feel anything, just sat there besides him because it was the last respects that should have been paid.

She didn't have to wait too long, Cook was dashing out after her, a scream on her lips, and she screamed over and over and over again, reaching out to rip at her hair, to claw at her face like a mad woman unhinged.

Lekan knew this was her chance, she stumbled to her feet, knife in hand and staggered several steps until she was face to face with Cook.

"It is over," Lekan said, she repeated the words again and again so the woman could hear, could understand and when she let go of the matchbox in her grip, Lekan bent to pick it, then she handed the knife to Cook, it was a small mercy, but it was bigger than anything the police would give her when they arrived.

She wouldn't get a hearing, would be as helpless as a baby before them. In a sick way, Lekan understood her, she knew of the desperation that drove this woman, it was the same one that had driven her own father, Olamilekan Senior, the same one that had driven Lekan to her own issues. There was only one kind of mercy for a desperation gone too far — death.

Lekan shook all over as Cook plunged the knife into her stomach and with her dying breath, fell over her dead brother's body.

Lekan sat, waiting, she wasn't sure how long she waited for until Noah was rushing out with a crowd of girls behind him, not all of them had made it and when Jordan rushed out of the boys dormitory, bleeding and limping, only several boys right behind him, she knew they were the only survivors, that three revenants still roamed free inside buildings that looked sinister in the night.

It was mayhem, it was chaos as Lekan reached for the kegs of fuel by the tanker and walked slowly back to the dormitory, pouring its contents inside the lobby, sprinkling and sprinkling until the pungent sharp smell was all she could smell, and the scent of blood was gone from her senses.

She coughed when she was done and spoke to the eager people behind her, barking an instruction that had all of them heaving sighs of relief, even as she shot one last fond glance at the buildings, muttering a final goodbye.

Thank you for making me, for breaking me.

"Light it up."

And when they did, when the inferno raged, Olamilekan Daniels did not look back.