The night did not fall gently over Obade—it was pulled down like a shroud, heavy and suffocating, smothering the village in silence before the first star had dared to pierce the sky. The air hung thick, sticky with anticipation, as though the breath of the earth itself had caught and stopped, waiting for something unseen and inevitable.
Even before the last embers of daylight had died beyond the river's restless flow, Ola sensed the shift—a subtle but unmistakable tremor in the wind, the kind of pressure that makes the hairs on the back of your neck rise before the danger arrives. The drums from the square had slowed, the steady pulse now reduced to a heartbeat's pace: deep, hollow, resonating through the bones of the village like a summons for spirits long dead to find their way back into the flesh of the living.
But the voices that belonged to hope were absent tonight.
Iyagbẹ́kọ had not returned. Neither had Èkóyé.
Ola sat near the fire pit, knees drawn to her chest, hands tight around the warm calabash in her grip. The bitter herbs of the tea tingled on her tongue, but their heat was nothing compared to the slow burn eating away at her chest. The firelight flickered across her face, casting long shadows that stretched and twisted with the night's growing weight.
For two long hours, she had stared into the darkness between the trees, waiting, heart thudding like a trapped bird. Something was there—watching, patient and deliberate, moving with a slow certainty that no mere wind could claim.
She was right to be afraid.
From the treeline, a shadow detached itself and moved forward.
At first, she thought it was a man. Tall, thin, the staggered gait of someone either drunk or broken, barely tethered to this world. But as the firelight caught the figure, revealing slick, obsidian skin that seemed to absorb rather than reflect, she realized the truth.
It had no face.
No mouth to speak.
No eyes to see.
No nose to breathe.
Just an unbroken expanse of smooth darkness, polished like stone but cold and alive. And yet, despite the absence of any feature, she felt it watching her—the prickling sensation at the base of her skull, the heat that rose and settled like a shadow on her skin.
Her instincts snapped before her mind could catch up.
Her free hand darted to the small knife resting at her side.
"Don't," the voice said.
Not aloud.
Inside her mind, clear and cold as a winter river.
The words rolled in like a tide of ice, flooding the spaces behind her eyes and settling deep in her bones.
Ola's breath caught in her throat. "Who are you?"
The shadow did not answer. It only tilted its head with the measured curiosity of a crow inspecting a glinting coin. Closer now, it stepped toward the fire, yet its feet left no marks on the damp earth.
She rose slowly, the firelight a fragile barrier between them. "If you're here for me, you'll need more than a voice to—"
"It's not you I want," the voice whispered, sharper now, layered with something strange—like two or more speaking at once, an echo folding into itself. "It's her."
Ola's grip tightened on the knife. "Who?"
"The one you call Èkóyé. The child who remembers what she shouldn't. She carries a song that belongs to us."
Her mind flashed back to the dream she had tried to shake free of—the dark river beneath the earth, Èkóyé standing in the black water, her voice rising in defiance as the Hollowed closed around her. "You're one of them," Ola said, voice rough.
The shadow did not deny it.
Instead, it moved closer still, its presence bending the heat away from the fire as if the warmth was poison. "She cannot keep it. The song will rot her from within. Give her to us, and we will spare the village."
Ola laughed—bitter and hollow. "Spare us? You've been rotting this place for decades. You think I'd hand her over just because you ask?"
For a long moment, silence stretched thick as tar.
Then the voice turned cold enough to cut steel.
"You think you have a choice."
The fire guttered as if a sudden breath had stolen its life, yet no wind stirred.
Only the chilling sense of water flooding the air, soaking into Ola's skin, chilling her to the marrow.
Her vision blurred. In the shifting haze, the faceless figure swelled, its shoulders stretching grotesquely until it loomed twice its height.
Faces emerged from its skin—dozens, both human and something else—pushed outward by some desperate force. Their mouths opened wide in silent screams, then sank back into the living darkness, swallowed whole by the shadow's black expanse.
Ola fought the urge to stumble backward.
"If you think you can scare me into giving her up, you're wasting your time," she said, voice steady despite the fear that clawed at her insides.
The shadow tilted its head again, deliberate and slow. "Not fear."
"Truth," it whispered.
Before Ola could respond, the world around her shattered.
She was no longer in Obade.
An endless river stretched out before her, black as oil under a sky without stars. The water rose cold and silent, pulling at her legs, stronger than it should be—as if it wanted to drag her beneath its surface, somewhere she could not see.
Across the river stood Èkóyé.
Barefoot, her white dress soaked to the waist.
Her hair plastered to her face, her lips moving in a soundless rhythm.
Ola's breath hitched. "Èkóyé?"
The girl did not turn to her, her gaze fixed past Ola as though staring into the very abyss.
Then Ola heard it—not with her ears but in her bones—the song.
Low and slow, each note stretched like a fragile thread, pulling something unseen into the world.
But the longer she listened, the more she understood.
This was not merely a song calling forth power.
It was a binding.
A seal.
Èkóyé was locking the gate.
And the faceless voice whispered close beside her ear:
Every gatekeeper must pay the toll.
Ola reached for Èkóyé, but the river surged between them, the water rising past her knees, cold and relentless as stone.
Beneath the surface, figures moved—pale faces with hollow eyes drifting like drowned corpses.
Their mouths opened and closed in unison, mouthing words that Ola could almost understand.
She realized—they were singing with Èkóyé.
But their harmony was twisted, sour, a prayer unraveling itself.
"Stop!" Ola shouted over the rush of water.
"Èkóyé, you're—"
The girl's eyes flicked to hers for a single heartbeat.
Recognition flashed.
Then the water exploded upward in a violent surge.
The world snapped back.
She was standing in the village square again.
The fire burned low, smoke curling weakly into the night sky.
The faceless figure was gone.
But something remained.
A small, wet footprint pressed into the dust—too small, too strange to belong to any living thing.
By dawn, Ola was gone from Obade.
No one saw her leave.
No one saw how she slipped through shadows and mist, leaving behind the river, the mountains, and the village that had become both cradle and cage.
She took no food, no extra clothes, no weapon.
Only the memory of the dream.
Only the knowledge that she had no choice but to find the gate Èkóyé was sealing—and to learn what awaited behind it.
Because if the Hollowed were right—
If the toll was real—
Then Èkóyé's voice would not survive.
And Ola would not lose another child to the dark.
The forest welcomed her with open arms and whispered secrets, the thick mist curling around her like a living thing. Every step carried the weight of uncertainty, but also a fierce determination burning behind her eyes.
Her fingers brushed against the rough bark of ancient trees, grounding her when fear tried to claw its way inside.
She did not know what awaited her at the gate.
But she would find it.
Because in a world where silence had fed the shadows for too long—
Where the river remembered every secret, every lie.
Sometimes, the only way to protect the ones you love was to walk into the dark.