Love in the Time of Chaos In a fractured world rebuilding itself from the ashes of ecological collapse and war, Love in the Time of Chaos tells the story of a people trying to reimagine what it means to live, love, and lead after catastrophe. Set in a vibrant, dream-infused future, the novel follows the rise, unraveling, and transformation of the Garden-a living, breathing sanctuary where dreams are literal power, and memory is the soil from which society grows. At the heart of the Garden are the Dream Cadres-ritualists, warriors, caretakers, and guides-tasked with maintaining the spiritual and ecological balance of their world. Every Cadre is trained to protect the sacred Dream Cycle, which links every living being into a web of shared experience and ancestral memory. But while the Cadres claim to serve all, power is still concentrated in a few hands, and cracks are beginning to show. The story begins with Kira, a seasoned Cadre commander known for her sharp instincts and unwavering loyalty to the Garden's ideals. But Kira is exhausted-haunted by choices made during the early Rebuilding and weary of the growing dissonance beneath the Garden's harmony. She is drawn back into active duty when Echo, a mysterious child-like being with no memory, no history, and no anchor to any known Dreamline, appears on the outskirts of the Garden. Echo speaks in riddles, dreams without boundaries, and has a strange ability to bend the Garden's rules simply by being. Though feared by some as a harbinger of disorder, Echo awakens a truth buried deep within the system: the Dream Cycle is evolving, and the Garden's rigid control over memory is no longer sustainable. As Echo's presence spreads, strange phenomena begin: people disconnected from the Dream suddenly dream again; hidden memories surface; old griefs demand to be witnessed. The Garden's illusion of unity is revealed as patchwork-many communities were left behind in the rush to rebuild, and not all accepted the Cadres' protection willingly. Alongside Kira, the narrative follows a diverse ensemble of dream-weavers, warriors, and survivors: • Alejo, Kira's former lover and a heart-weaver who translates emotion into song, struggles with his complicity in the Cadres' past decisions. • Elián, a quiet dream-engineer, crafts new links between people through sound and resonance, offering revolutionary ways of collective healing. • Rua, Kira's mentor, is the oldest living Cadre and carries the weight of decisions made in the early days of post-chaos order. • Tal, a mute emissary from a mountain tribe, brings forgotten stories and unspoken wisdom that challenge the Cadres' claim to universal truth. • Venn, a Deaf dream-mason, brings a tactile and nonverbal language into the story, reminding everyone that not all dreams speak in words. The Garden begins to split-not through violence, but through competing visions of what it means to live together. Some believe in adapting the old structures to be more inclusive; others argue that dismantling the Cadres entirely is the only ethical path forward. The mirrored city, a ruin from the pre-collapse era long thought lost, reawakens with its own survivors, whose dreams were never part of the Garden's cycle. Their existence forces a reckoning. Echo becomes a symbol-not of leadership, but of invitation. They do not claim to know the way forward, but insist on creating space for all truths to be heard. When a storm-both literal and symbolic-tears across the Garden, Kira is faced with a choice: defend what remains or help build something new. The second half of the novel charts the deconstruction of hierarchy and the birth of a radically collaborative society. The Dream Cadres dissolve their centralized power, forming a Web of Threads, where all communities are equal participants in dreaming and decision-making. Rituals once used to reinforce status are opened to all. Memory is no longer archived in secret-it's shared, sung, and grieved together. Yet change is never easy. Resistance comes from those who fear chaos, who long for the security of structure. The Garden weathers near-collapse as debates turn into ruptures. Kira, Alejo, and Echo mediate with tenderness and fury, insisting that vulnerability is not weakness, and that discomfort is part of transformation. Through direct listening, shared ceremony, and the radical act of truth-telling, the Garden begins to resonate-not as a perfect place, but a living one. As the years pass, some characters die, others leave, and the world they helped birth becomes unfamiliar even to them. Kira, after guiding the transition, quietly departs into the wilds, choosing to live as a wanderer. Rua becomes one with the Spiral Tree. Elián dies surrounded by song. Alejo vanishes, possibly becoming part of the earth itself. Echo remains until the stars fall-symbolically, not in ruin but in renewal. Their final act is to walk into the Spiral Lake and dissolve into light, joining the dream itself. Their part
Chapter One: The Siren's Call
In the last days before the sky cracked open, Lagos still pulsed with its usual dissonant rhythm-horns blaring, hawkers shouting, Afrobeats thundering from overworked speakers. But something was off. People walked faster. Eyes darted more. Rumors clung to the air like humidity: whispers of disappearances, of strange lights over the Third Mainland Bridge, of shadows that moved against the grain of the sun.
Tari noticed it first in the silence between his mother's words.
"You're not eating," she said over the pepper soup she'd made for his visit. Her voice was soft, too soft. The generator buzzed faintly outside, filling the silence where the television used to be. NEPA hadn't returned power in days.
"I'm just tired," Tari replied, forcing a smile. His eyes drifted to the window, where the evening light painted the buildings gold and red. A dog barked in the distance, but even that sounded unsure, as if it too sensed what no one dared say aloud.
Truth was, Tari hadn't slept well in weeks. Ever since the sky over Makoko lit up with a column of blue fire. Since the first tremor rolled through Lekki and turned a gas station into glass and flame. The news stations had gone quiet after that-hacked, maybe, or censored. Only Twitter remained, chaotic and unreliable, filled with half-truths and conspiracy theories. But he'd seen the footage. A woman hovering above the National Theatre, arms outstretched, her hair swirling around her like smoke.
They called her Ewa, the siren.
No one knew where she came from. Some said she was a government weapon. Others called her a god. But Tari had seen her with his own eyes, one night while he walked home from a friend's place in Yaba. She floated down from the sky like a whisper, barefoot and glowing, her eyes lit with an unnatural blue. She looked right at him.
And smiled.
That smile haunted him.
He hadn't told anyone-not his mother, not Dele, his best friend, not even Amaka.
Especially not Amaka.
It had been six weeks since their last conversation, the argument that shattered everything. She had wanted to leave, to apply for a visa to Canada and run from the chaos brewing beneath the city's skin. Tari had refused. "This is our home," he'd said. "We fight for it."
"Fight for what, exactly?" Amaka had asked, tears streaking her cheeks. "Pride? Or the illusion of safety?"
He hadn't had an answer then. He still didn't.
But he knew he missed her. Her laugh, deep and sudden. The way her fingers curled around his wrist when she was anxious. The way she always stood too close, like she was trying to memorize his presence.
He hadn't seen her since the night the sky turned red.
Now, as he washed his hands and kissed his mother goodbye, he felt the weight of the city pressing in on him like the beginnings of a fever. The sky above shimmered faintly, as if the fabric of the world was beginning to thin.
He walked the long route back to his flat in Surulere, avoiding the areas marked "unstable" by the neighborhood forums. A few blocks from the market, he saw a man standing on a crate, preaching to an invisible crowd.
"She is the reckoning," the man cried, his eyes wide with fervor. "The Siren has come to cleanse! Repent! The soil is no longer ours!"
People passed by without looking. That was the new survival skill: don't look, don't speak, don't remember.
Tari's phone buzzed.
DELE: Yo. They hit Ikeja. Not a rumor. Govt denied it but I saw the vid. Buildings melting like wax.
Another ping.
DELE: She was there. Blue light and everything. Bro, it's real.
Tari's stomach knotted. He quickened his pace.
When he reached home, he locked the door behind him and drew the curtains. The silence of the apartment unnerved him. It used to be their space-his and Amaka's. Even after they fought, her books stayed on the shelves. Her scarf still hung on the hook near the door. He had never moved them.
He opened his laptop, just to feel the illusion of control. His inbox was flooded with news from activist networks and community organizers. Resistance meetings were being held underground now. Public gatherings were too dangerous.
He clicked on one thread: The Siren isn't just a threat-she's a message. We need to know what she wants.
And then, as if summoned by thought, a knock.
Three slow taps.
He froze.
No one knocked anymore. Not like that.
He crossed to the door and peered through the peephole.
No one.
He opened it a crack.
A note, folded and damp with humidity, sat on the floor. No envelope. Just his name, scrawled in hurried black ink.
Tari-meet me at the old cinema, midnight. Come alone. It's about her.
No signature. But he knew that handwriting.
Amaka.
Chapter 1 The sirens call
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Chapter 2 Ghosts in the aisle
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Chapter 3 Frequencies
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Chapter 4 The memory keepers
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Chapter 5 The archive beneath the skin
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Chapter 6 Where memory brea
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Chapter 7 Ghosts of the signal
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Chapter 8 The quiet between storms
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Chapter 9 The wound that sings
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Chapter 10 Embers of becoming
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Chapter 11 Between the breaths
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Chapter 12 Summit songs
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Chapter 13 The beneath that remains
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Chapter 14 What we name ourselves
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Chapter 15 The world we choose to build
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Chapter 16 Echoes beyond the map
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Chapter 17 A map of songs unwritten
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Chapter 18 The voice that crossed the sea
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Chapter 19 The bridge between breaths
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Chapter 20 The whisper beneath ice
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Chapter 21 The child who remembers the future
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Chapter 22 The map we become
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Chapter 23 What the rivers remember
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Chapter 24 The silence we sing together
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Chapter 25 The unwritten verse
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Chapter 26 The map made of listening
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Chapter 27 The memory we haven't
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Chapter 28 We were the sky all along
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Chapter 29 What we build between heartbeats
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Chapter 30 When the earth began to dream in color
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Chapter 31 The valley that remembered itself
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Chapter 32 The architecture of silence
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Chapter 33 The fracture beneath the bloom
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Chapter 34 Songs beneath the skin
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