The Last Prayer of TOLANI ADEYEMI Episode 1

THE WOMAN WHO ATE AT NIGHT

The wardrobe smelled of old clothes, mothballs, and fear.

Tolani pressed her back against the wooden wall, knees drawn to her chest, one hand clamped over her mouth so tightly her jaw ached. The other hand gripped the heavy ceramic flower vase she had picked from the dresser in blind panic. Her arms were shaking. Her teeth were chattering.

Outside the wardrobe Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

The sound of rusty wheels dragged slowly across marble tiles.

Mama Kunle was close.

Tolani’s mind raced back to the beginning, to when everything still made sense.

When she married Kunle Adeyemi, everyone said she had made it.

Kunle was Lagos money new money, loud money, Victoria Garden City money. He dealt in land, estates, offshore accounts. Their duplex sat inside VGC like a palace: glass railings, Italian tiles, silent generators, security men who nodded but never smiled.

But Kunle came with one condition.

His mother.

Mama Kunle moved in with them barely a month after the wedding, brought in on a stretcher like a sacred burden. Five years earlier, she had suffered a “terrible stroke.” From the neck down, she was said to be completely paralyzed. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t blink without help.

Doctors called it a miracle she was alive.

Tolani called it her duty.

She quit her banking job without complaint. She bathed Mama Kunle every morning, lifting her dead weight gently. She changed her diapers. She fed her pap slowly, wiping drool from the corners of her mouth. At night, she rubbed shea butter into her cold, stiff legs and whispered prayers.

Visitors praised her endlessly.

“Ah ah, Tolani, you are a virtuous woman!”

“Many wives would have run away.”

“You are storing treasures in heaven.”

Someone once laughed and said, “You are even taking care of that vegetable woman like gold.”

Tolani didn’t laugh.

She didn’t know vegetables could hunt.

It started with the food.

Small things at first. A pot of egusi that looked… lighter. Meat disappearing from the freezer. Chickens vanishing overnight, leaving only feathers scattered near the back door.

Kunle waved it off.

“Rats. NEPA. Lagos wahala.”

But Tolani knew better.

The house girl, Bose, began to lose weight. She jumped at shadows. She refused to enter the kitchen at night.

One evening, Tolani caught her crying behind the generator house.

“There is something in this house,” Bose whispered. “Something that eats at night.”

Tolani slapped her.

The next morning, she sacked her.

That same week, Tolani bought the hidden camera.

The footage changed everything.

Mama Kunle paralyzed Mama Kunle standing.

No.

Not standing.

Unfolding.

Her bones cracked backward like sticks being snapped for firewood. Her head twisted until her face looked directly behind her. Her fingers stretched, nails lengthening into black claws that scraped against the wall.

Then she climbed.

Ceiling.

Walls.

Like a gecko that had learned hunger.

The way her tongue slid out wet, muscular, impossibly long made Tolani vomit on the bed.

And when Mama Kunle looked into the camera and smiled, Tolani felt something inside her soul tear open.

“The soup is sweet,” the creature had said.

“But her womb is sweeter.”

Tolani had screamed then.

She screamed now only inside her head.

The wardrobe handle turned again.

Squeak.

Tolani peeked through a crack.

She saw the wheelchair.

Empty.

Facing the wardrobe.

Waiting.

A hiss slid through the room like steam escaping a pot.

Kunle sat on the bed, calm, hands on his knees. Sweat shone on his chest from the gym. His eyes avoided the wardrobe.

“She doesn’t like noise,” he said softly. “Please don’t scream.”

Tolani’s heart slammed against her ribs.

“You knew,” she whispered. “You knew all this time.”

Kunle nodded.

“My father made the covenant before he died,” he said. “Mama is the vessel. During the day, she must appear helpless. At night, she feeds. That is the balance.”

“And me?” Tolani choked.

Kunle finally looked at the wardrobe.

“You were not supposed to see.”

The handle twisted harder now. Wood creaked.

Kunle swallowed.

“She needs a witness. A womb. That is how the wealth renews.”

Tolani’s fear burned into something hotter.

Anger.

She looked at the vase in her hand.

Heavy. Solid. Real.

She remembered all the baths. All the diapers. All the sacrifices she made while Kunle counted money.

The wardrobe door began to open.

Slowly.

A clawed hand slid through the gap.

Tolani moved.

She burst out of the wardrobe with a scream that shook the room and brought the vase down on Kunle’s head with everything she had.

The sound was wet. Final.

Kunle collapsed without a word.

The key flew from his mouth, skidding across the floor.

Mama Kunle shrieked.

Not in pain.

In rage.

Her body twisted fully now no wheelchair illusion, no pretense. She rose, scraping the ceiling, eyes glowing like traffic lights in fog.

Tolani grabbed the key and ran.

She didn’t run toward the door.

She ran toward the bathroom.

Mama Kunle lunged, claws tearing into Tolani’s back, but Tolani slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it.

Inside the bathroom was the mirror.

Tolani stared at her reflection.

Blood. Scratches. Fear.

And then something else.

A thought.

Mama Kunle needed a vessel.

A womb.

But covenants worked both ways.

Tolani smiled through her tears.

She grabbed Kunle’s blood-soaked phone from the sink.

And dialed the number saved as “Baba.”

Three days later, the house in VGC was quiet.

Kunle was buried quietly. Cause of death: accident.

Mama Kunle suffered a “second stroke.” This time, it was real.

She never moved again.

Never fed again.

Never breathed again.

Tolani sold the house.

She left Lagos.

Years passed.

In a small town far away, Tolani cooked egusi soup in a modest kitchen.

Her child kicked inside her womb.

She smiled and stirred the pot.

At exactly 3:00 AM, the lights flickered.

Tolani froze.

From the corner of the ceiling, a soft scratching sound began.

Tolani looked up.

And whispered

“Don’t worry, Mama.”

“I’m feeding now.”

TBC.. Episode 2