BOOM.
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Amina jolts awake, her chest heaving as if she’d been drowning. The sound isn’t just outside—it’s inside her skull, rattling her teeth.
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BOOM. BOOM.
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She stumbles out of bed, legs tangled in her sheets, and crashes to the floor. The room tilts. Her mouth tastes like ash.
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"Papa!" she screams, scrambling to her feet.
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The drums don’t stop.
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She bursts out of her room, heart hammering, and collides with her father’s chest. His arms lock around her, steadying her before she falls.
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"Shh, nne," he murmurs, but his grip is too tight. "It’s the dibia. He’s here."
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Amina blinks up at him, disoriented. "Now? But—I didn’t prepare, I didn’t even—"
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"He doesn’t want preparation," Papa Chukwuma says, voice low. "He wants truth."
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Amina turns—and freezes.
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Ifeanyi stands near the compound gate, dressed neatly, his jaw clenched. But Emeka...
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Oh God.
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Emeka’s eyes are unblinking, his face slack. Dried mud streaks his arms like cracked earth. He doesn’t react when the drums grow louder.
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He doesn’t react at all.
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The dibia arrives like a storm given flesh.
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Six dancers move ahead of him, their bodies painted in white and red, antelope pelts slung over their shoulders. Their feet stamp the earth in perfect sync—THUD. THUD. THUD.—kicking up dust that hangs thick in the dawn light.
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The drummers walk backward, their hands a blur. The rhythm isn’t music. It’s a warning.
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Amina’s mother clutches her wrapper, her lips moving in silent prayer.
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Then—silence.
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The dancers stop at Grandma’s hut. For three heartbeats, nothing moves.
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Then a scream tears through the air.
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One of the dancers—a woman with bones braided into her hair—drops to her knees, clawing at her throat. The others circle her, chanting low.
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The dibia steps forward.
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He crouches, dragging his fingers through the dirt. His nails leave deep grooves, embedding an ankh symbol —right at Grandma’s doorstep. Then he spits onto the symbol.
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The saliva sizzles like water on hot iron.
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Grandma’s hut stays dark.
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The dancers move again, this time toward Amina.
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The lead dancer—a woman with a face painted half-white, half-black—locks eyes with her. There’s no emotion there. No pity.
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Amina’s breath hitches.
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"Papa—"
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Her father’s hand tightens on her shoulder. "Let them work."
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The dancer grabs Amina’s wrist. Her nails bite deep.
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"Don’t hurt her!" Papa Chukwuma barks.
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The woman hisses, baring teeth filed to points.
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Then she yanks Amina forward.
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As they drag her into the circle, thunder cracks—but not from the sky.
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From her room.
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The walls shake. The window rattles. A gust of wind tears through the compound, howling like something alive.
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Amina’s lips move without her permission.
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"Ọ bụla mmiri ga-ezobe anya..."
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The words aren’t hers. The voice isn’t hers.
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It’s the river’s.
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The dibia steps into the circle.
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Up close, his eyes are black as holes, endless and wet, like a drowned man’s. His hair floats around his face, drifting as if underwater.
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He doesn’t speak.
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He doesn’t need to.
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Amina’s skin prickles. The chant spills from her lips faster, louder—
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Then Emeka shrieks.
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"OGU M GBARA! Ọ NA-ERI M!"
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His voice is raw, guttural. His body convulses, arms flailing like a man possessed.
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Ifeanyi and Papa Chukwuma grab him, pinning him down before he hurts himself.
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The dibia doesn’t even glance their way.
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He lifts Amina’s chin, forcing her to meet his hollow gaze.
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And finally, he speaks.
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*"You have been claimed."*
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Two dancer women grip Amina’s arms, their fingers digging into her skin like roots seeking water. Against her will, her body moves—jerking, twisting—in perfect sync with the dancers. Her feet drag lines in the dirt, forming symbols she doesn’t recognize.
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She sings in unison with them in the unknown language , but her voice isn’t her own. It’s layered, doubled, like two rivers merging.
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Then—chaos.
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Emeka snarls, his muscles coiling like a sprung trap. With a force no human should possess, he hurls Ifeanyi and Papa Chukwuma aside like rag dolls. Before anyone can react, he lunges at Amina, his fingers clamping around her throat.
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"Child! You are mi—"
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The dibia’s staff taps his forehead.
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Emeka’s body locks. His eyes roll back, and he collapses like a marionette with cut strings.
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"He has been claimed too," the dibia says, voice hollow as a burial drum. He slings his staff across Emeka’s back, and the boy convulses, gasping as if the wood weighs a thousand pounds. Two dancers pin him down, their painted faces unreadable.
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"Where are his parents?" the dibia asks, black eyes fixed on Papa Chukwuma.
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"His mother is at work. He has no siblings or father," Papa replies, voice tight.
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The dibia nods. "Then you will accompany us."
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He turns to Amina, leaning close enough that his waterlogged breath ghosts her ear.
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"Alọwí ánọ́bị̀ dúnàte."(Rest, oh one guarded by thunder. The enemies are close.)
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The words slither into her skull, untranslatable to anyone else.
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Then, louder, for the others: "A water demon holds them all in trance. She will not leave until she takes what she came for."
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He lifts his staff, pointing to the market road. "Buy a scapegoat. I will trap the demon inside it and sacrifice the beast. Only then will this end."
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Before he can finish, Emeka’s body arcs off the ground, his mouth stretching wide in a silent scream—then he drops again, limp.
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Grandma observes from her hut, her knuckles white on the windowsill. Behind her, the shadows ripple.
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Mami Wata materializes, her form half-transparent, flickering like a dying torch. *"This dibia has nerve,"* she sneers. "Thinking I’ll crawl into a goat like some biblical fool."
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Grandma’s lips curl. "They’re onto us. It won’t be long now."
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Mami Wata drifts closer, her voice a venomous whisper. "Then we kill Emeka. And the dibia. Tear down this weak barrier they’ve draped over your hut—it’s nothing."
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Her fingers brush the wall, and the air shudders, the invisible wards straining.
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"That talisman is the real threat," Mami Wata hisses. "The thunder coiled inside it… it’s not just protection. It’s a weapon. Forged by the gods themselves."
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Grandma’s smile fades. "Then we take it from her."
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Outside, the dibia’s drummers begin anew.
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