The town of Obade woke to something it had not known in decades:
A still river.
Not calm.
Still.
No ripples. No currents. Not even wind. Like it was waiting.
And then… it spoke.
Not with sound, but with memory.
At first, only a few felt it: a fisherman who saw his dead brother walking along the riverbank… a widow who dreamed her missing child was calling her from beneath the floorboards… children waking with mud on their feet and ancient songs on their tongues.
But by midday, the whole town remembered.
Every secret.
Every sacrifice.
Every lie.
The whispers had become truth.
Kareem stood with Amaka and Ola at the town square, watching the gathering crowd. Fear and confusion gripped the townspeople, but beneath that was something new:
Guilt.
A young woman stepped forward from the crowd, tears streaming down her face.
"My grandmother was a priestess," she said shakily. "She told me stories. I thought they were myths."
Another man, older, added, "We were told to forget. They said it would keep the river calm."
Ola stepped forward, his voice stronger than it should be for a boy so young.
"She didn't want revenge. She wanted to be heard. That's all."
Kareem nodded. "And now we have to listen."
That night, the sky bled red.
A storm without rain rolled in. Thunder cracked in silence. And in the river, she returned.
Ìyá Mú.
Rising slowly. Not as vengeance but as memory. Fully formed now. Radiant. Terrible. Beautiful.
She walked through the water like it was solid, her eyes scanning the crowd gathered at the bank.
Not one soul moved.
Kareem stepped forward, heart pounding. "What do you want from us?"
Her voice rolled like distant thunder:
"The ones who broke me still live. In power. In silence.
They buried me beneath your prayers and painted me as your sin.
I want names. I want truth. I want the last drum broken."
Amaka stepped forward beside Kareem. "There's a second drum?"
Ìyá Mú nodded.
"The real one. The heart. Hidden in the hills. Kept alive by the descendants of the drummaker. They still feed it. Still bind voices to its skin."
Kareem looked around. "Then we'll find them. And destroy it."
She looked at Ola last. "You are the blood that remembered. The soul that listened. My voice returned."
Ola didn't speak.
He simply bowed.
And as the river goddess faded back into mist, a final echo filled the town square:
"The silence is broken. But the song is not yet finished."