But Damilare didn't believe in ghosts. He believed in backups.

Page 603 had only four lines: The white paper does not burn. The spirit does not compress into kilobytes. If you are reading this, you did not inherit the book. The book inherited you. A cold wind blew through the open café door—even though it was 3 p.m. and Harmattan season was over.

Pdfcoffee.com. A site where students uploaded past exam papers, technical manuals, and, occasionally, forbidden texts.

The uploader’s account was still logged in.

404 – File Not Found.

A single result appeared. A PDF file named: Uploaded by: Arakangudu . Date: October 12, 2023 – two weeks before Grandpa died.

Stolen, they whispered. Or lost in the 1980 fire.

Username: Arakangudu – his grandfather’s secret oríkì name.

In the cramped cybercafé behind Oja Oba Market in Ibadan, a young botanist named typed the words into the search bar: "Iwe Ogun Pdfcoffee."

He clicked download. The PDF was 847 pages. But when he opened it, pages 1 through 600 were blank. Page 601 showed a hand-drawn map of his grandfather’s farm—the hidden cave behind the iroko tree. Page 602 showed a list of names. His father’s name. His uncle’s name. And at the bottom: Damilare – the one who seeks through glass.

Damilare’s mouth went dry.

The cave filled with light. And somewhere in a server farm in Virginia, a hard drive containing 847 pages of war medicine spontaneously turned to rust.