The message haunted Kareem's phone like a curse.
"You're asking too many questions. Step away, or the river will remember your name next."
It wasn't a threat—it was a warning. A promise.
Still, Kareem refused to back down.
By morning, he'd secured an unmarked car, requested temporary leave from city reporting systems, and met Ola in secret at an old secondary school compound just outside town. The boy had been hiding with a distant aunt since the fisherman's death.
The first thing Kareem noticed was the fear in the boy's eyes.
Not the kind of fear from nightmares—
The kind you earn from witnessing something real.
"Ola," Kareem said gently, "I need to know the whole truth. Not just about the girl… but about what you saw that night. Everything."
The boy hesitated, then nodded. He sat cross-legged on the broken concrete floor, voice barely above a whisper.
"There's a drum," he said. "A small one. Carved with river snakes and eyes. The fisherman said it was used long ago, during the old days… before the town had roads."
"A drum?" Kareem blinked.
"Yes. He found it one day while fishing. Tangled in a net. He took it home, but... after that, he started hearing things. Whispers. In the night."
Kareem's breath caught.
"Do you know where the drum is now?"
The boy looked away. "No. But I think... the chief took it. After the fisherman died."
Kareem stood, his pulse racing. "If that drum is tied to these killings, I need it. Now."
Ola tugged on his sleeve. "Detective... the drum isn't just an object. The river chose it. The river feeds through it."
That night, Kareem returned to Chief Adewale's compound.
Only this time, the gate was open.
And the house was empty.
No incense. No humming. No beads.
Just silence—and footprints leading down the back stairs toward the edge of the woods.
Kareem followed the trail with a flashlight in one hand and his camera in the other. Crickets chirped. Trees creaked. The farther he walked, the colder the air became.
Then, through the trees, he saw it.
A stone shrine.
Old. Cracked.
Covered in symbols Kareem couldn't read.
And sitting at its center—
The drum.
Small. Blackened with age. Its surface glistened like wet leather, and etched around its edges were tiny carvings: a river, a woman's eyes, a mouth screaming.
Kareem stepped forward, but a voice stopped him cold.
"You've come far, detective," said Chief Adewale, stepping out from behind the shrine. "Too far."
"What is this?" Kareem demanded. "Why the drum? Why the girl? Why the fisherman?"
"The river," Adewale said softly, "is not just water. It remembers when it was worshipped. When sacrifices kept its hunger at bay. We let it go quiet. But now... it stirs again."
"This is murder. Not ritual."
"No," the chief replied, voice rising like the wind. "This is survival."
Suddenly, a whisper drifted from the drum. A voice, clear as daylight.
Kareem… Kareem… come closer…
He stepped back instinctively.
But his camera flashed—automatically.
And in the flash, he saw something the eye alone could not:
Behind the shrine.
In the river.
Faces.
Dozens.
Beneath the surface.
Eyes wide. Mouths open. As if screaming forever.
And among them—
The fisherman.
Still. Pale.
But watching him.
Then something grabbed Kareem's ankle.
He screamed.
Fell.
The flashlight rolled down into the water, fizzing out.
And all around him, the river began to whisper again.