The first time Adaeze Okonkwo realized she could rewind time, she was seventeen and her father was falling.
Papa had just gotten out of his room when his slippers found the one patch of tiles Mama had just mopped.
Adaeze saw the flash sixty seconds before her father's arms flapping wide like a bird trying to remember how to fly. She was coming out the kitchen door with a cup of water in her hand. Suddenly, it felt as though the world peeled back. Everything rewound. From the wetness on the tiles to Papa's legs until his slippers found dry ground. He walked past the dangerous patch without knowing it was there and disappeared into the parlour humming a Sunny Ade song.
Adaeze stood in the kitchen doorway with her water and blood running down her upper lip.
She had told nobody.. Not even Emeka, her only sibling.
Seven years later, she still hid her superpower from everyone.
It was 2047, and the world had changed so much in places you couldn't quite put a name to. Solar grids hummed quietly on rooftops. AI traffic systems blinked at every junction, negotiating with AI-powered bikes and taxis in real time. Everyone had a digital naira chip embedded in their left wrist to pay for everything without needing a purse. And also a location ping that families and loved ones have of each other to tell their current location at every point in time.
Everything had changed with the years, apart from Emeka, who still knocked on her bedroom door the same way he had done since they were children. Three fast knocks followed by one slow one. He believed it to be his own private language and expected the world to learn it.
Gon gon gon. Gon. His knock came that morning.
"Ada. Ada? It's time for prayers." He called out.
Ada was already up. She just didn't want to participate in the early morning ritual that day. She had work to do on her laptop before getting ready for work. She was a data analyst for ClearPath Technologies on the third floor of a glass building on MCC Road.
"I'm coming," she lied.
She never joined them for prayers that morning.
Instead when she was done with work. She hurriedly took her bath and set off for work, passing through the dining area to quickly stuff her mouth with a few balls of akara.
Emeka stole the last piece of akara from her plate before she could take it.
"Thief." She yelled.
"Evidence?"
"Your mouth."
He grinned and ran before she could slap his arm.
Mama shook her head.
"One day, both of you will grow up."
Neither of them believed her.
Adaeze quickly ran out of the house. She was late. She almost missed the bus.
Everything was moving fine until lunch break. Adaeze had sat at the cafeteria eating jollof rice from a flask at her desk and reviewing a data migration report, when Emeka's name lit up her wrist chip. A location ping.
Normally, location pings only showed where a loved one was. But this one came with a red notification. No movement detected for four hours. Vital signs unavailable.
Adaeze froze.
Emeka was never stationary.
His job required him to move around the main market the way water moved through a landscape constantly, finding every available channel, filling every space. But for four hours, he had not moved. His heartbeat was also gone.
Adaeze closed her flask and hurried off.
She heard the crowd before she saw anything as she got to the market. A sign that something has just gone wrong.
As she got closer, she saw the autonomous delivery vehicle belonging to an electronics company that ferried electronics between market stalls on programmed routes, CargoPod 7, had malfunctioned. It veered from its lane and crashed into a row of stalls, and Emeka was on the ground three feet away from it with his right hand pressed against his head and blood between his fingers.
Adaeze, scared but bold, pushed through the crowd.
She got to Emeka's body and dropped to her knees. She checked his breath, and it was gone. Gently, she pressed her hands over his head, and she rewound time sixty seconds before he gave up the ghost. Emeka gasped for breath, and his eyes opened, and they found Adaeze's face immediately.
"Ada." His voice was weak. "What happened? I just—"
"Shh. Don't talk." Ada said. She was bleeding from her nose now. " I'm here."
The market kept pressing in from all sides. Someone was calling emergency services on their wrist chip. Another was arguing with the CargoPod's automated apology system, which repeated a recorded apology in four languages.
Gently, she tried again. This time, sixty seconds earlier, before Emeka got hit, as she screamed Emeka's name from across the market, she pointed at the CargoPod. But Emeka turned the wrong way before he could understand what she was saying, and the vehicle caught his shoulder instead of missing him entirely. He went down harder than the first time.
Adaeze felt her head split open behind her left eye. She tasted iron at the back of her throat.
She didn't stop. She rewound again.
The second time, she screamed and waved, but Emeka once again was caught in that half-second of confusion that lives on a person's face when they hear their name in an unexpected place, and the CargoPod clipped him again.
She rewound again. Her nose bled harder and faster. Something inside her was dying. She could feel it. A weird sensation like something being torn inside her.
The third time, she ran to him instead of screaming. Luckily, she was able to push him out of the way, and the CargoPod passed through close enough that she felt the displaced air on her face.
Emeka stumbled. Caught himself against a stall. I turned to look at her with wide, startled eyes.
"Ada? What—how did you—"
"Just instincts."
She was bleeding freely now that it dripped onto her work blouse. Her legs felt weak. Her vision is blurry, like she just got out of water.
"Your nose. You're bleeding." Emeka said, reaching for her face. Fear was written all over him.
"I'm fine." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
"You're not fine, you're bleeding, Ada. And that thing, it nearly hit me. How did you?..." He stared at her for a long moment with the sharp eyes that saw more than people gave him credit for.
"I told you," she said. "I just saw it from across the market. You weren't looking."
"Ada, I was.. you're. No, you're not..." Before he could finish his sentence, Adaeze collapsed into his arms.
Adaeze woke up the next day in the hospital. Emeka was asleep in a chair beside her bed. Mama sat quietly by the window with her rosary.
The doctor returned later with her scan results. They found nothing. Clean brain activity. Normal blood pressure. The doctor said it must have been fatigue and dehydration. He discharged her with two prescriptions and a recommendation to rest.
Adaeze knew the truth. Her body wasn't malfunctioning; rather, it was paying a bill, and she didn't know how many she had left. She had run out of options. Thirty rewinds. Give or take. That was what she estimated remained in whatever reserve her body kept for the purpose.
But she didn't care as long as it was to save her family, she was willing to spend it all on them. She just wasn't willing to tell them she had a superpower.
She believed that some things you carried alone so that the people you loved could walk freely. To others, it might be regarded as a burden. But to her, it was just another name for love.
