《The Fall of The Gods》


 Chapter 1- ??kan

    ?ni t¨® ¨½b??r¨´ ¨¤ti ?ub¨², ¨¤ti d¨¬de ¨¢ nira f¨²n un.


    Whoever is scared of falling, would find it difficult to rise.


    They never passed up an opportunity to celebrate. These were the gods. They had just won their first victory. Should they not be jolly and revel in their might?


    Sango sat down on a stool in the hall among the other gods and watched them. Ogun was, as always, trying to drink his way out of existence. The credit for the battle had gone to Sango, and all the other gods were celebrating in his name. But he could feel the cold gaze of Ogun settling on him.


    Ogun was a large being, even by god standards. He wore nothing but a dark brown garb. He had a scarred face and a hard set jaw, and he always looked like he was contemplating the best way to kill you. He had blood rimmed weapons at his side and from experience, Sango knew how well he used them.


    There was a time before all this, a time before man, a time before war. Now war was all he knew, all he breathed, all he felt. This war they were fighting would break their land apart, and they all knew it and yet, they fought. That¡¯s why it was good that he overthrew Ogun and be came the new general. Left to himself, Ogun would destroy everything. Someone had to keep the him in check.


    The great one himself, Shokpona, was also celebrating, telling the others the (exaggerated) stories about his adventures in the human world. He was a large deity, and his skin was covered in swirling white marks that adorned his whole body. One thing that was not exaggerated, however, was the fear the humans had for him. He could cause an epidemic of small pox. Shokpona was not called the great one for nothing.


    Elegua was his usual self, playful. He was moving around like a tornado, stealing kisses from the female Orisha. Oba, one of Sango¡¯s four wives was also in attendance. She was dressed in a light blue Iro made of A?o-Oke and was adorned with many necklaces and jewels. She was the goddess of the river Oba, which she had chosen just to spite his other wives. She was a dangerous deity and considering their past together, Sango thought it best if he stayed out of her way.


    Obatala was also there entertaining the hall by carving out small animals out of clay and giving them to his father, Olorun, to breathe life into them. It was something the gods never got tired of seeing. The wonders of creation!


    Eshu had also come to the Great Hall to celebrate even though he had done nothing in the battle. But that was Eshu. He reaped the rewards without ever sowing. He was a trickster by name and nature. If Sango were ever to be asked, he would say Eshu was the most dangerous of the remaining Orisha. He wasn¡¯t the strongest or the fastest, but he was the most manipulative. He was not much to look at since he always took the form of a curious teenager with a slender build and little or no hair on his head. He would¡¯ve passed as a human if not for his eyes. They were green. But their color was the least unnerving thing about them. If stared at long enough, Eshu¡¯s eyes could hold the onlooker under his thrall. They were powerful enough to even sway a god. Eshu walked away drunkenly from the gods he was talking to and walked over to where Ogun was sitting, clapping him on his back while laughing and conversing with him. Not many of the gods could even hope to stand next to Ogun, but he seemed to make an exception of Eshu, as they both laughed and drank.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    A cold chill spread along Sango¡¯s back. The humans assumed that the gods were high and mighty and that they did not feel trivial emotions such as fear. But Sango knew very well the truth: they felt it alright, even more so. If Ogun and Eshu united against him, all hell would break loose. He looked over at the Orisha, the ones who were remaining, actually. Something was happening. A darkness was rising, amassing power. He felt it every night, and he knew deep inside him that something was coming.


    The Orisha were disappearing, and he could not ignore it any longer. He could feel the sense of unease from the other gods. They were all mighty once. They had stood strong at four hundred and one gods. But at that very moment could only feel the presence of a mere fifty. They were all connected through Olodumare, all branches from the same tree, but it felt like that tree was swiftly being felled by some unknown power. Who or what could be powerful enough to kill not just one god but hundreds of them?


    These thoughts paraded around his head. He stood up and exited the hall. He needed to think. He stepped outside and for more than the first time, he stared in awe at the heaven that they had created for themselves.


    Humans worshipped them, but the gods¡ªsecretly¡ªmodeled themselves after the humans. The city of the gods had gold plated houses that glinted in the sun and were as tall as could be. They were arranged in no particular order around the Great Hall. The hall stood at the centre of everything, something akin to a hearth. It was the meeting place of the gods. They met there when there was tragedy or triumph. It was their place of mourning and celebration. Their heaven resembled the town they had called Ile-Ife; it was truly something to behold.


    He was thinking of all their new troubles and this oncoming war when he felt a warm familiar hand on his back. He turned around, and he saw, in one person, all he had ever needed or desired.


    Oya was his favorite wife of the four. She wore a deep blue buba with nothing but a simple pearl necklace he had given her when they had gotten married. She had a full head of Bantu knots. Her skin was the color of brown earth. Her eyes were a deep blue. They had the power of entrancing the beholder. Her eyes were like Eshu¡¯s but different. Eshu¡¯s eyes inspired fear and wanton violence but just standing next to Oya would make even Ogun feel at ease. Her very presence inspired goodness and peace.


    He held her cheek softly, placed one hand on the small of her back and pulled her into a kiss. He loved her so much and would never do anything to hurt her. He just prayed he would never lose her. It was a curious thought, though. To whom should gods pray? He smiled at the thought as Oya pulled away from the kiss in her usual quizzical way.


    ¡°My husband,¡± she asked while placing her hand on his chest. ¡°What things trouble your mind? The others are celebrating, but you¡¯re out here brooding.


    He wanted to tell Oya all that was bothering him. He wanted to unload his entire burden on her and tell her things he had never told anyone. But he knew he could not. He would not allow Oya to know the true extent of the danger they were all in. He could not allow her to know the truth. It was too much to bear.


    ¡°My wife, nothing is on my mind,¡± he said as he gently stroked her cheek. ¡°I was just thinking of how soon we could make Eshu leave.¡±


    She gave him that look again, the one that seemed to says, you know that I know that there is more, but I will give you your space.


    ¡°Well, whatever is bothering you, just know that I will always be here. No evil, no matter how strong, shall befall us. So come inside and celebrate with us. We were victorious today.¡± She playfully dragged him back into the hall.


    He allowed her to drag him in. He would do anything to make sure that the smile she had on her face remained there. Even with Oya¡¯s kind words, he knew she was wrong about this particular problem.


    The gods were disappearing. Some kind of darkness was working against them.


    And yes, they had won the battle today, but Sango wondered, at what cost? He will come back for revenge. Sango knew that much.


    Amadioha was not one to forget an insult.

 Chapter 2- Ab??

    A kpopu uzo, a kpopu onu


    The dawning of a new day marks the beginning of a routine struggling for the means of human and other being¡¯s existence


    ***


    His head was swimming, so he gladly welcomed the mind numbing feeling of whatever he was smoking. Odion didn¡¯t know what it was. He didn¡¯t care to find out. The local area boys had given him something to welcome him into the gang. Once he smoked his first one, he couldn¡¯t get enough of it. The feeling it gave him was indescribable. His mind turned into water. Everything became a blur. Reality seemed to peel away. It was the only way he could find release from his damned life and the cruelty of his memories. Odion dragged his hand across his hair and laid back on what felt like a chair. He wasn¡¯t sure any more.


    They were at their normal hangout, under some bridge, the name of which he had forgotten. All he could think about was how good he felt and how badly he wanted the feeling to last forever. He just wanted to forget. He wanted to forget it all. His parents, his old life, everything. He silently cursed himself for thinking about them. They were landmines in his memory, exploding into a torrent of sadness and guilt without the slightest warning.


    But his mind had already traveled back to that day about four years ago, and there was no stopping it. . He and his parents had just come back from the cinema. He recalled being in awe of Spider Man, how he just kept bouncing back, never giving up. That¡¯s the kind of person Odion wanted to be. A hero.


    They settled into their home in Lekki that night. Odion remembered the house all too well. Right at that moment, he stopped himself from remembering any further. Hestood up from the makeshift chair, perhaps, as an attempt to run away from his memories. He knew everyone had their eyes on him, but he didn¡¯t care. He stumbled across the barely green lawn and walked to the road, raising his hand up to protect his eyes from the bright street lamps.


    It was raining heavily, abnormally so. He couldn¡¯t even remember the last time it had rained so hard. He hated the rainy season. It always made his asthma worse. He looked down at the puddle of water on the street and stared at his reflection. He almost couldn¡¯t recognize himself. His skin had gotten darker, and his face was now sullen. At sixteen years old, he was tall for his age. His muscles had grown from the last four years of exertion and now he resembled his father more than anything else.


    He breathed in the cold air. He liked Lagos at night. It almost seemed like a completely different place. Life slowed down to a resolute halt. He sat down on the pavement. The rain seemed to be using him as its personal drum, splashing on him and making his clothes wet. The high was already starting to fade, and his mind was coming back from its short, though pleasant vacation.


    ¡°Didi the boy,¡± a familiar voice said from behind him.


    Odion looked to find Emeka walking towards him. Odion stood up to greet him. Emeka was the infamous leader of their little gang, and Odion owed him his life. After what happened to his parents, he had nothing and no one. But Emeka took him in. He brought him into the gang and almost made him feel like he had a family again. Almost.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    ¡°Dem tell me say you waka,¡± he said. ¡°I hope say no wahala.¡±


    Odion lived a sheltered and relatively affluent life before the tragedy. So pidgin English did not come naturally to him.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going anywhere. I just wanted to clear my head,¡± Odion said standing up and brushing off the dust from his trousers. ¡°I¡¯ll be back soon.¡±


    Emeka gave him a puzzled look, but he let Odion be. Emeka was no angel. For all the ¡®good¡¯ Emeka claimed to have done for him, Odion knew he was just doing it for himself.


    Odion watched him leave and wondered how he had gotten mixed up in all of this. He had always wanted to be something more. He had always wanted his life to mean something and now here he was, getting high with a bunch of gangbangers. His mother would have been so proud.


    Dammit, he did it again. He had to stop thinking about them. His parents had no place in his mind. He couldn¡¯t afford to breakdown, not yet. He had to be strong. His father had always taught him that.


    With the high wearing off, he began to feel drowsy. It also occurred to him that therewas something strange about the rain though, the lightning and thunder seemed almost¡­violent. Like there was some sentience to it. Odion put that thought out of his head. It reminded him of the folktales his mother used to tell him at night.


    He mentally slapped himself for that. He needed to leave the past where it was and just move on. He walked along the pavement under the rain and walked his way towards the shacks the gang had taken and dubbed ¡®Home.¡¯ It was definitely no home of his.


    He was walking, thinking of how he needed to get an umbrella when he heard a coughing sound from an alley in between two buildings. Odion stopped walking and peered into the darkness and squinted his eyes. There was someone there, a man by the looks of it.


    Odion called into the alley.


    ¡°Hello,¡± he shouted but received no reply, just more coughing.


    Odion walked slowly into the alley, his feet splashing in puddles and realized that the man was old,veryold, it seemed. Odion couldn¡¯t see much in the dimly lit alley, but he could tell the man¡¯s clothes were expensive. They seemed to shine in the dark. Odion also noticed something strange about where the man was sitting on the ground. It was dry. Odd. Odion was now close to three feet away from this stranger who hadn¡¯t even acknowledged him yet. Perhaps, he didn¡¯t even know that Odion was there.


    Odion was about to say something when the man suddenly looked up at him from the ground. When he saw his face, Odion gasped. The first thing Odion noticed about the man were his eyes. They were bright grey, a shade that made him remember the silver ring his father used to wear. They were flickering now, like a light bulb with a faulty filament but even then, they were bright, and they reminded him of the lightning that now streaked the sky.


    Odion finally mustered up the courage to open his mouth. He was never shy around strangers, but this man unnerved him for some reason.


    ¡°Baba,¡± he said with concern. ¡°Are you okay? Do you need help? Is there anyone I can call?¡±


    The man just looked at Odion. He didn¡¯t say anything. He just looked at him. Finally, the man struggled to stand, using the wall for support. Odion moved to help him up, but the old man waved him off in defiance. Whoever he was, he was strong. While he was trying to stand, Odion noticed for the first time that the man was holding his side and bleeding. He looked down at the ground and realized that there was blood everywhere. How could a normal human being much less an old man bleed so much and still be able to stand?


    After minutes of trying, the man finally stood up. He was easily taller than Odion who was about six feet tall. He had a thick hair of grey hair on his head. His white beard gleamed in the dark. His face was covered in an array of wrinkles. His once dark skin now had a hint of grey in it. The man was still holding his side. He had suffered from an injury of some sort.


    Odion had hundreds of questions to ask, but only one made its way out.


    ¡°Who are you?¡±


    The man looked at him with cold grey eyes. Just when Odion was about to run away, the man opened his mouth and a surprisingly deep voice answered.


    ¡°My name is Sango,¡± the man uttered with dignity and authority. ¡°And I need your help.¡±

 Chapter 3- ?ta

    L??h¨¬n ¨°k¨´nk¨´n biribiri, ¨¬m??l?? ¨¢ t¨¤n.


    After a pitch-dark night, most assuredly comes the dawn.


    They were in his room now which he had asked to be personally customized with a wallpaper that resembled Spider-Man¡¯s webs, his parents agreed. They would do anything to make him happy. He loved hearing his mother read to him. She was a relatively young mother and her playfulness showed with her age. She was close enough to him now that he could smell her coconut shampoo, her hair was tied in a long ponytail and it scented her round face and kind brown eyes. Lotanna worked as a history teacher in a nearby secondary school and her job it seemed, was the only thing she loved as much as her family. On rainy nights like this, she¡¯d read to her only son, read him tales of heroes and villains, cops and robbers. Stories where the good guys always won. She shifted her position on the side of his bed as she brushed a stray lock of hair from her face and tucked it into her ponytail.t all happens in one moment, just one. When we¡¯re called to action, called to be heroes, called to be more. We all get the call, so the question isn¡¯t whether or not it¡¯ll come. The question is, when the call comes, will we be brave enough to answer it?¡±


    ¡°Do you want me to continue or are you tired, dear?¡± she said in her kind voice, a voice that after so long, still remained embedded in his mind. Frozen forever in his heart.


    ¡°Yeah, I think I want to sleep now,¡± a twelve year-old Odion said. ¡°Are we still going to watch the movie tomorrow?¡±


    She smiled at his eagerness as she stood up and rubbed away the creases from her night gown. ¡°Of course Didi, your cousin Nadia is even coming too. We¡¯ll leave in the evening,¡± she said as she kissed his forehead for the umpteenth time which unbeknownst to him would be the very last time.


    ¡°Always having secret meetings without me¡± a deep voice said from the door of his room, they both looked towards the doorway and found Odion¡¯s father, Wale, at the door still clad in his work clothes. He worked as a professor at UNILAG and like his wife, he enjoyed educating young minds.


    ¡°Daddy!¡± Odion shouted as he jumped from his covers and ran to hug his father. He smelt of old books and leather. His father laughed as he held Odion in a tight embrace.


    Suddenly a thunder clap came out of nowhere and Odion flinched in his father¡¯s arms.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be scared, my boy,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s just Sango playing with his thunder stones.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s true, you don¡¯t have to be scared Didi,¡± his mother said as she walked up to both of them. ¡°Sango only punishes evil doers¡±


    ¡°But those are just stories, they¡¯re not actually real,¡± Odion said in a muffled voice, his face still buried in his father¡¯s chest.


    ¡°Sometimes, stories can be very powerful,¡± his mother said.


    ¡°But I don¡¯t understand, you always said that Sango was a manifestation of Oludu-, Oludodu- ¡°


    ¡°Olodumare¡± his father corrected.


    ¡°Yeah, so how can he be Sango and a part of Olodumare at the same time?¡± Odion asked in confusion.


    His mother knelt down, took his hand and splayed his fingers. She placed her index finger on each of his fingers as she explained. ¡°It¡¯s easy to understand, just think about it like this: It¡¯s one hand but with lots of different fingers, in the end they all work together to accomplish a task.¡±


    Odion didn¡¯t completely understand but with his mother, he had soon learnt that it was easier to just nod in false understanding than bear the burden of knowing.


    ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± she said as she playfully ruffled his hair and corralled him back into his bed. ¡°Now go to bed and get some sleep, we have a big day tomorrow.¡±The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    As both his parents left his room, he should¡¯ve said something else, told them how much he loved them. But how was he supposed to know that would be their last night together as a family.


    ¡°Do you want the lights on or off,¡± his father said with his finger on the switch.


    ¡°On, please,¡± Odion replied as he raised the covers up to his nose. ¡°Goodnight.¡±


    ¡°Goodnight,¡± his father said.


    ¡®¡¯Goodnight,¡± his mother said as she closed the door shut. ¡°Love you,¡± He heard her say quietly


    from the other side of the door.


    I love you too, both of you. One day I¡¯ll meet you again, I promise.


    Odion broke from his reverie as he thought of his mother¡¯s words now as he looked at the face of the old man or Sango as he called himself. The question is, when the call comes, will we be brave enough to answer it?


    ¡°How do I know you¡¯re who you say you are,¡± Odion finally said after moments of stunned silence.


    The old man looked at Odion with amused curiosity despite his mood, there was even a hint of a smile there. It was the same look you¡¯d give a three-year-old if they asked you why you possessed your particular eye colour. The old man didn¡¯t speak though, he just kept on looking at Odion. It was like he was staring at Odion¡¯s whole life, his past, present and future and discerning whether or not he was worth it. Finally, he leaned his back on the wall and he stretched out his right arm, his left still clutching his side. The wound seemed to have stopped bleeding but the it still looked raw. He playfully splayed his fingers, moving them and making wave motions, and then he began to speak.


    ¡°In the beginning, there was nothing but the skies above and the seas below,¡± the old man said. His voice was a deep baritone, it was a sound that seemed to resonate in his very body, vibrating down to his cells. A sound that could only be likened to¡­thunder. ¡°The Orisha¡ªsprung from Olodumare, first from creation¡ªruled all. But one of the Orisha, Obatala, wanted to create dry land so he sought advice from the wise one, Orunmila himself.¡±


    Odion watched the man, entranced by his voice, then something began to happen in his outstretched hand. Miniature figures made of silver light appeared and danced on his palm, moving as the old man spoke, retelling a story as old as time itself.


    ¡°Orunmila told him that he would need a long gold chain, a snail¡¯s shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat and a palm nut.¡± As he said this, one of the figures in his hand was depicted searching far and wide for the needed items. ¡°After he had gotten these items, Obatala went to the corner of the sky and hung from the long chain, he climbed down for a long, long time until he finally reached the bottom of the chain.


    ¡°Obatala poured the sand down into the mist below him and he let the hen loose. The hen fell down on the sand scattering the sand to the west, east, north and south. The sand soon became vast valleys and mountains. Obatala then threw the palm nut at the earth, this grew into large palm trees and soon became a forest. Obatala was very pleased with him¡ª¡±


    The old man or Sango as it seemed, abruptly stopped talking and clutched his mouth with his free hand as he erupted in a coughing fit, it was dark but Odion knew the smell and colour of blood all too well. Sango slid down on his back onto the floor, and the light in his grey eyes flickered a little. Sango looked up at Odion standing above him, as if waiting for a response. He looked sick and he suffered from a great injury and yet, there was still this undeniable smug look on his face. He removed his blood splattered hand from his mouth, looked at it grimly but seemed unshaken.


    Odion had been mesmerized before with the story but now he found the courage to speak as he realised he was shaking. ¡°But... but how is this possible?¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re just a story, a story told at the firelight to explain the world around us¡±


    Sango smiled sadly and said, ¡°Sometimes, stories can be very powerful.¡±


    Odion just looked at him. A chill spread down his back as old memories flooded his mind.


    ¡°In some cultures, the word for storyteller also translates to liar,¡± Sango began, ¡°because in truth, that was all they were, liars. But just for a moment, imagine this. Imagine a story so powerful, so needed, that the universe itself believes it. A story so powerful that it comes alive. Listen to them, the tales of the gods, tales that were powerful enough to travel through the minds of humans, travel through time and space. Tales that altered reality itself. Yes, we are stories but in the end, that is what we all become. Stories.


    ¡°The worship of the gods died, but the gods themselves did not, at least not until now. The gods still remained, ingrained in you humans and your very culture. Forming an integral part of you, as you are to us.¡±


    Odion sat down on the cold hard ground too and noticed that it had stopped raining. He had so many questions, so many things to ask, but only one came to mind, beating the other questions to the punch.


    ¡°If¡ªand this is a big if¡ª, if this is true, then why are you here and why are you wounded, who could wound a god? Can¡¯t you just heal?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t heal, not from this,¡± Sango said. ¡°I am dying, Didi, the gods are dying."

 Chapter 4- AN?

    Ura ga-eju onye nwuru anwu afo.


    A dead person shall have all the sleep necessary.


    <u></u>


    Sango coughed and blood came out, this had been happening more often for the past ten minutes. Sango didn¡¯t need to even say it; he was getting worse. He was wearing faded silver clothes that Odion had once seen in the museum. Upon close inspection, it resembled the war garments worn by warriors, way back when.ow do gods die?¡± Odion asked, with a puzzled expression on his face. Both him and Sango were sitting on the cold hard ground, facing each other. ¡°Can gods even die?¡±


    ¡°What do you know about the nature of gods?¡± Sango asked while wiping his blood splattered hand on his garment.


    ¡°Not much, just bits and pieces from stories I¡¯ve heard,¡± Odion said.


    Sango looked wary, and the more Odion looked at him, the more he saw. His whole entire essence seemed to tell a story. His eyes told the story of a being that had been at war for so long with others and himself. The lines on his face were etched deep and spoke of battles that must have taken place long before Odion was born. Odion looked at the scars on his arms and legs and they too shouted, practically screamed a message that was as clear as the dull grey eyes staring at him. He was stronger than anything that had ever been thrown at him. That no matter the danger of his foe, no matter the cost, this was someone who always came out fighting.


    How then, was he bleeding out on the floor in front of him?


    Sango looked at Odion with an intense gaze and seemed to read his mind. ¡°Gods are powerful, yes. But we are mere manifestations, embodiments of the stories you humans cultivated. So, boy, I ask you, what happens when the humans who created the story stop believing in it? What happens when the humans stop believing in the gods? We were already beginning to weaken and we knew it, we were at the edge of nothingness and we wholly accepted it, we had all existed for so long. But then the war happened and we were all robbed of the quiet farewell we were hoping for.¡±


    Sango had stopped talking and Odion knew he should say something but the question kept ringing in his ears. What happens when the humans stop believing in the gods?


    ¡°What was the war about?¡± Odion finally asked. ¡°Why were you fighting? You¡¯re all Orisha, why would you all be fighting?¡±


    Sango cocked his head to the right, the way his father sometimes did¡ªor rather, used to do when he was looking for the best way to say something incredibly important. ¡°We were not fighting amongst ourselves, we were fighting Amadioha and his ilk. We were fighting the gods of the Igbo people.¡±


    A dull throbbing started to form at the sides of Odion¡¯s head. This was too much to process. ¡°But¡­how is that possible? How can they be¡ª¡±


    ¡°Real?¡± Sango asked. ¡°You ask how they can be real while having a conversation with an ancient deity your ancestors themselves worshipped. When I spoke to you about gods, did you think it was limited to only the Yoruba people? They are all alive, the gods. Some more¡­active than others.¡± As he said this, he looked towards the west in a rather accusatory manner.


    Odion was glad he was sitting down, he didn¡¯t think he could stand and still comprehend this kind of information.


    ¡°But why were you fighting? What was so important?¡± Odion asked.


    ¡°What do you know of the 1966 pogrom,¡± Sango asked. As soon as he said this, Odion was taken four years into the past, back when his mum used to teach him history at home. Now though, he wished he¡¯d listened more.


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± Odion replied, confused.


    Sango bore the look of a teacher, tired of explaining things over and over again. He launched into a coughing fit, this one more violent than the last and with a lot more scarlet blood.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°This was a time before Nigerians had heard of the idea of unity. The rest of Nigeria already thought they were a proud people and their gods were even more so. They were then held with popular contempt. The relationship between them and the rest of Nigeria was already strained, then came the failed coup¡ª¡±


    ¡°Oh, I know about that one. The infamous 1966 coup where eleven politicians died and Abubakar Balewa was overthrown.¡± Odion said, happy to be able to follow the narrative for once.


    Sango looked shocked that Odion knew this but he continued. ¡°Yes, it was also one of the events that led to the Nigerian Civil War. But more importantly, in the aftermath of this act, the northerners launched an anti-Igbo pogrom.¡± Odion didn¡¯t like where this was going. ¡°Blood calls for blood, they said. Close to fifty thousand innocent Igbo people were killed in cold blood. They had done nothing wrong and yet they were cut down like Iroko trees. Some people back then were still loyal to tradition and still worshipped their old gods, they cried for them day and night. Amadioha heard these cries and wanted to help, he wanted to save his people. But such is not the way of the gods. We Orisha watched all this unfold but there was nothing we could do. Gods were not to meddle in the lives of mortals, it is not our place to do so. And we had to stop any and every being who wanted to place their hands in the business of humans.¡±


    ¡°So what happened next?¡± Odion said, interested in the story.


    ¡°Amadioha planned to wipe out the northerners and save his people.¡± Sango said, his voice low and cold. He was also placing his arm around his wound almost as if his body were remembering the events also. ¡°I went to try to converse with him, make him change his mind. I did not know that the others followed me to his kingdom, all with unseen rage in their eyes. They laid waste to his palace and we all went back and celebrated, we thought we¡¯d won. But we had kick-started a war that would seem to go on for eternity. We have been fighting since then, each side trying to be the winner but in truth, we all lost. Some just more than others.¡± Sango sounded sad and drained of energy, and for the first time, Odion notice a pale blue pearl necklace that hung on Sango¡¯s neck. He was holding it, thumbing it with each of his fingers, as if he were a catholic saying a silent prayer. ¡°We could¡¯ve fought for centuries but something happened in the last battle, the one in which I was injured this badly.¡± He said this as he gestured to his side. ¡°I felt weak and tired, almost as if my very essence was being sucked by some unknown malevolent force.


    ¡°Something was happening and I didn¡¯t know, I fell from the skies both from the injury and my weakened state. It seemed like the others fell too but I would not know.¡±


    ¡°They...fell?¡± Odion asked.


    ¡°Yes they did.¡± Sango answered with a groan, his wound was becoming worse. ¡°But the war is far from over, something is happening, someone is doing this and now it is upon your shoulders to find them and put a stop to this.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± Odion said, pointing to himself incredulously. ¡°Why me? I¡¯m an average boy who lives in Lagos, I know nothing of your world.¡±


    ¡°Odion,¡± Sango said in a voice that was both stern and kind, though Odion didn¡¯t remember ever telling him his name, ¡°it was no coincidence I fell here, you are more than you know and stronger than you seem. There are things that have happened to you. Tragedies you have faced and you will face many more. Right now, I present you with a choice: find who is doing this and save your world because if this force succeeds, they will not stop, they will go to other lands, kill other gods, seed distrust and anarchy. They will not stop until this world is nothing but an empty husk. I can tell you that much. You can do that or you can walk away and pretend you never saw me; you can leave all this behind with the knowledge you have now.¡±


    His mother¡¯s words seemed to resonate in his entire body. It all happens in one moment, just one. When we¡¯re called to action, called to be heroes, called to be more. We all get the call, so the question isn¡¯t whether or not it¡¯ll come. The question is, when the call comes, will we be brave enough to answer it?


    He was about to give his answer when Sango launched into yet another coughing fit, this time his whole body wretched. He was coughing for about a minute and in that time, he didn¡¯t look quite like a thunder god who fought countless battles, he just looked like a frail old man.


    Odion didn¡¯t know what came over him but he stood and reached for Sango¡¯s arm in an attempt to help him but as soon as his finger¡¯s touched Sango¡¯s skin, the world tilted and suddenly, they weren¡¯t in a cold, dark alley anymore. The world seemed brighter now, with a goldish tint. He looked around to find that he was in some sort of throne room. He looked down at his hands and he wasn¡¯t even himself anymore. His once lean arms had been replaced by masculine muscles, he reached towards his face and found a full beard. What was going on?


    Suddenly a beautiful woman came in, she was dressed in a pale blue dress of some sorts and her eyes seems to appeal to every cell of his body. She spoke in the sweetest voice he had ever heard. ¡°My husband, are you ready to go? Your supplies for the trip are ready.¡±


    Odion reached back and he was back in the alleyway and his heart was racing. What had just happened? It had felt so real, it was like a dream but more immersive, what was that? He moved away from Sango who looked like he had expected it to happen and from the expression on his face, something told Odion that he had felt it too.


    Of all the things that could have been said at that moment, Sango asked only one question.


    ¡°So what will it be, young one. Will you run or will you fight?¡±

 Interlude 0- The Creation Story as told by the Yoruba

    Hidden deep in our culture and buried under western influence lay the very backbone of our culture and civilisation: stories. Though, in this day and age, it is very easy to ignore the impact these stories have had on us. But dear reader, bear with me as I tell you the tales that once guided our ancestors and their culture. These were narratives that directed how they lived, what food they should and shouldn¡¯t eat, what hand to use for interaction. These, in time, became more than just stories, they became our culture, our norms, our lives. They influenced the very way our ancestors looked at the world. They were blind and unfocused but with these stories, their eyes reflected brightly the gleam of the fire as they heard and told tales by the firelight. Tales that would be passed on from generation to generation, each time bringing an old light to a new pair of eyes. These stories played a great part in the derivation of our culture and social norms, so a great question is begged: did we make the stories, or did they, in fact, make us?


    In Nigeria, we are blessed with hundreds upon hundreds of cultures and tribes most of which remain, till today, unexplored and I will try my best to bring them to new light and see in a new perspective the kind of heritage we have inherited. We will see what guided our ancestors down that haggard path to the country we all live in today. Firstly, we¡¯re going to take a look at the myths of the Yoruba, a proud people whose stories, culture and language have, with great persistence, survived through the ages. But these are myths that were told by different people and different tribes within them. You have to understand, this was a long way from the invention of digital communication, meaning that most of everything was told through the word of mouth. This may be why there are so many variations of the stories told and why some of the gods and goddesses have varying names in various places. In this series, we¡¯ll try our best to focus on a central line of myths and names to avoid confusion but if you notice that these aren¡¯t the names or the exact stories you grew up with, at least now you know why and don¡¯t have to be confused.


    Where to start with this series is not a problem, though. For where else is there to start but the beginning of all things? Join me as we take a look at the creation of the world as told by the Yoruba.


    K¨° s¨ª b¨ª il?? ?e l¨¨ m?? t¨®, k¨® m¨¢¨¤ ?¨², k¨° d?? s¨ª b¨ª il?? ?e l¨¨ ?¨² t¨®, k¨® m¨¢¨¤ m??.


    No matter how bright the day, night will fall, and no matter how dark the night, it will yet become dawn.


    Like in most creation stories, in the beginning, there wasn¡¯t much. Sure, there was life in the sky with all the Orisha living up there but apart from that, nada, just water and marshy wastelands below. I¡¯ll introduce you to the Orisha properly later on but for now think of them as the all-star team of the Yoruba. This group had everything from a lightning throwing god to a small pox deity. With all of this, some of them felt like there was something missing. Now, I don¡¯t know why but maybe some of the gods were getting a little bit bored with the whole daily routine, there was no excitement. And that¡¯s understandable, with gods you¡¯d imagine that since they¡¯re perfect beings, everything about them must be perfect but the thing about this is that life must seem like a big infinite cycle beginning and ending in the same way. What they needed was something new, something random, something¡­ human. These were probably the thoughts that ran through the god, Obatala¡¯s head as he went to the chief god, Olorun, to ask for permission to go to the earth and maybe create something worthwhile.


    Out of all the Orisha, Obatala was the most creative and innovative. He always looked forward and sought out ways to improve what was already there. His curiosity always won over. He was that one deity who always wondered and asked questions (it annoyed the other Orisha to great lengths but with family you just have to deal with it). Olorun saw this in Obatala and thus, was not surprised when Obatala came with his request.


    ¡°Baba, I have come with something to ask you.¡± Obatala said as he prostrated, laying flat on the ground to show respect as was the Yoruba custom.


    ¡°Rise,¡± Olorun said with a simple hand gesture, in his baritone voice that could be heard for miles and miles. ¡°What have you come to say?¡±


    Obatala rose up and dusted his clothes, the simple loincloth he wore. ¡°Baba, I¡¯m grateful for the paradise we are all living in but I feel like it could be better, I want to¡ª¡°


    ¡°Make new clothes for all of us to wear?¡± Olorun said, rising slightly from his throne with excitement. ¡°These garbs we wear are itchy and always get in the way, I was thinking of maybe a collection of men and womenswear based on¡ª.¡± Olorun stopped as he saw the confused look on Obatala¡¯s face, it would seem that introducing fashion was not what the young god had in mind.


    ¡°Uhm,¡± Obatala began again, their eccentric leader always threw him off, ¡°I¡¯d like to go down to the earth, explore it a little maybe even create a few beings. I¡¯ve had this idea for a long time about little people that look like us but without powers or¡ª¡°


    Olorun waved his hands in a shooing motion. Anything that didn¡¯t relieve him of the constant itch he felt in his groin was none of his business. ¡°I give you my blessing but you must first consult my eldest son, Orunmila, he can see the future and will be of help to you.¡±


    Obatala bowed again and left the chief god¡¯s chambers. Olorun was a wise god and he saw more than his subjects could, his eyes glittered in the light as he hoped Obatala knew what he was doing. What he planned to do was no easy task.


    So, Obatala went to Orunmila¡¯s abode. The other gods steered clear away from this god out of fear mostly. There was something about his silver eyes and manic smile that sent fear rippling through the spine of even the strongest gods. He had the power to see the future, and all other threads of time. It was said that Orunmila had even foretold the age of the death of the gods. Obatala shivered, knowledge like that was something that even the gods should not have. And yet, he kept on walking to Orunmila¡¯s home, he knew this was the only way.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    He was about to knock on the door when it opened widely and he was greeted with the face of the eldest son of Olorun. He was smiling his usual frenzied smile, gesturing for Obatala to come in.


    ¡°See?¡± he said as Obatala followed him in. ¡°I knew you would knock on my door at this exact time and I also know what you have come to ask me¡±


    Obatala expected nothing less from him but it shook him a little, did this mean that Orunmila had seen the whole course of Obatala¡¯s life?


    ¡°So, will you help me?¡± Obatala asked.


    Orunmila scratched his beard for a moment. ¡°I will, but remember young god, I have seen the future. Beware the liquid that dulls the mind.¡±


    Obatala didn¡¯t understand what Orunmila was saying but he was overjoyed on the inside. His request had been accepted!


    Obatala was preparing his bags for the journey, remembering the word Orunmila had spoken to him some time ago.


    ¡°You will need some things for you to be successful in your journey,¡± He said stroking his long grey beard. ¡°You¡¯ll need a long gold chain, a snail¡¯s shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut.


    Obatala looked at Orunmila with a little scepticism. ¡°These objects have nothing in common,¡± he said, half wondering how he¡¯d even obtain them.


    ¡°Just follow my instructions, it¡¯ll all make sense, in time.¡± Orunmila said, already turning his back on Obatala to focus on one of his other projects.


    Obatala secured his bags with the items inside. The white hen and the black cat had to be tied separately and tightly since they caused the most trouble. He slung them both with a string he tied on his back, picked up his bags with one hand and the chain in the other. As he walked out of his hut, he could feel the other eyes of the gods boring holes into his back but he didn¡¯t dare look back. This was something he felt he needed to do and he wouldn¡¯t allow anything destroy his confidence.


    Orunmila was at the edge of the sky, waiting for him. ¡°Okay, young god, give me the chain and I will tie it to a tree and you will climb down it until you reach the bottom.¡±


    ¡°What will I do after?¡± Obatala asked.


    Orunmila simple stared at him and answered, pointing to his items. ¡°Do not worry, you already know. Now give me the chain.¡±


    Obatala simply nodded, he had made it this far now, what was a little shimmy down?


    As he climbed slowly down, he realised that the task was harder than even he had thought. The winds up there were harsh and cold, it whipped his clothes in a frenzy, He constantly had to adjust his grip on the animals and the bag he had also moved to his shoulder to avoid them from falling. The trip lasted for days and nights, as time passed even Obatala became wary of this endless journey.


    He climbed down until he realised that the harsh winds were replaced by a kind of mist. He kept on climbing down until he realised he was finally at the bottom of the chain. The mist obscured most of his vision but he could still see a little because of the faint glow of the chain. He was confused about what to do next when a gentle idea nudged him.


    He reached into his bag and brought out the snail¡¯s shell and spilled the sand all over the mist, he heard the sound of it hitting the surface and some liquid splashed on his feet. He realised that maybe the whole earth was covered in water. As he poured the sand, it kept on flowing from the shell until it settled in a small patch of land. He let go of the chain and his feet met the warm hard ground.


    He realised that he still needed to spread the sand across the whole earth when other idea came to him. He untied the hen and let it roam. Immediately, it moved around, clawing its way into the earth, spreading it around. Soon, it had created vast mountains and valleys.


    He decided that the land looked a bit too plain and so he planted the palm nut Orunmila told him to get. Soon, it became an incredible palm forest!


    And so, Obatala settled down in this new land with his cat as his pet to keep him company.


    Days soon passed and months and then years with Obatala alone on this strange land with only his cat for company. As to be expected, he became bored, the days started to become monotonous. So, one day he began moulding figures made of clay as he drank his palm wine from the gourd he brought down with him.


    Obatala was a creative god and as he worked, the clay seemed to be all that mattered to him. He kept on drinking, immersing himself in this creation, but the palm wine was slowly muddling his mind. Obatala didn¡¯t care, and he just kept on moulding the clay, figure after figure, his eyes like that of a madman. In a sense, that is what the palm wine made him become.


    As he was rounding up, he called on Olorun to breathe life into his figurines as the breath of Olorun was the spark of all life. As he did this, he promptly collapsed, drunk.


    Obatala woke up, expecting to see his wonderful creations frolicking around on the earth, smiling and waiting for their patron god to wake up so they could worship him. Only as Obatala woke up, sober, did he realise the weight of what he had done.


    He had made humans, yes, but due to his intoxicated state, he had gotten the proportions a little differently than he had already imagined. These were humans, just different than what he had planned. Obatala saw this and wept, cursing himself and swearing not to drink again. Only then, did he remember Orunmila¡¯s words to him what seemed like a lifetime ago.


    Beware the liquid that dulls the mind.


    He should have listened. In his heart, body and soul, he knew he should¡¯ve listened. He stood up and embraced them all, for they were his creations and he still loved them deeply. After this, he set on creating more human beings, this time sober, paying more attention to them as he should have. He called Olorun to breathe life into them once again and they became humans. They soon began populating and building their own civilisation with shrines to worship the gods. Obatala became the patron god of humanity and the disabled. He took exceptional care of them, knowing he was the reason they had even been brought to life in the first place


    The Orisha had been watching Obatala¡¯s progress and they were pleased with the product of his work, all except Olokun, who felt resentment for Obatala and his creations since he was never consulted about earth and the humans.


    Olokun was a proud sea god but he knew waging a battle against Olorun would end in him losing and being banished. He also knew that if he fought Obatala, the other gods would be forced to take sides, resulting in a civil war among the gods. Olokun knew that he had to do something, but what?


    He looked down from the heavens and he saw the humans once again, they were growing exponentially and as Olokun looked, he saw that they did not even respect the land they were gifted with. They were crass, clumsy and short sighted, never fully thinking in the direction of the future.


    Olokun¡¯s anger soon grew the more he saw, and in his destructive mood, he caused a great flood that ravaged the lands. Homes were destroyed and humans drowned under the cruel waters. Lives were lost and the remaining humans cried to the gods, asking for an explanation. The gods never answered.


    From then on, the remaining human beings took nature more seriously, treating it with a kind of reverence.


    Or so the story goes.

 ~Sango~

    I do not remember much, but I remember falling. I remember the feel of the cold winds chaff against my skin as I descended from the sky unto the hard earth. I remember the war that drove us all to this dark path. I remember Oya. I remember holding her cold lifeless body in my arms, a patchwork of scars caused by lightning along her once beautiful skin. I sat down there and I waited to die. I wanted to die, how could I even life with myself, knowing what I had done. The moon was shining bright that night, and it cast its warm glow on me. I felt distraught and angry and most of all, I felt sadness. This was never the life I wanted, all I wanted to live happily and peacefully but Olodumare would not allow it. He cast me into this immortal coil and now I am miserable.


    I don''t know why I did it but I waved my hand and let the heavens pour down a shower of rain. It was something I had done a thousand times before so I expected the harsh sound of thunder and the cackle of lightning. I expected the rhythmic sound of rain hitting the earth and erupting into smaller drops. What I did not expect, however, was him. A couple of people had looked into the alleyway I had fallen in and just looked away but this boy, he showed something very uncommon in the human race Olorun and his kin created. He showed kindness. He peered into the darkness and did not feel fear but affection. He was saying something to me now but I was not listening to him, I just looked at him, trying to observe what was in this boy, that did not just allow him to see me but also his capacity for kindness. I looked in him, I observed his very being and I saw things. I knew then that Olodumare had planned this. Like mine, this boy would not have an easy path, but he could overcome. That was something he admired about this walking mounds of clay and air. They had this uncanny ability to move on from the darkest days possible. They could peer into the darkest, deepest void full of their own anger and hate and yet find the strength to look up into the brightness and warmth a new day could bring. They could hope, they could change, maybe there was more to these creatures.


    The boy came to me and asked for my name, I told him. Surprisingly, he did not collapse or run away. Instead, he stayed and asked more questions. I told him. I told him everything he needed to know. While speaking to him, I could feel a stirring inside of me, my powers seemed to be awakening, the boy may not have noticed but the rain poured down with a whole new vigour and the thunder boomed louder in this skies. I was feeling my old strength return. Was the boy aware of the kind of sorcery he had at his fingertips?  One that could affect a being such as me, just by mere proximity. Olodumare must have sent this boy, what was he?Stolen story; please report.


    The boy reached out to me and when he did, I knew then what I had been thrown into and I gasped silently, this boy had a rough road ahead of him. When he touched me, He probably did not know this but our life forces connected. He could not only see my life but I could see him. I saw his father and his mother, I saw what truly transpired that cold night. I saw that Olodumare had been playing a long game, a very long one. I saw the boy''s bro-.


    Our connection broke off unexpectedly and I felt his shock, this was probably his first time. Seeing what I had seen, I knew then that he had not been sent into my path, but I had been sent into his. I knew I had to help him on his tumultuous journey. I gave him directions to someone that could help him and I gave him my sacred tools. I was still weak at the time so the stone would show him the truth, but not the whole truth, I wanted to tell him but I could feel the Ogbanje closing in, there was no time. I urged him to reach for me again and this time we established a better connection and in that one moment, I understood Odion. He was a young man who had faced pain and strife at a very young age. He was strong, though, I felt great strength in him. He also had faith in people, an honourable skill. But he lacked trust in himself and his own abilities, if left unchecked, this would later lead him to his downfall.


    I felt my grip on reality slip then, I felt myself leave this plane on to the Other Side. I left a piece of my essence in Odion to guide him, until he was able to guide himself. I smiled as I slowly died, it felt like a cold embrace I had been waiting for for such a long time.


    And then, the great god Sango was no more.


    Finally, I breathed, I would see my Oya again.

 5-è„¿rç…¤n

    ¨¨¨¦f¨ªn ni ¨¬w¨¤; k¨° ?e¨¦ fi pam??.


    Character is like smoke; it can''t be covered up.


    "What just happened to me?" Odion asked incredulously as he ran his hand through his hair and stood up. This was too much to handle. "What did I just see?"


    "Me," Sango answered. His grey eyes were glittering now as if an idea was forming in his head. "You just saw a fragment of my life. There are some mortals who have special...abilities, and this allows them to do amazing things. I suspected you were one but I was not sure till now. You have the gift of¡ª" Sango stopped abruptly and looked sideways cautiously, like there was some sort of oncoming danger. "We do not have much time, they are coming." He nodded his head sadly, met Odion''s eyes and said, "The Igbos called them Ogbanje, it is not their fault they are like this, you must remember that."


    "What are Ogbanje?" Odion asked in exasperation. Just one more thing he''d have to take note of in this crazy world he''d been dropped in. "And what gift do you think I have, I don''t know what you''re saying but I''m just a normal¡ª"


    "They are cursed children, filled with hate before they were even born. They do things that children would otherwise not do." Sango interrupted, completely ignoring his second question. Sango placed his hand on the ground and used the wall as support as he pulled himself up. He looked worse now, and frail, like the wind could blow the wrong way and take him away with it. After much effort, he managed to stand up but his posture was wavering, his skin had a greyish tint and his eyes were slowly losing their glow.


    "What are you doing?" Odion asked. "You should be sitting down, should I call a doctor or someone else?"


    "Nothing can save me now," he said grimly as he placed his hand inside his garb, "except you." He pulled out two objects from inside his clothes. The first was a silver dagger that seemed to glow even in the pitch darkness. The hilt was made of ivory and decorated with some kind of runes that Odion didn''t understand but the curved blade itself was thin and sharp. It seemed to shine with an ethereal glow and Odion almost had to squint when he was looking at it. The second object was a smooth small oval stone that could have fit easily in the palm of a child. Like the dagger, it also seemed to shine from within.


    "In the old days, I was known famously as the god of war." Sango said with pride. "But I was also the god of truth. Followers would come from far and wide to my shrines so I could reveal to them the hidden truths in their lives." He held the two objects in his now outstretched hands and seemed to present them to Odion. "These are two of the tools that will help you in your journey. War and truth. Both are not how they seem. You must understand that or you will most assuredly die. Painfully."


    Sango beckoned on Odion to take the two objects, and Odion hesitated for a moment. Was this really what he should be doing? Could he even do it? All his life he had been waiting for a moment like this, one where he could show the world just how much of a hero he was. But this was not what he was expecting, far from it. He did not expect the blood or the weak god now standing in front of him. Then, he thought of his mother. What would she have done?


    He found them lying on the floor, both of them dead. He had just woken up and he felt an excruciatingly painful migraine, someone must have hit his head and knocked him unconscious. He looked at the empty husks that were once his parents and he screamed. He screamed and screamed for help but no one came to help. He was just twelve at the time. He didn''t know what to do. He reached into his father''s pocket, still sobbing and dialled for the police. After he had called, he ran/ He didn''t know why but he ran. He couldn''t bear a life without the two people he had ever truly loved.


    Odion took the objects from Sango. He placed the dagger in his back pocket and the stone went to his front pocket, fitting easily.


    "When you desire the truth, crush the stone and it will be revealed to you. But be careful, the truth, like war, is not always kind." Sango said as he looked at Odion with a peculiar sadness. And then Odion noticed that his hands were still outstretched. "After this, go to the weeping woman near my statue in Marina, she will tell you where to get the Tools of Creation. When you get to her, tell her I sent you."


    "Tools of Creation? What are those?'' Odion asked, he was getting used to not knowing things at this stage.


    "Do not worry, she will tell you what you need to know." Sango answered hurriedly. "Now, take my hands." He said as used his head to give a small gesture towards his outstretched arms.


    "No, no, nope." Odion said while shaking his head. "I can''t do that again, the last time I did it, I felt like my whole body was being stretched. My head still hurts." Odion wondered briefly, how they''d look to a passer-by. Two males, standing. One tall adolescent dressed in a grey hoodie and black jeans who seemed to be shouting at an old man, who was dressed in a warrior''s garb worn by ancient warriors of old.


    "This is the only way." Sango said. "This is the first step; this is how you can heal our land that is now breaking apart. You must."This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Odion looked at Sango''s calloused hands that were large enough to engulf his. They looked like the hands of someone who''d had to fight his whole life and now, even in certain death. He didn''t stop fighting.


    Odion was about to place his hands on Sango''s but he had one more pressing question.


    "What am I meant to do exactly?"


    Sango looked at him as if he was the most stupid human in the whole expanse of the world. He sighed and said, "First find the woman and she will give you directions on where the tools are hidden. Then find them and use them to find whoever is behind all this. After you''ve done this, you can go back to your...life."


    "Or?" Odion asked.


    "There will always be evil in the world," Sango said, "If you wish, you can fight them and protect your land. Now, enough talk. Take my hands and let us do this."


    Odion thought for a second how his life was about to change. And he knew from experience just hoe bad change could be. But sometimes, change paved way to new amazing things.


    Odion placed his hands on Sango''s and the world as he knew it, stripped away. It felt like he was swimming. Except he was not in water but in Sango''s life stream and unlike swimming, he had no control over this. The images seemed to pass through him and he could only discern a few scenes. He saw a large hall filled with lots of Orisha, he saw drinking and laughing and cheering. Then the image shifted again. Now, he was in the same hall but there were a lot less Orisha. Then a god with sharp green eyes looked and smiled at him, he felt the hairs on Sango''s back rise. Fear. The image shifted again and then he was kneeling down and the blue eyed woman he saw before was now lying dead in his arms, her once beautiful skin was now a patchwork or scars and welts. He felt Sango''s heart tear, he felt the despair and hopelessness. He felt what Sango felt at that exact moment. Pain. Experiencing Sango''s life was hard to explain. It was like he was being dragged in a million direction at once. It was like being in a tornado that just won''t let up, and he was in the centre. Feeling it all. He was beginning to understand Sango a little more. He was an honour bound soldier who had been through the toughest parts of existence. He had been beaten and battered but out of sheer stubbornness, he just kept on going. Time and time again the universe had told him he was going to lose this time, that this was going to be it. But Sango just stared at the universe and said, No.  That will to endure, that refusal to ever cease. That was what defined the great god of thunder. That was what defined Sango. Just as soon as it started, it was over.


    Odion didn''t know his eyes were closed until he had to open them. He opened them expecting to see Sango healed before him but he wasn''t. He wasn''t even there anymore. Odion turned three hundred and sixty degrees and still did not see Sango. He was confused, did he do something wrong? He was about to shout his name when he heard a whisper. It was like an echo in his head.


    You have freed me from this existence, I am now at peace. Tell the others that the great god Sango has retreated to the highest part of heaven. Tell them I am gone. You are now the only one that can save our land. Find whoever is doing this and put a stop to them. Be strong, you must be. And in your darkest hours. Remember who you are. Remember your story.


    Odion felt the tear roll down his cheek and he bowed his head and kept on saying something under his breath, repeating it over and over again. I will not fail you. It had started raining again and thunder and lightning threatened to split the sky open but there wasn''t a sentience in the thunder anymore. It felt empty somehow. Odion heaved a great sigh. The great god Sango was gone and he had a mission to do.


    He felt in his pocket for the smooth pebble and removed it from his pocket. Before he began, he needed to know the truth of what happened to his parents, he needs to know who killed them. He couldn''t remember what happened that night and every time he tried to remember, his head seemed to erupt in a banging headache.


    He crushed the pebble and was taken back in time to that night, the night it all happened. It didn''t feel like being in Sango''s mind, this felt more pleasant. Like a fluid dream and suddenly Odion stood in the parlour, in his family home. His father was already lying dead on the floor, a bullet hole in his head just above his eyebrows. His eyes were still open, unseeing. His mother was crying and her voice was cracking with all the sobs. She was kneeling next to his father''s body as she pleaded with the attacker. She kept on saying something, barely audible from where he was standing, he moved closer and heard her more clearly.


    "It''s not your fault, my baby," she was saying, "it''s not your fault. I''m so sorry."


    An eerie sound filled the air as a bullet was fired, it went straight to his mother''s chest. She was dead before she reached the ground. Odion was suddenly filled with anger and hate that he had supressed for so long. His life had been turned upside down because of one person''s cruelty. Now he turned his head to look at the evil twisted creature who was so devoid of human¡ª


    Odion''s heart seemed to stop beating and he almost collapsed from shock. He looked at the attacker and saw his twelve-year-old self. Holding the smoking gun that had just killed his parents. His mind felt like putty and he fell on his knees. He didn''t even notice that he was now back in the alley. Sango''s words echoed in his mind. But be careful, the truth, like war, is not always kind.


    He killed his parents? So he was one of the cursed children Sango had told him about. Ogbanje. He felt weighed down by all the years of sadness and anger. He was crying now. The pain he felt now was unlike anything he had ever felt. It threatened to break him, to destroy him but now Odion was past caring. He did it. No wonder he couldn''t remember much from that day. No wonder he ran.


    A familiar voice came from the beginning of the alley and blocked the light. "Didi the boy, you get something wey I want." Odion recognised the pidgin and he looked up at Emeka''s face but it wasn''t Emeka''s face. His skin was now darker and his mouth had been stretched up his cheeks to reveal inhuman fangs. In his eyes, the whites were all gone and there was only darkness. His nails had been replaced by claws. He resembled the werewolves he had once seen on Teen Wolf but these were far more real. He scrambled backwards and Emeka laughed as he slowly walked to Odion. His demeanour like a predator that had cornered its prey. Odion knew with a certainty that he was going to die but now he knew the truth. He didn''t mind that much.

 6-Ise

    Ebe onye dara ka chi ya kwaturu ya.


    Where one falls is where his god pushed him down.


    He felt hollow on the inside. It was like his very soul had been ripped out and now there was nothing left. He had nothing left and the knowledge of that shattered him. It broke his very being, robbed him of every incentive to even live. It was a feeling so encompassing that Odion didn''t even realise he''d been punched¡ªright across the jaw. He stumbled on the cold ground, one hand to his mouth. His brain was still trying to register this when a kick seemed to come out of nowhere. It blinded him momentarily and all he could see was a bright light. Then the darkness creeped in again, and he could see properly. Emeka¡ªor what used to be Emeka¡ªstood there, grinning with unrealistically sharp teeth. They all wore their usual dark worn clothes, that were torn at odd places, not that any of them seemed to mind. The smell was almost unbearable, a putrid disgusting smell that reminded Odion ominously of...death. He was about five paces away from Emeka who stood in front and yet he could still smell them. Behind Emeka and his gang, the sun seemed to be peeking from the darkness and it was sending out tendrils of light that were glittering the sky. Odion would have considered it quite beautiful, if he wasn''t going to die at that moment.


    Emeka snarled and the others snarled in agreement, literally snarled and when he spoke, even his voice was different. It was raspier, if broken glass could somehow possess vocal abilities, it would sound like this. "Where is it?" he asked while slowly walking towards Odion. "Where is it?" Odion had been faced with deathly odds and yet, something was nagging at the back of his mind. Something that would not go unsaid.


    "So you''re an Ogbanje, like me?" Odion asked.


    Emeka cocked his head to the side as if pondering a serious issue, then¡ªsurprisingly¡ªhe laughed. It was a cruel, sordid sound and then the others joined him so they formed a cacophony of deafening laughs. Then he saw a movement behind Emeka, almost a shadow, it was probably just a trick of the light. Emeka had stopped laughing by now and was now using his clawed hand to clean his eyes. Well, now he knew. Ogbanje could cry.


    "You''re a case, Didi." Emeka said with pure disdain. Then there was that movement again, he was sure now that he wasn''t imagining it. This time the shadow moved swiftly and took one of Emeka''s minions with it. Emeka was oblivious to this and kept his focus on Odion. Odion muttered something in response. Emeka was now standing over Odion, looming over him like a giant. "What did you say?" he asked, he was clearly not used to this kind of insubordination from anyone he was speaking to.


    "Don''t call me Didi," Odion responded defiantly as he stood up from the ground, even though Emeka was about four years older than him. He was now standing in front of Emeka and now he could fully appreciate just how tall Emeka was. He could literally look down at Odion. From the corner of his eye, he could see that the shadow had taken out every member of Emeka''s gang and was now headed towards Emeka, stealthily. He had to keep Emeka''s attention on him.


    "All these years, I kept you around, I gave you shelter," Emeka said with anger. "And this is how you repay me? By hiding things from me? And who told you that you were an Ogbanje? How stupid¡ª"


    He would never know what Emeka was going to say next, because at that moment, a glimmer of a shadow spread across his neck and his head turned upwards at an odd angle. Odion almost looked to see what Emeka was inspecting, until he looked closer. Emeka wasn''t looking up. His neck had been broken. His body, now lifeless, slumped down on the ground to join the others. The shadow and Odion were now the only ones that stood.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "Oh, oops, let me slip out of this," the shadow said as a boy who looked like he was his age, slipped out of the shadow like they were robes. The boy looked familiar, though Odion couldn''t remember ever meeting him. He was bald¡ªwhich was odd¡ªand was wearing a green T-shirt and black jeans with sandals. He had broad shoulders and an athletic build but he looked like he was also strong. His eyes had a sharp colour and he radiated a kind of aura. Sango had radiated a kind of calm strength but this boy seemed to radiate pure chaos and anarchy. Just being around him made Odion''s darkest thoughts come to life. Odion knew now without a doubt that this boy¡ªeven though his looks said otherwise¡ªwas a god. After Odion''s recent encounter, he was strongly encouraged to be reproachful of strangers offering help.


    "Who are you?" Odion asked with hidden suspicion.


    "Why so angry?" the boy said, so maybe the suspicion wasn''t so hidden after all. "I did just save your life. Ogbanje, sad folk. Come let''s go somewhere else, this place is depressing me." He said this as he gave an outstretched hand with Odion saw was adorned with rings on each finger. Odion knew he should be more careful but then again, if this boy had wanted to kill him, surely he would have done it by now? And Odion was tired and hungry and exhausted, he needed to rest and eat before he collapsed.


    He took the boy''s hand and then the world turned sideways and the alley peeled away. Suddenly they were in some kind of mall, Odion remembered this place and his body tingled with memory. This was where¡ª


    "The Palms." The boy announced with outstretched arms that reminded Odion of the statue of Jesus in Rio. "This is a great place, everything you could possibly need."


    It was early in the morning and not many people were around, in fact it seemed that only shop owners were here. The stores were all lined in one big row and there was a food court that was divergent from all the other stores. There, there were food of all kinds and even a seating area. Upstairs was where the movie theatre was and the last time he was there, there was an ice cream store. What was it called? Vanilla Royal? Or something along those lines. The boy was moving like he owned the place and entertaining Odion with mindless chatter he could do without. There were two entrances and they had come from the one furthest from the food court. The place smelled like food as always, the boy went into the food court and Odion followed, only to find all of them closed shut with iron railings.


    "They don''t open this early, let''s just¡ª" Odion began. Then the boy snapped his fingers and green sparks flew. Magic. Odion flinched reflexively and suddenly the whole place flared up in bright lights. Odion used his hands to protect himself from the glare. When his eyes had been accustomed to the light, he put his hand down and realised that all the stores were now open, their machines moving autonomously and making food from ingredients that seemed to come from nowhere. Odion looked in wonder as the smell of food wafted into his nose, it had been so long since he''d had a good meal. If any of the other members of staff noticed, none of them approached the two teenage boys casually sitting in the food court at dawn. Once seated, the boy stared at Odion with an intense gaze, his eyes were almost mesmerizing, taunting him to look back. The boy snapped his fingers again and food flew in from the stores, flooding the table and soon enough, the table was more food than metal. Didi didn''t need to be told twice to eat. He stuffed food in his mouth, not even bothering to0 savour the taste, he hadn''t eaten good food in so long.


    The boy didn''t eat, though. He just sat back and watched until Odion paused to take a drink from the Coca Cola bottle beside him. "So, you found out about your parents?" the boy asked without any premise.


    Odion pushed the food away and hung his head while murmuring an affirmation. He had tried not to think about them for a while but now they weight of the truth was crushing him. He felt lost and tired and alone. The boy carried his chair and moved beside Odion and stroked his hair while Odion began to sob. The boy kept on muttering, "It''s not your fault, it''s not your fault". Odion wasn''t even surprised by the tears, Ogbanje could cry after all. The boy just kept on muttering, looking sadly at Odion with those eyes. Those sharp green eyes.

 7-猫f脿

    B¨ª ??m¨ª b¨¢ w¨¤, ¨¬r¨¨t¨ª ¨½b?.


    As long as there is life, there is hope.


    Some years ago, he had once watched a documentary about soldiers and the trauma they faced in the battlefield. One of the soldiers, an amputee, mentioned that life after war was almost unbearable. He said something curious, though, he said that even though his left arm was gone, sometimes he could still feel a sharp pain in it from time to time. Odion had asked his father at the time about this curious phenomenon, he still remembered the warm smile on his face, a smile born out of one''s amusement at his son''s unbridled curiosity. His father was in the study at the time, working on a paper. He wore his faded nightgown that was surely older than Odion by then and his reading glasses were fastened onto his head. On hearing Odion''s question, he patted his lap for his son to sit on it and explained what he wanted to know. "It''s called Phantom Pain, Didi. It''s¡ªhow do I explain this now¡ªthe pain you feel once a part of you has been cut off from the whole. Nobody is really sure why it happens, but it just does."


    Odion felt like that now. His parents, an integral part of his life, were gone but the loss still hurt him. He had always found it funny how emotional pain could manifest itself physically, but now he definitely wasn''t smiling.


    His chest hurt, it felt like there was a huge gaping hole in it and he wasn''t sure he could close it. When he was growing up, he made a mental list of all the weird things he had encountered in his everyday life. One of them was time, it did this funny thing depending on whether or not you were focusing on it. When you''re paying close attention to it, like staring at a clock or a wrist watch, it seemed to slow down and stretch interminably. But when you weren''t paying attention, like when you were crying on a cold iron lunch table, grieving your dead parents who you just found out you killed because you have an evil demonic side to you, time seemed to move impossibly fast. Odion raised his head up, finally, to find that it was now noon. People were now walking in and out of the shops, eager to beat the mall''s rush hour.


    Odion loved observing people, it gave him something else to focus on, a distraction from his own dark plight. Odion watched a couple walk out of a store with a brightly lit sign on the top that said, "GAME." The woman was brightly dressed and appeared to be in her early twenties. She had a small afro and circular glasses were perched on her round nose. Beside her stood a tall lanky man dressed casually in a shirt and a pair of jeans. What really caught Odion''s eye, though, was the little girl that was tottering between them, she looked about two or three years old dressed in a little pink pinafore. She smiled with her rosy cheeks and Odion could see barely the little white teeth that had just begun to peek out from her light pink gums. Odion smiled faintly at the small family. They reminded him of a better time, a peaceful time. A time when his parents were still alive. A time when he was happy.


    Okay, enough of that. He had to compartmentalise these feelings and push on, that''s what he''d been doing all these years, after all. But one thing was for sure, he was going to find who was behind all this. He was going to find who cost his parents their lives and the person who robbed him of a normal one. They would not die in vain.


    And if the world was in danger, he''d probably save it along the way. Probably.


    "Are you quite done?" The green eyed boy asked in exasperation. Odion jumped, he''d almost forgotten about him. There was something strange about him, though. He looked a bit tired after all this time, it was like the magic he was exerting to keep them both hidden had suddenly begun to take its toll. Beads of sweat were coming down his face and his fists were clenched, his palms already turning red. Huhn, Sango did mention that the gods were getting weaker, so maybe this was a¡ª.


    "You''re a god aren''t you?" Odion asked while pushing the food away from him. Play time was over, he needed to start moving. "You don''t look like one but you are, aren''t you?"


    The boy rolled his eyes and placed his two legs on the table and crossed them. "Well, it took you long enough, you''ve been moping for gods know how long." He took a grape from their table which was overflowing with food and popped it in his mouth. "And to answer your question, yes, I am a god. An amazingly dressed one at that." He said this as he gestured to his clothes and then Odion realised that he had somehow changed his clothes into a bright green kaftan, adorned with golden orbs and trousers that were black and made of a dark material Odion couldn''t quite identify. His shoes were bright green and shone with a somewhat ethereal glow.


    "And how are you doing this?" Odion asked as he gestured towards the glimmering green hemisphere surrounding them, obscuring them from view.


    "Amazingly," the boy answered as he flashed a toothy grin, the same one a predator would give to a nice juicy prey. Odion didn''t know what happened then but something in him suddenly tingled, his whole body seemed to be saying, Danger, danger, run away. Now that he was alert, he could feel it all over his body, whoever this guy was, he was bad news.


    Odion began to stand up. "Thank you for the meal and company but I have to go now, I have a que¡ª"Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    An invisible force knocked him back into his seat. He looked over at the boy and he had two outstretched fingers in the air and as he gestured, the force pushed Odion down even more.


    "I didn''t tell you we were done," he said calmly. "I have a proposition for you."


    "Who are you?" Odion asked, fear creeping into his voice.


    But then, something happened, a voice from inside of him answered, a deep baritone voice that Odion knew was familiar.


    He is Eshu, a dangerous cunning being, be wary of him.


    The boy or Eshu, tilted his head sideways as he stared thoughtfully at Odion. Odion was almost scared he had heard but Eshu just continued. "I''ve been following your journey since you were a child. The easy life was really not the path that you were meant to have. But I can give it to you, I can give you the peace you so clearly want."


    Eshu waved his hands and it was like a green fog rose from the earth and obscured all of Odion''s senses, it smothered him until he welcomed the oncoming blackness.


    Odion woke up and his whole body felt sore, it was like he''d walked ten miles. He groggily opened his eyes, tried to sit up but failed. He looked around and he then realised that he where he was. It wasn''t possible, there was no way this was happening. He summoned the strength to stand up from the Spider-Man customised bed, went to the bathroom and his heart stopped.


    He was twelve years old again.


    He was in his old house again.


    Then, did that mean¡ª


    A soft knock came from his door and Odion whipped his head around, he looked down at himself and he was clad in grey pyjamas. This was getting weird.


    The knock came again.


    "Come in," Odion shouted.


    A man walked in, he seemed to be in his early forties and some grey hairs were peaking from his afro already. He had a small managed beard but he was quite tall. He spoke with a deep, cheerful voice. Odion splashed water on his face quickly and left his brightly lit bathroom to meet his father. When he came out, his dad was already sitting on the bed. For such a large man, he looked nervous, scared even.


    "Odion," he said, "I''m about to show you something and you absolutely cannot tell anyone."


    "Even Mum?" Odion asked. His voice had also changed, he sounded a lot younger and more cheerful.


    "Especially her," he replied. Then with the caution of someone revealing a dangerous weapon, he brought out a rectangular box. He opened it and Odion gasped as he saw the beautiful translucent pearls. "Today''s our fifteenth anniversary and I got this for her. Do you think she''ll like it?" He looked at Odion carefully, he clearly wasn''t used to buying jewellery especially for women and was unsure of the gift he had gotten his wife. Odion nodded fiercely and his dad let out a gasp he probably wasn''t sure he was holding in.


    "Breakfast is ready, boys," a feminine voice called from downstairs.


    His father quickly got off the bed and composed himself, he gave Odion a sideways look before he left. "Brush your teeth and come downstairs quickly, so she won''t think anything is odd."


    Odion stared at the door for some time after his father had left. Both of his parents were alive? What was going on?


    He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth and made his way to the door of his room. He took a deep breath and turned the knob, then made his way downstairs. He dragged his hand against the white walls, something his mother always chastised him over. On the staircase, pictures of his family were arranged in chronological order. He peeped one where he was still a baby and he sat, droopy eyed between his smiling parents. Another one was with his mother holding him, beaming as if to say, "Look, I made this." He smiled, these were better times.


    Before he even entered the kitchen, he could smell the bacon frying on the pan and his stomach rumbled in response. He took a right turn and pushed the double doors into the kitchen to find his mother, busy behind the cooker while his father was busy setting the cutlery and plates on the kitchen table. They both did their jobs without bumping into each other, working in unison like the gears in a machine. He had always find it odd, there was a dining table beside the sitting room yet they never ate there. Starting to think about it, did Nigerians ever all eat on the dining table?


    "Good morning mummy," Odion said as she dished food on a plate. She turned around and her face made Odion''s chest clench. Her face always had his natural glow in the mornings. This day, her long dark hair was hung in a ponytail that accented her round brown face. She had a war radiant smile as she looked at Didi, saying, "Good morning Didi," she said, "I hope you slept well." She said as she sat down and gestured to Didi to sit with his parents. Didi sat down and looked at both of them, it had been years since he had seen their faces like this. Not marred in blood and darkness in his memories but just them, in their brightest forms. Didi saw his father fumble through his pocket as he looked at his wife nervously. "Honey, I, uh, go you some¡ª"


    Didi didn''t know what his father was just about to say because at that moment, everything paused. The whole world seemed to be at a standstill. Didi looked around, alarmed. "Mummy, Daddy, what''s wro¡ª"


    "Nothing is wrong, Didi," a smooth voice said from behind Didi. He looked behind and almost fell off the chair. A large bald man in a dark green suit had suddenly appeared behind him. He looked unfamiliar apart from a striking feature. His eyes were a striking green colour. The same colour of leaves in the early morning, except from the fact that leaves didn''t look at you menacingly.


    Eshu stalked towards his father and plucked the rectangular box from his father''s frozen fingers. He opened the box and brought out the pearls as he playfully displayed them. A malevolent smile on his face.


    "Look at all this," Eshu said as he gestured around him to the now frozen world, "I can give you all of this and more. I can keep you in this frozen world while your body will be in a dream state. I can give you your parents."


    He walked towards Didi, the heels of his shoes calmly hitting the tiled floor. He came behind Odion, his cold fingers brushing against Didi''s shoulders. He leaned in and whispered into his ear. "You can have it all. You can live out your days here and all you have to do is sleep forever. So pick, young warrior. Would you rather rest in endless sleep and stay here with your parents or would you rather wake up and welcome that mundane and harsh reality you call your life." With that, he crushed the pearl necklace between his fingers and the pearls clattered on the floor.


    The sharp sound filling the air.

 8-Asaa

    Oge adighi eche mmadu


    Time and tide wait for nobody.


    "What''s the catch?" Odion replied, defiance creeping in his voice. He didn''t know why but maybe all the years living on the streets of Lagos had taught him one vital lesson: in this life, nothing came free.


    "Something is coming," Eshu replied, "and judging by the looks of it, you have something to do with it." He looked at Odion with those cold green eyes of his and walked closer to him. "I also suspect that I am not the first god you have come in contact with, I can feel their aura around you, it''s strong but faint."


    "But why do you want me out of the way so badly?" Odion retorted, swiftly changing the subject.


    "I''m the god of evil, mischief and all the things that are...let''s just say, ''less than holy''." Eshu responded with a smirk. "In this coming conflict, I know where all the gods will lie, but you, I have no idea of who or what you are. You''re new, and I despise new things."


    Eshu walked over to Odion''s frozen mother and stroked her cheek with his right hand which was adorned with emerald rings. "So pick, young one. Leave this war, it has nothing to do with you, stay with your family. Don''t you ever wish you had more time with your parents?"


    Odion looked at his parents one more time. He saw his mother, so vibrant and young, so full of life. He saw his father, strong and hearty. They were dead, but their memories lived on inside of him and when he needed strength, he used those memories to remind himself that it wasn''t over. He was a born catholic but nowadays, he didn''t pray to God or invoke the name of saints. When Odion prayed, he spoke the names of his loved ones, the ones that gave him love. The ones who showed him strength. The ones who reminded him of hope.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    He understood then what he had to do.


    "My name," Odion said surprisingly calmly, "is Odion."


    Eshu cocked his head in apparent confusion. "What?"


    "My name is Odion," he said again, his fists clenched. "Not, ''young one,'' and I am the son of Wale and Lotanna Enitan and I will avenge their deaths." Odion unsheathed Sango''s dagger from his waistband. "No matter what it takes."


    Eshu''s eyes narrowed, and right then Odion was sure he was a god. He felt waves of anger and fear wash over him, threatening to pull him down. He felt like he was a child again and he was being taken back to the day his whole world turned upside down. He dropped to one knee and clenched his head in pain, he felt so scared, so tired, so alone.


    You are not alone.


    The pain momentarily stopped, did that voice just come from his head? Suddenly he felt a huge surge of strength and Sango''s dagger in his right palm felt warmer, emanating a glowing aura. He stood up and faced Eshu squarely. Eshu looked at Odion and cocked his head to the right, as if he was studying a new discovered specimen.


    "Where did you get that dagger?" Eshu said, pointing at the blade in Odion''s hand.


    "Sango gave it to me." Odion replied, readying himself for a battle.


    "And pray tell, was ''Sango'' wearing a blue necklace, pale blue?" Eshu asked while smiling.


    "Yeah, he was."


    At this, Eshu smiled again and began to laugh, it was a disgusting sickening sound and it made Odion''s skin crawl. Eshu carried on like this for close to a minute and then stopped, still laughing a little. "Oh, this is good. She plays a long game but a good one nonetheless. I don''t want you anymore, though. I want to see how this pans out so I''ll let you go. I''ll be keeping my eyes on you, you seem interesting." He said while staring intensely at Odion. "So goodbye and let''s hope you do better on your quest than you idiot father."


    Odion was done, that was the last straw. He was tired of being looked at and talked to as a child, and how dare Eshu insult his father? Odion lunged at Eshu with a shout and the dagger drawn. Just when the dagger was about to make contact with Eshu''s chest, he evaporated into green mist and when Odion came out of the other side, he realised where he was.


    He cursed Eshu under his breath. He had sent Odion back to The Palms shopping mall.


    Odion looked around to assess where he was. It had been a long time since he was here, but the entrance still looked the same. He sheathed the dagger conspicuously and moved out of the gate, hailing a Keke¡ªas they were called¡ªon the way to meet the weeping woman and continue his quest.

 9- ??sè°©n

    ??s¨¢n


    ¨¬b??r¨´ ej¨° ¨° j?? k¨¢ t? ?m? ej¨° m??l??.


    Fear of the snake keeps one from stepping on the young of the snake


    The people of Lagos had this atypical look. Odion observed it on the people walking on the street as the wind blew in front of him, he hated using this mode of transportation, though, ¡ªhe always felt like he was going to fall off and get run over by a trailer.


    Odion was nothing if not rational.


    The Keke picked him up and drove him through the Lekki - Epe Expressway, Odion looked left and he could still see the British International School, the same school his cousin went to. They moved through the road skittishly to try and avoid the traffic that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Lagos, you could say, was divided into three main parts. There was the Mainland, which housed most of everything actually was. The airport, stadium, and most museums were located there, so basically anything worth looking at. Odion liked it there, he used to live there afterall, back when he was younger, until his father had decided on a change of scenery. Quite abruptly, nw that he thought of it. There was also the Lagos Island, where he was going to to find the statue of Sango. There were lots of tall buildings around there, lots of corporations seemed to have chosen there as their headquarters, maybe due to the availability of space. Then there was the Island part of Lagos, people seemed to view anyone who lived there with reverence and awe. It was where he was just leaving. The same place that The Palms Shopping mall was located in. He had also lived there, back in the days he had a place to live. The Island part of Lagos was high-end and mostly the richest could afford to even live there. Those were the three main parts of Lagos and it seemed that they were all riddled with an unnatural traffic that seemed to plague the state itself.


    It was barely past noon, Odion thought, only in Lagos would you find traffic at this time. It seemed that the only way to avoid traffic in Lagos was to not come to Lagos at all. Odion turned his head and glanced at the two other people in the Keke with him. The Keke itself was something not too different from a tricycle, a large one that is. In the back, there was ample space to allow three grown adults sit comfortably. One of them was an old gritty man who had a pungent smell, it reminded Odion of stale fish. His clothes were ragged and dusty and his slippers looked like they were being held up by tape. Odion stole several glances at the man and noticed that he was shaking, seemingly uncontrollably and every few minutes, he rubbed away something invisible from his nose with his right hand. Odion took a deep breath and tried not to think about it too much. There were different types of people in Lagos and not all of them were "good."


    Upon reaching the roundabout, the man seemed to lose his patience and paid the driver so he could get out. He shuffled past Odion and ran across the street to a small shelter where a woman there sold local gin. Odion had heard of men like that. Any little money that came to their hands was quickly spent on the funding of their acts of vice and debauchery. The man had the look too, Odion noticed, but a variation of it.


    The middle-aged woman who was left in the Keke with Odion was also watching the man. As he left, she hissed and said something under her breath. Odion didn''t hear but he could tell they weren''t word of encouragement. She was dressed in a rich buba with bright colours with a bundle of cloth in her hands. She smelt like freshly prepared food, maybe she came from a wedding?This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "Stay away from people like that oo," She said in the shrill loud voice Nigerian women were practically known for. "That''s not what your parents are sending you to school to do." Odion wasn''t paying particular attention to her and didn''t reply, he was too busy in his own mind, planning and scheming on how he''d make it out of this mission alive. And also, some Nigerians seemed to have this sense of entitlement regarding other peoples'' lives and it was just irritating. She looked at him again and repeated herself, and this time Odion had no choice but to reply and say thank you. He used the opportunity to look more closely at her and noticed that the bundle of cloth that she was holding was...moving? She held the bundle of white cloth towards her face and started making cooing sounds, only then did Odion see the peeking round bubbly face of a baby from beneath the cloth. Odion''s heart softened when he saw the baby and then he understood why she was so bothered about him. It was hard enough raising a child, but raising a child in a dangerous world made it an even more tumultuous journey. She was telling Odion what she would have told her son had he been able to fully comprehend her words.


    Odion looked at her face and saw the look again. For a while he had been trying to use his words to describe fully what the look translated to and now it seemed that he knew the answer. The look translated into pure and utter defiance. Refusal to break. These were people who the world had threatened to break but would not yield. The look seemed to tell the world, "Really? Is that all you got?"


    Odion looked at the rear view mirror and saw his face reflected back at him, and he saw¡ªhidden behind all the apparent anger and vengeance--the same look he had seen countless times on others.


    The look of endurance.


    The look of Lagos.


    The driver turned into Nnamdi Azikiwe St and he marveled at the tall buildings he was surrounded with. He didn''t really get around much these days, but still, this made his jaw open.


    He felt it before he even realised where he was. His whole body seemed to tingle as they drove into the road that led into Marina. His head buzzed and his skin crawled, there was some serious magic going on in here and he could feel it down to his very cells.


    Then the smell hit him, it was like all the livestock in the world decided to have a meeting and they decided that Marina would be an appropriate venue.


    The driver rode the rusty Keke into a Mobil filling station with a brightly lit sign and pulled to a shaky stop. Odion got down and arched his back to stretch, he also used this time to carefully survey his surroundings. It seemed that people had made a living on these streets. He walked a little outside the filling station towards the street and on the other side, he saw an assortment of goods, presumably for sale. Shirts, trousers, shoes, you name it. Marina seemed to be the place where everything sold. He could probably have watched the whole street dynamic all day but there was this naggy feeling at the back of his mind.


    And then he rememebered, he hadn''t-


    "Bros, you no pay oo," the Keke driver said. Clearly frustrated by his passenger sight seeing instead of pocket reaching.


    Odion didn''t even need to check his pockets to know that he was dangerously broke. In fact, the only way he had gotten money was through the gang. But they were behind him now.


    Hopefully.


    He pleaded with the driver, trying to explain his situation as best as he could. (Hi, my name is Odion and I''m a sixteen year old and I just watched a mythological god die in my arms, fought with supernatural cursed teenagers, saw my dead parents and got transported by an evil god who now hates me. Sorry I don''t have any money.)


    The man was not having any of it, he stepped out of his vehicle and the woman who Odion had sat beside nodded her head, making tsk tsk sounds, as if she had known from the beginning that Odion was a bad egg.


    Not knowing what else to do, he did what he did best. He ran.

 10- Iri

    Ihe ehi h?r? gbalaba oso ka okuku huru na-at? onu


    Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.


    He loved running almost as much as he loved eating food out of bins for the past four years which¡ªself-explanatorily¡ªhe didn''t love that much. It had been years since he had an asthma attack but suddenly he could feel one creeping up, threatening to darken his vision and take his valuable breath away. He felt the rhythm of his feet hitting the wet, marshy ground, hearing the faint voice of the driver.


    "Ole," the driver shouted from the distance, "ole!"


    He ran past all the stalls, pushing shirts, trousers and the occasional livestock out of his way. He didn''t think about the faces he passed at the marketplace that looked at him with disgust. He also didn''t mind the fact that there was now a small mob coming together, chasing him. He just paid attention to the ground, tried to keep his rhythm going. Years on the streets had made him lean and fast. You needed to be able to move at any moment''s notice when you were on the run.


    He heard the mob shout louder and his heart skipped a beat. Anything that could excite a frenzied mob was not something he was excited to see. The shouts got louder and before Odion could even look back to see what was going on, there was a sharp crack at the back of his head, just at the base of his skull. The pain and shock of the attack made him stumble and he slipped on the wet ground and dived into the ground. He touched the back of his head and his fingers came back bloodied. He saw a broken Coke bottle on the ground. He always hated Coke and he knew it would be his downfall one of these days, literally it seemed. He was lying down face up on the wet marshy ground, feeling the vibrations on the ground of the oncoming mob. He was bleeding and tired, all he wanted to do was sleep, retreat into the darkness that threatened to encroach into his vision. He felt the blood at the back of his head fall into drops and onto the ground. Just one second wouldn''t hurt, he thought. Just one.


    "Not yet, my child," a feminine voice said from above him. He opened his eyes, fighting the fatigue and tiredness and what he saw took his mind a couple of seconds to understand. She was a beautiful woman, she looked around thirty-two with striking figures. Her fair was let down, jet black adorned with bright attractive jewels, there were so many that Odion couldn''t even begin to name all of them. Her eyes were a dark brown, a shade almost resembling obsidian. Odion attributed it to his lack of blood that was making him dizzy but he could swear that the woman''s brown dress was flowing but in a strange way. As she moved, it broke apart and was soon replaced by new...soil? Odion tried to look more closely at the woman and he realised that her dress was made entirely of dirt. He looked again at her face and was greeted by a warm ethereal smile.


    "Not yet." She said again as Odion gave into the darkness that had been calling him and finally lost consciousness.


    ~


    Odion normally didn''t dream. Whenever he slept, he slept like a rock, no dreams just blank darkness. But ever since his life had been ushered into this weird new phase of gods of magic, strange changes had been happening deep within him. He could feel himself unravelling piece by piece, like his mind and body were actually accommodating the fact that this whole world was bigger than he had thought all his life. It was strange, though, instead of shock, he felt a sense of completeness. Like he had been waiting all his life for the last piece of this jigsaw so that the puzzle could make sense, revealing a picture far bigger than he could ever imagine.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    As he slept, his mind swirled with images, some familiar and some strange. It was like his consciousness was scrolling through channels like on a TV and looking the most interesting scene. The image finally settled and what Odion saw made his skin crawl.


    "So, do we have an agreement?" Eshu asked the person he was speaking to as he was seated on a circular table with an umbrella ticking out the middle. They seemed to be outside. He was dressed with a green long sleeve shirt and was sporting cargo shorts. He wore sunglasses on his face to protect his eyes from the glare of the hot Nigerian sun but even with the glasses, Odion could still see and feel the cold gaze of his emerald eyes.


    The man he was talking so shifted on his seat uneasily while smoking a brightly lit cigarette. He was also wearing sunglasses but unlike Eshu, those eyes did not encase entrancing eyes. The man was dressed in a camouflage uniform like the ones they wore in the Nigerian army except this man''s uniform was a blood curdling red and on his back was slung a long gun that looked suspiciously like an AK-47 made completely of solid silvery iron. His voice sounded like he''d been fed chainsaws at a young age and the very sound of it made Odion want to run away and hide somewhere safe. The man''s aura betrayed the fact that he was a god, it was unlike anything Odion had felt before. Staying next to this man made him feel angry. He clenched his fists in frustration. He hated his life and the course it had taken. Why couldn''t he just have a normal life?


    Be still, boy, be calm. These thoughts are not completely you own, a still voice said inside him.


    Odion took a few deep breaths and slowly but surely, he could feel himself getting calmer. He shook his head finally and returned his attention to the conversation in front of him.


    "You know I don''t like to get involved in these trivial issues. Point me an enemy and I''ll kill him, especially if they''re affiliated to that fool, Amadioha." At the last word, he spat on the ground with deep loathing. "This boy you speak of; I have no problem with him. In fact, his very existence could be just the starter for an even greater scale of war that I''ve been itching for." With this, he tapped the butt of the cigarette on the nearby ashes and brushed off the ashes as he put it back in his mouth.


    Eshu smiled and Odion saw his eyes shine a little more as he leaned forward into the table to get closer to the man and spoke in a barely audible voice. "Sure, the boy may not seem like much now, but he could become a problem in the future. He''s the son of Lotanna Enitan after all," at this, Ogun flinched a little, a movement that was barely perceptible, but Odion saw it and he felt the anger that rippled of Ogun, "he could try to usher in a new age of peace and tranquillity. There will be no more wars, Ogun. Is that what you want?"


    Ogun, so that was his name, what was he the god of again? Cigarettes? Bad voices?


    Eshu''s eyes were practically lit right now and Odion wondered briefly if Ogun could notice. Ogun sat there and seemed to contemplate what Eshu was telling him. He looked briefly at Eshu and their eyes locked. He took a long swig from his cigarette and blew the smoke in Eshu''s direction. "Okay then, I''ll send someone to take care of the little boy, but old friend, why can''t you take care of the boy yourself?"


    Eshu leaned back into his chair. "Well, I would but right now I''m gathering my power."


    "For what?" Ogun asked inquisitively.


    "That''s for me to know and you to find out later when I''m done." Eshu replied with a sly smile. "So, I guess we''re done here, Ogun. And you, boy," He said as he turned his head sharply to Odion''s direction as if he could see him and Odion felt fear ripple through his spine. "You better learn to run; you''re now being hunted."


    On saying this, he laughed. A cruel, cruel laugh.

 11- ??kanlè°©

    B¨ª ¨¬gb¨¤ b¨¢ ¨½gb¨¢ni k¨¢ m¨¢a r??j¨², b¨® p?? b¨® y¨¤ ¨¬gb¨¤ ¨½b?? w¨¢ gbani.


    If time afflicts, one should persevere; eventually time will favour one.


    Odion woke up with sweat on his face, his heart still beating wildly. He looked around his surroundings but it was too dark and he was too dizzy for him to make any sense of it. He sat up and his hand instinctively went to the back of his head, trying to see if his wound was still bleeding. He was confused, as his hand came back dry¡ªwhat the hell was going on? His eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness and he was starting to see more of where he was. It was some sort of cavern buried deep underground. There were objects around that he couldn''t make out quite well in the darkness but there was something in the room, he could feel it. The same way he could feel Sango and Eshu. There was a god somewhere around. He smelt moist stale air and he itched his nose out of irritation. Where was he? What was this place?


    He tried to stand up but his legs failed him and he slumped back down on his backside on the marshy earth. Okay, let''s try this again, he thought. He used his hands to steady himself as he slowly but surely planted his feet firmly on the ground. Now that he was standing, he needed a way to get out of this place, and fast. He was making his way to what he thought should be the cave wall when he felt something slither past his feet. He jumped backwards in alarm, eyes wide with shock. What was that?


    He turned his head left and right but he knew it was of no use¡ªit was way too dark and he couldn''t make anything out. Whatever the creature was slithered past him again and this time he whipped out Sango''s dagger, it''s ethereal light filling the cavern. Why hadn''t he thought of this before? Sango''s dagger could serve as his light source, allowing him to navigate this hell hole he had stepped in. He silently cursed himself for being so stupid. He raised the dagger up to his eye level and proceeded to moving towards the cave. He walked slowly and tried to avoid making any noise so as not to alert the creature of his present location. Something was strange about the cave walls, though. There seemed to be some inscriptions engraved on the walls. Odion looked closer and raised the dagger closer to the walls and realised that they weren''t inscriptions at all, but drawings. He saw strange figures, displayed in different stories.


    He saw young figures with fangs protruding from their gums, feasting on a human being. Odion''s heart skipped a beat, Ogbanje. He saw another scenario where there seemed to be beings all seated around a large table. This must be the pantheon of the gods, Odion thought. He looked hard at the image trying to discern where Sango was or even Eshu but he couldn''t make any of them out. These gods looked a bit more different, they had sterner looks on their faces and their demeanour was calm but vicious. Odion had a sinking feeling of what he had stepped into. He was about to step sideways to see the next image when the creature slid past him again, he slashed his dagger downwards but his blade met nothing but empty air. Whatever it was, it was fast.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    Odion walked in the direction he saw the creature move, he treaded carefully, moving slightly to avoid tripping on the numerous rocks around. He heard it before he saw it. He spun around and slashed his dagger towards the ground, he saw that his blade was about to hit whatever the creature was until he heard a cold stern feminine voice speak out from the darkness that stopped him in his tracks.


    "I know that you were not just about to kill ¨¦ke." The voice said.


    Odion spun on his heels and he saw one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Odion gaped at her, she was tall and had a sleek figure. She wore a light brown dress that went all the way down to the ground but where it was supposed to stop, it just connected with the earth so it was like she was sprouting form the ground itself, as she moved, the earth around her seemed to move with her. With her hands were clasped in front of her coupled with her regal look, Odion would''ve thought she was a queen. Odion was about to say something when something red in the woman''s hair caught his eye. Odion looked closely at the woman''s hair and realised that it was a red ruby quartz. He looked more closely at her hair was braided and twisted down her back and it was adorned with brightly coloured jewels. As she stood, a creature slithered to her feet and circled her, almost protectively. Odion''s eyes had adjusted well enough to the darkness so that he could make out that the creature was a huge brown coloured python as lengthy as Odion was tall. Something clicked inside Odion''s head, this was the same woman that was there at the riot.


    "Am I dead?" Odion asked incredulously. "And why do you have a snake as a pet?"


    The woman smiled, an action that only took a tiny fraction of her face. "You''re not dead...yet, you were just knocked out for about twenty hours and as to your second question,'''' she said as she stroked her python, "why not?"


    She waved her hands a little and behind her a throne made of earth materialised from the ground. On the armrests, there were two lion heads and the throne seemed to be adorned with moving figures. It was like there was a scene playing underneath the thin film of earth. She sat down on her throne and crossed her long legs. She put forward her right hand a little and twirled her fingers and a less than noble stool appeared before Odion, he rolled his eyes and sat reluctantly.


    "I''ve been watching you." The goddess said calmly.


    Odion shifted nervously. "Why does everyone keep saying that? Do you guys have some kind of large television that you use to watch all of us lowly mortals?" Odion said in a mocking tone.


    The goddess simply cocked her head but Odion could see a hint of a smile in there.


    "You would have no way of knowing this but you come from not one but two great spiritual ancestral lineages," she said evenly, "hardly if ever is someone like you born. You have powerful blood pumping through your veins, boy. Most of the gods are watching, so we can know which one you''ll be."


    "Which one?" Odion said.


    "Our uniter," she said gravely, "or our destroyer. You have great potential to be either."

 12- Iri Na Ab??

    Oke oshimmiri an?katagh? rie onye ?b?na nke ? na-ah?gh? ah? ?kw? ya anya.


    The ocean never drowns a person with whose leg it does not come in contact.


    Odion swallowed hard as he tried to process the information. "Wow, okay. But who are you, anyways? The earth and the jewels in your hair, I''d say you were an earth goddess?"


    She nodded, "I am Ala, goddess of the earth, fertility and mortality and I see all." She looked at Odion with her deep brown eyes and Odion could''ve sworn they turned golden for a second. "My husband is the Lord of the skies, Amadioha¡ªwherever he is now."


    "He fell too?" Odion asked.


    "Yes, all of them did. I do not involve myself in such conflicts so I was not affected as such but the others are suffering greatly. In the olden days, any taboo in the community would''ve been seen as an insult to me and punishable by death and I even held the souls of the dead in my sacred womb."


    "Uhm," Odion said wondering why there couldn''t at least be a non-weird god out there. The python slithered around her feet restlessly and Ala sighed in exasperation. She waved her hand and the earth shifted a little and a rat came out of the shifting earth looking confused. ¨¦ke swooped in and ate the whole thing whole. Odion cringed and swore to himself that he would never get close to that thing. The python again rested on the ground next to Ala and gave seemed to give Odion a cold stare as if to say, you''re next, buddy.


    "Anyways, I was never suited for direct combat. Though, that ambush in our palace was unprecedented, but I know the truth and I know that it was unintended by Sango." Ala said.


    "Wait, you know what really happened?" Odion said, standing up from his seat suddenly angry. "Why didn''t you tell the other gods?"


    Despite Odion''s sudden outburst, Ala maintained her cool. "I tried to tell both sides that they were both being manipulated but no one would listen, they were all too bloodthirsty. Now sit down, you''re making ¨¦ke nervous." As if to prove her point, he or she started moving restlessly around her feet.


    Odion was far from done, though. He still had too many questions.


    "Okay, you''re all native gods, how come you all look so modern and wear modern clothes and speak English."


    Ala chuckled, "we the gods evolve and change as you humans do. Look around your country, most of our traditions have been overridden by European culture and as such we gods have reflected that change in our appearance and speech. But it''s not all that bad, they brought books here for instance and without them, how would I have read Chinua Achebe''s¡ªbless his soul¡ªwork?" She said as she looked over in the distance. "Oh, Things Fall Apart was amazing. Even Ikenga loved the book, though it was mostly because there was a character with his name in it. Speaking of Ikenga, I should probably contact him, it''s been way too long."The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Odion interrupted quickly before she spun into yet another story. "When I was a kid, my parents used to tell me stories of the gods but upon meeting some of them, they''re a lot different than what I was told and even some of their roles have changed. Why is Nigerian mythology so twisted?"


    Ala looked at him squarely, "Boy, there is no such thing as ''Nigerian mythology,'' you have to understand. Firstly, for a long time, stories were carried simply by mouth and they were bound to change and ''Nigeria'' is a fairly new concept, before now, all the tribes were separate entities. The gods meant different things to different people and tribes. Sango for instance was largely worshipped as the god of lightning and thunder but in some other places, he was worshipped as the god of truth and reverence. Even the spelling of his name has changed before. So it''s normal to see a little disparity, the stories told by the tribes here are diverse and convoluted and not at all the same nor should they be.


    They represent the people and their beliefs. If I could tell you the number of times I''ve changed over the years, you''d be quite shocked. So, that''s why all the gods have different aspects. Any other questions?"


    "Okay, so I know I''m supposed to get the tools of creation or whatever. But nobody has told me what I''m going to do with them when I have them and I don''t know how to say this but when I touched Sango, I felt him, I saw his whole life flash before my eyes." Odion said.


    Ala stood up for the first time during the conversation and seemed to be pacing. "Hmm, each tool by itself is capable of great things but together, they could give the user the ability to alter reality itself. You could fix all these with just a thought but it only works for one try and then they''ll be scattered again, more apparat than last time, possibly impossible to find again. As to your awakened abilities," She seemed nervous now for some reason, "it is a rare power found only in the high priests of old that allows gods and a human to be in synchronicity but it can be very dangerous on both parties. That is why the gods were able to speak through the high priests, it was like they were one and the same. It is strange though, that you have the skill, no human has had it in hundreds of years. But you will have to discover it more on your own. There is no more I can tell you."


    Odion stood up too, he had work to do.


    "One more thing, can you tell me about my parents and why...I killed them?" Odion asked, his voice barely a whisper.


    Ala''s face turned sad and she walked slowly towards Odion. "I''m so sorry, my child but I can''t tell you anything of what I know. It''s not in the place of the gods to interfere with the affairs of mortals."


    Odion nodded wiping the already forming tears from his eyes. "Yeah, I understand, so please could you do that thing you did with the rat but in reverse and take me straight to the weeping woman?"


    Ala''s face carried a sadness that only a mother could understand or feel. "Yes, I can," she said as she opened her palm and some Naira notes appeared. "and here is some mortal money so you don''t enter another ... scuffle."


    Odion took the money and patted down his pockets to make sure everything was still there before he left. Ala stepped forward and attempted to touch his cheek but midway she thought better of it.


    "One more thing Odion," Ala said, as she walked closer to him. He could even smell her now, she smelt like freshly ploughed soil but he could smell over a dozen sweet smelling flowers too. A strange mix of sadness and kindness tinged her voice, "your parents no matter what, are happy and they are proud of you and what you have the capacity to become. But be careful on your arduous journey, all is not as it seems.


    "Good luck and be safe. In your darkest moments, remember that the brightest light is within you and has always been there, you just have you dig deep to find it."


    And just like that, the earth literally swallowed him whole and he could feel himself being transported, the earth shifting in crumbs around his body. He hated the darkness but now, he quite liked it. After the day he just had, a little time to think in solitude was welcome.

 13- M?tala

    A k¨¬ ¨ª d¨¤gb¨¤ f¨²n ohun t¨ª a k¨° b¨¢ m??.


    One is never too old to learn what one does not know.


    Odion liked Ala''s mode of transportation way better than Eshu''s. It made him feel less disoriented and more energetic, though being enclosed in earth was making him feel claustrophobic. His ears were clogged by the sounds of the earth rumbling all around him, making him near deaf. He tried to peer into the darkness but to no avail, he couldn''t see anything but he could feel lots of tiny little clumps passing his skin. He also felt a few insects crawling on his skin and he gritted his teeth when he realised he couldn''t brush them off with his hands. His arms were locked by his side and he opened his mouth to breathe in deep for a moment and dirt clumps flew into his mouth. Okay, he thought, don''t do that again. His breathing was starting to become erratic and he could feel the asthma attack coming up, creeping round the corner, ready to take his breath away. He wiggled his arms back and forth to try and create more space but it was to no avail, the space was just replaced by more dirt. He was patting down his pockets checking if maybe an inhaler had magically appeared in his pockets. No such luck.


    Odion was having serious second thoughts about Ala''s form of teleportation.


    He was feeling cramped and he could feel the panic attack rising from his chest. He wanted to get out and he needed air. He was fidgeting now, struggling against the earth, trying to make space to allow more air in. And just as soon as it began, the earth around him seemed to slow down. He was rising slowly, the earth was in smaller clumps now.


    Then suddenly, he erupted from the ground, head first. He almost laughed at the feeling of fresh air on his face. The air on his face felt so good that he momentarily realised a not so small issue.


    Only half his body had made it out of the ground.


    Twenty minutes.


    It took him twenty whole minutes to dig himself out of the earth. He was happy but not shocked that his clothes came out unstained. He had come to expect strange things nowadays. Throughout his whole digging experience, not one person came to help him. In fact, nobody even spared him a glance. It was like he was invisible. He wondered if it was an enchantment but then he thought again and remembered his past encounters with the gods. It was like the normal people couldn''t even process the supernatural so their brains just filtered it out, making it appear to be normal. Either that or people just didn''t like his face. He had a sneaking suspicion on which was the right answer.


    He paused to appreciate just how messed up his life had become. He expected strange things to happen to him now. After the past few days he had just had, he didn''t think that anything could shock him anymore. It was like his brain had been stretched to the absolute maximum that if anything even close to more surprising came along, it''s initial reaction was, meh.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    He had to move in order to avoid being bumping into people rushing along the street. One thing was clear, though: Ala had not sent him to the statue of Sango. He looked around to see if maybe he had missed a giant statue of a Yoruba god but he didn''t find anything.


    He was really starting to get frustrated by these gods.


    He craned his neck to look at the top of a UBA bank branch that was situated in Marina. Odion didn''t see many tall buildings in Lagos but he definitely saw a lot now. He decided that he''d just go to the bank and find shade at the entrance so he could figure out his next move. On the way, he passed an old woman selling fruits by the street who was being shouted at by a much younger and much bigger woman. The people around saw the situation but they just looked away, as if they could ignore the problem away. Odion moved closer and found that the woman was pricing the elderly woman''s fruits down to less than half the price. Odion saw the look on the old woman''s face, she wasn''t selling these fruits because she had an interest in the marketing of agricultural goods. This was her way of livelihood and probably her only way. This new government was hitting everyone hard.


    The fruit seller, seeing no other option, agreed to the woman''s price and sold her fruits to her. Odion watched this whole thing play and he couldn''t even process the emotions he was feeling? Sadness? Pity?


    He walked up to the old woman and asked her for an ''Agbalumo,'' what the locals called a kind of cherry. He didn''t even ask her how much it was, as soon as she handed him the black nylon bag, he gave her a one thousand Naira note that he brought out from the wad of cash (courtesy of Ala). She collected the money and was frantically looking for change when Odion walked backwards waving at her. "It''s fine, keep the change." He walked away as he heard her shouting blessings for him and his offspring in Yoruba. He wasn''t particularly religious and yet he found himself muttering, ''amin''.


    Everyone was struggling. Now more than ever, it made more sense to help one another. His mother always drove the importance of love and community to his head and now as he grew older, he understood it better. Nothing worked if it didn''t work for everyone. We were all in this together, for better or worse.


    Odion walked to the bank building and sat down at the stairs leading to the entrance much to annoyance of the apathetic security guard who looked over and continued listening to his radio. Odion opened the bag and remembered that he actually hated agbalumo, the taste made him cringe in disgust. But he was thirsty and hungry and had already bought it, so he decided to eat it anyway.


    He hated staying still and after about twenty minutes of it, he decided he couldn''t take it anymore. He stood up and brushed the seeds of the fruit off his clothes. Maybe he could ask some people around where the statue was. Or maybe there was even a sign that led to it.


    He was already walking to ask the old fruit seller when he felt a warm feeling from the waistband of his jeans. He patted it with his fingers and realised that it was coming from Sango''s dagger. He furrowed his eyebrows in thought as he walked the backwards and then towards the open street, the dagger''s warmth immediately died down. He moved back to his original position and walked forward and it was almost imperceptible but the dagger got warmer. It seemed to be pointing him towards the inner market surrounded by seemingly hundreds of shops.


    Odion whistled appreciatively. "Well, lead the way, then, dagger." He would later question his sanity as he talked to a dagger that once belonged to an ancient god.

 14-Iri na an?

    Si kele onye nti chiri; enu anughi, ala


    anu.


    Salute the deaf; if the heavens don''t hear, the earth will hear.


    He walked for about three hours, as he skilfully manoeuvred puddles and mounds of mud. Nobody seemed to care that he was holding a lethal weapon and he wondered briefly what their brains must be interpreting this as. Maybe they saw a teenager walking his dog?


    All this while, the dagger simply got hotter and hotter, the only clue he had so far that he was going the right way. He soon noticed that the shops were getting fewer and fewer. The inner market seemed to be opening into a kind of grove. Then suddenly, the dagger got so hot that Odion had to let it go and it dropped to the ground.


    Odion cursed silently as he bent down to pick it. When he did, it no longer gave a warm feeling anymore. Annoyed, Odion put the dagger back in his waistband and took a step forward, as he did, he heard the saddest shriek he had ever heard. It tore through his ears and permeated his heart, it was almost unbearable. Odion took a step forward and he fell down on one knee, the sound was killing him. Not literally, he hoped. The sound seemed to inspire all his saddest thoughts. It made him think of all the horrible things that had ever happened to him and all of a sudden, an image of his parents appeared in his mind.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    It may be hard but you must fight it, remind yourself of your quest, the familiar voice inside his head whispered.


    Sango, is that you? Odion thought back.


    The voice didn''t answer back.


    Odion followed the sound weakly down a long path through the scanty shops and it opened into a kind of circle made up of-surprise surprise-more shops. At the centre, he found the cause of the nauseating sound, it seemed to be a woman, dressed in a black dress covered in a black shawl, he was still too far away to make out her facial features but it was what she was sitting on the caught Odion''s attention. It almost made him forget the wailing.


    She was sitting on the pedestal of a statue.


    A statue portraying a large muscular shirtless man holding a hammer in his left hand.


    He had found the statue of Sango himself.


    Huhn, thought it''d be bigger.

 15- M?dogun

    ¨°?p?? ¨°y¨¬nb¨® fi d¨ªd¨´n ?e ?w¨¤, ?¨´gb??n, ewu t¨® w¨¤ l¨¢ra r?? l¨¦ ni ir¨ªnw¨®. /


    The pineapple is quite sweet, but it is replete with dangers(thorns).


    After seeing the real thing, the statue was, for want of a better word, underwhelming. Whoever made the statue had gotten Sango''s muscular body right, to the point. It almost made Odion uncomfortable. Here was Sango depicted in a warrior''s stance with his hammer ready to strike. The only thing wrong was his facial expression, it made him seem brutish and feral but Odion knew better: Sango was as smart as any being under the sun. It was a statue that seemed to be made of copper or an alloy of some kind. It reflected the sun in such a way that it almost glowed.


    Another shriek came and this time Odion fell to his knees, he didn''t know how he could take this for much longer. It was a guttural scream that seemed to encompass every evil and disgusting thing that had ever existed. It wrenched him from the inside and threatened to break his very will.


    Stand.


    With his hands covering his ears, he looked around in suspicion, where had that come from?


    Stand.


    That voice again, ever since Sango left, he had started hearing it, it sounded like Sango but there was something off about it, something he couldn''t quite put a finger on. And yet, whenever he heard the voice, it reinvigorated him, made him stronger and more resilient. Things that he was going to need if he was going to stand a chance with whatever or whoever was making that sound.


    With some effort, he stood from his knees and began to walk slowly in the direction of the figure sitting on the pedestal of Sango''s statue. The more he walked, the more he noticed. The whole circle was empty, it almost looked evacuated. Nobody could''ve endured this sound, Odion reasoned.


    As he got closer, he realised the figure was actually a woman. She was dressed from head to toe in all black with a scarf to cover her head. He was about five paces away from her when he realised the wailing didn''t get to him anymore so he dropped his hands from his ears. There was also something else he noticed, it was about the woman.


    She had no eyes.


    Odion almost threw up as he looked more closely at her face. It was completely wrinkly like she was more than a hundred years old. Her face was so contorted by the wailing that it was like it was locked in a permanent scream. Her feet were covered by her gown so Odion looked at her hands instead. They too were wrinkly and greyish but her nails were longer than a normal human''s. They almost resembled claws.Stolen story; please report.


    "Stop shouting." Odion screamed over the noise. She continued wailing, she probably couldn''t even hear him over the sound she was making. Odion stepped forward and drew his dagger in one swift movement¡ªhe was getting better at using it¡ªand placed the blade at the edge of the woman''s neck.


    "Stop." He said, in a voice that was so cold and stern that even he was a bit scared of himself. Unsurprisingly, she stopped but she didn''t face Odion, she just sat there and looked forward, ignoring him.


    "Uhm, my name is¡ª," he began.


    The woman turned her neck slowly in a rigid kind of way and looked up at Odion. Now that he was near her, he could see that where her eyes were supposed to be, her wrinkly skin just covered it up. There were depressions were her eyes should have been but nothing else. She licked her lips a little before she spoke and Odion saw all her seven teeth, her tongue a pale grey piece of flesh.


    "I know who you are," she said in a raspy voice. Odion almost wished for her crying back. It sounded like she''d been forced to swallow glass shards and this was the awful result. "But what I do not know is why you are disturbing me."


    "I need information," he replied in a shaky voice. "I want to know where the tools of creation are, and how to use them."


    The woman was silent for a while. Then she spoke, "I am an Ori, a spirit of pain, anguish and sadness. I have walked this world for millennia, far before your ancestors learned to crawl. Why should I tell you anything?"


    Odion pressed the dagger closer to her throat, he knew he couldn''t do it but he hoped she didn''t know that. "If you want to continue living for another millennium, you should probably tell me all I want to know."


    "Hmm, want to know or need to know?"


    "What? What''s the difference?" Odion said.


    "Where did you get that dagger, boy?" the Ori asked him.


    Odion gritted his teeth, he hated when he was called boy. But he also knew that right then, she was the only one that could give him the information on the tools. "Sango gave it to me."


    She gave a small chuckle, a sound not unlike a dozen chainsaws being pulled at once. "He did? Hmm. You know, I may be blind, but I see a lot more than you, apparently."


    "Just tell me what I want to know already, what is with you supernatural people and speaking in riddles?"


    "Your name is Odion, yes?" she said in a quiet tone. Asking a question she already knew the answer to.


    "Yes."


    "It is strange, no?" the Ori said thoughtfully. "Your parents, both Igbo and Yoruba gave you a Benin name. Do you even know what it means?"


    Odion had no idea of where she was going with any if this, so he decided to just play along. "Yeah, it means ''the older of a twin.''" He faintly remembered asking his mother why he was given the name but he didn''t even have any siblings. He didn''t remember what happened to lead up to the conversation but he remembered what his mum had said. Her voice a faint whisper, filled with so much raw pain, Odion could feel it. "You don''t, don''t you?"


    "Well," the Ori said, interrupting his reverie. "I''m sure I''ve given you a lot to think about. I''ll tell you where one of the tools is, but do not think I am doing you a favour. I feed on pain and sadness, your plan will bring all these and more. It will nourish me and my sisters so by all means, go on this foolish quest."


    Great, when a spirit of pain and the god of evil personally endorsed your plan, you knew you were in a busload of trouble.

 16-Iri na Isi

    Oge adighi eche mmadu


    -Time and tide wait for nobody.


    "The tools...?" Odion pressed on.


    "Ah, yes." She said. "Well, I know where one of them is. The tools were all involved in creation, they are all bonded together, all paradoxical instruments. The gold chain for instance, is infinitely long and can stretch forever. It is with the Long Enduring, he is still up to his old tricks, I assume. Once you have one tool, it will be easy to find the rest since they all call to each other like lost siblings. Some of the tools may prove difficult to catch, like the two-headed cat¡ª"


    "Wait, what? Two heads?" Odion said, taking a step back in shock. He realised he still had the dagger out and put it back in the waistband of his faded jeans, he really needed to find a scabbard. His legs were getting tired of standing for so long, though. He almost envied the Ori for being able to sit down through all of this.


    "Yes, two heads, was I speaking Yoruba?" the Ori said, her annoyance evident in her voice. "Children of nowadays, you people have no respect, interrupting your elders like that. I can''t blame you, when you''re always pressing your phone, how will you have respect? As I was saying, some of them may prove troublesome but once they''ve all been assembled, they come together to form an object."If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "An object? What kind of object?" Odion asked.


    "How do you expect me to know? Was I there? Nobody else was there, nobody knows, all we know is that with this relic, you can control reality itself. But only once, after that, the tools will scatter again, more distant that before. Possibly even harder to find than the last time."


    "When you say reality itself, do you mean..."


    "Yes," the Ori said as she turned to Odion again and though she didn''t have eyes, he could feel her gaze on him, "with the relic, you can will your parents back into existence, if that is what you wish. Or you could make it so that all things were returned to their natural order and bring the gods back from their brink of extinction. Whoever holds the relic, holds reality itself but¡ª"


    "For only one try." Odion said grimly.


    "Good, so maybe you are not as dumb as I thought."


    "How do I find this Long Enduring?" Odion said. "Is it a he or a she or..."


    The Ori gave a toothed grin. "You will see. Go to the tallest tree in the Marina market, and you will find what you seek, now leave before I kill you."


    He looked up at the statue of Sango, he stood so great and proud. Odion gave the spirit one last look as he turned around and walked away. There was something off about that spirit and he knew somehow, deep inside of him, that he would meet her again.

 17-E茅t脿d铆l贸g煤n

    Or¨²k? rere s¨¤n ju w¨²r¨¤ ¨¤ti f¨¤d¨¢k¨¤ l?.


    A good name is better than gold and silver


    By the time he had walked into the open market, the sun had already gone down. He wanted to continue his search but he knew he needed a place to sleep. He heard his stomach softly grumble but did his best to ignore it. As he walked past the woman who was selling fruits as she packed in her stall for the day and he waved at her, she caught his eye and beckoned him to come.


    Odion looked to his left and right before he crossed the street to her. As he reached her, he bent down to grab one of the wooden chairs she was packing.


    She said something in Yoruba and Odion caught only a few words. He gestured that he couldn''t understand and she smiled as she switched languages and spoke in English.


    "My son," she said in a kind voice, "thank you very much for your help. But why are you out this late? Do you have a place to stay?"


    "Well, no, not really. But ma, you don''t have to worry, I''ll find¡ª"


    "Don''t worry, my child. You helped me and I will help you. After all, if my children were still here, I''d want someone to do the same for them. Pick up that bench and come with me to where I live, you can stay for the night."


    Odion wanted to protest but what choice did he have? He knew he needed food and shelter and this surely beat having to sleep under a bridge or tree where he could get robbed or even worse. So he picked it up and followed her.


    Along the way, he learned a lot about the woman or ''Mama,'' as she told him to call her. She was a single mother with two children who were now in the University of Lagos. They should''ve finished by now but with the continuous strikes that riddled the school, it was almost a miracle to finish at the required course time. Her fruit selling business was how she was paying them through school. She also had to make money through other means so she washed clothes too for a living. Odion was scarce about the details of his life, though. To her, he was just an orphan travelling through Lagos, looking for something worthwhile to do.


    By the time they reached her shack near the seaside, his arms were already burning from exhaustion. She greeted a few of her neighbours before leading him inside. It wasn''t much to look at, there was a bed at the corner of the room and some wooden stools in the middle with a misshapen circular table, all lit by a flickering lightbulb on the ceiling. There was also a wooden clock hung on the wall and beneath it was a torn paper calendar. He smelt a nice odour from somewhere inside and his stomach grumbled in response. He didn''t even know how hungry he was.


    Mama looked at him and smiled, ''don''t worry ehn, there''s some rice I made earlier in the pot and I think there''s still some meat. I''ll get some for you, you must be hungry."


    Odion wanted to protest but his mouth seemed to have been silence by his stomach, so he just nodded in agreement as he sat down on one of the stools. He looked around and realised that even though there wasn''t much, there was still everything. He felt it as he sat, it may not have been much of a house but it was surely a home. There was a small table by his side and on it was a picture of a younger woman holding a baby swathed in clothes and she held a young child with her other hand. The woman''s face beamed and she looked so happy, it almost made Odion uncomfortable looking at the picture. Like he was intruding on something private.Stolen story; please report.


    Her prescence was heralded by the amazing aroma of freshly prepared Jollof rice. He dropped the picture back where he saw it as she came with two plates of food. But the image still lingered on his mind. Nowadays, happiness had become something of a distant illusion but an unwelcome thought crept into his mind: was it really that distant? Maybe after all this, he could have a happy life and find some solace in all the things that happened. He knew it was too good to be true and yet he entertained the thought, let it take shape in his mind as he shut it in the dark recesses in his mind. He remembered how in an English class a long time ago, his teacher had introduced the saying to them, ''if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'' At first, like everyone else, he was dumbfounded but now he found it funny how some things never made sense until they happened to you.


    "I know you must be hungry, so eat up," she said in a kind voice as she sat down on one of the stools, handing Odion a plate. He looked at her and realised that she was probably in her early fifties but work and toil had made her look much older than her age.


    "So," she said, breaking the silence. "What is a young man like you doing on the streets, you looked like you were searching for something, did you find it?"


    Odion shuffled uneasily on his seat, he wasn''t used to people taking an interest in him. His last years on the street had taught him to be secretive. But this woman had offered him her home, what harm could an old woman do to him after all?


    "Well, yes and no. I found it but it only led to more questions." He replied.


    "Come," she said, placing her spoon back in her plate as she set it down. "Where are you from, sef? Because the way you speak ehn, you sound like an ''ajebutter''"


    This was a term Odion wasn''t new to. He had been called it too many times to count. It was a term that denoted a Nigerian who didn''t really act ''Nigerian.'' To Odion, though, it always felt like he was being accused of some kind of betrayal, being able to speak proper English and eat in a certain way. He smiled and brushed the comment aside like he always did. What else could he do?


    "Do you..." Odion said, as he gestured around him.


    She gave an elderly smile as she said, "live alone? Yes, I do. Like I told you, my children have all gone to school. They come back for holidays, sha."


    She saw Odion''s plate was empty and she stood up to clear it, ignoring his protests that he could do it himself. "My roof, my rules," she said as she went to the back through the door.


    She came back with a thin blanket and a wrapper. "you can sleep on the bed, I''ll use these and sleep on the floor." To this, Odion made sure that her wishes weren''t granted. It''d be a cold day in hell before he allowed himself to inconvenience someone who was giving him help. After some arguing, she finally agreed to let Odion sleep on the floor. He didn''t have a watch but he assumed that it was already midnight by the darkness outside. He lay down on the floor and his joints ached, had it really just been only a day?


    As the old woman spread herself on the bed, she fell fast asleep. Odion''s heart melted, she worked so hard. He hoped her children appreciated her as much as he was beginning to. He was looking at the ceiling, thinking of life and the journey ahead. How was e going to do this? He didn''t even feel different. He was still the sixteen-year-old druggie that used to hang out under bridges with gangs. Who was he to save Nigeria or even the world?


    These thoughts paraded around his head to the point where he even doubted he was going to sleep. But sleep, like death always came in the end. He allowed himself to be whisked off in the darkness as he got the best sleep he had had in a long, long time.

 18-Iri Na Asato

    Oke oshimmiri an?katagh? rie onye ?b?na nke ? na-ah?gh? ah? ?kw? ya anya.


    The ocean never drowns a person with whose leg it does not come in contact.


    He woke up immediately as he heard a shrilling howl from afar, his hand immediately going to his dagger which he kept beside him. Odion stood up and looked at the wooden clock hung on the far side of the wall and saw that it was barely past midnight.


    Dogs weren''t uncommon in Lagos but something felt strange about that howl. It shook him to his very core, he hadn''t felt this way since he had been around that god that Eshu was talking to in his dream? What had Eshu said again? Something about a hunt.


    Odion got his tee shirt from beside him and was about to put it on when he heard a scream. That''s not possible, he thought. From the howl he heard, whatever was chasing him this time was still miles away, nothing could possible travel that fast. Then he heard more howls and small rhythms on the floor, like paws.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    He was hearing more screams now, followed by the sounds of feet running on the ground fast. He grabbed his dagger and was heading to the door when he heard mama call him.


    "My son," she said as she rubbed her eyes, resting on her elbow so she could see him better in the dim light. "Why is everybody screaming and where are you going?" Her eyes widened as she looked at his hand and the weapon it held. "Jesu, wha-what is that? Where did you get that?"


    She was backing into the wall now and though the lights were dim, Odion could see the fear in her eyes clearly. "Please," she sobbed as she put her hands together, begging, "I don''t have much, take anything you want, but please don''t kill me."


    Odion raised his hands up and she flinched. He carefully put the dagger back in his waistband and he spoke peacefully to her. "No no, I''m not robbing you, mama. Just go under your bed and stay there, everything will be fine, it''ll soon be over."


    And then the door was broken down behind him.

 19-O贸k脿nd铆l贸g煤n

    ¨¬b¨ªn¨² k¨¬¨ª p?? s? il¨¦ ol¨®w¨® r?? dahoro.


    Anger hardly takes long to render its bearer''s home desolate.


    Whatever it was jumped on Odion''s back and he screamed under its weight. He could feel it''s claws tearing through his clothes easily, digging into his skin. It slammed him to the floor and he could faintly hear the woman screaming, her voice joining the many from outside. Odion just kept praying to whoever was out there that she would have time to escape. He couldn''t have another death on his head.


    It was incredibly heavy and Odion used it to his advantage. One thing he had learnt from all his fights with people bigger than him was this: the heavier you were, the easier you were to be unbalanced. He rolled sharply to his right and the creature hit the floor with a loud metallic clank. Odion heard this and was puzzled as he quickly got on his feet and rose to face whatever it was that was strong enough to break a whole door. The creature was fast too, impossibly so and quickly regained balance. As Odion''s eyes landed on the monster, his hand faltered as he reached for the dagger. This was not even within what he was expecting.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    It was a wolf-like dog but bigger, it''s claws were long and menacing with teeth as big as sabretooths. It''s eyes glowed red and radiated anger and hate. Odion looked into those eyes as they both sized each other up. The creature almost looked intelligent, like it could find a dozen ways to kill Odion neatly. What really struck Odion was the animal''s fur. It reflected light, almost like it was made of some kind of silvery metal.


    Odion assessed all his options and he wasn''t liking them. He knew that the only thing he had in his arsenal was surprise so he rushed forward as fast as he could and struck the dagger downwards in a killing stroke aimed at the dog-wolf''s skull. Odion briefly saw the creature incline its head in confusion like it almost couldn''t believe someone could be so stupid to attack it. Really? It seemed to say, that was the best you could come up with?


    Sango''s dagger hit the dog-wolf''s skin with a loud clang and Odion could feel the vibrations from the contact an it shook his hand to the point that he dropped the dagger. The creature considered the dagger for a moment and ignored it, focusing on the two juicy prey in sight.

 20-Iri ab??

    Ihe di woro ogori azuala na ahia.


    - What was secret is revealed in the market place.


    The dog-wolf took slow steady steps towards the woman, ignoring Odion. It snarled and Odion could see droplets of saliva dropping from the bottom of the creature''s jaw. Suddenly, an idea came to him and he knew it was suicidal but then again, these days, what in his life wasn''t?


    He took the dagger from the floor slowly, trying his best not to make a sound. The creature was still moving towards Mama as she backed into the wall and screamed for help, tears in her eyes. She didn''t want to die, and Odion would make sure she didn''t.


    He was right behind the dog-wolf now so close that its tail almost touched Odion''s knee. And as fast as he could muster, he jumped on the creature''s back and wrestled it down, trying to open up its jaw. He could feel the pain in his palms as its teeth dug into his palm but he kept trying, struggling against a mangled beast as he tried to open its jaw. As soon as Odion saw an opening, he used his dagger and stabbed through the animal''s upper jaw. Sure, it was made of Iron on the outside but its insides were still made of flesh. Odion pushed the dagger deeper into the creature''s skull as it let out a deafening howl and Odion felt his vision double as he climbed off the creature''s back. Odion stood up and stared at the carcass of the wolf. He felt anger and rage and most of all, sadness. How could a being even send something like this after innocent people? And then Odion realised that the people were just collateral damage, these animals had been sent for him and he had put all these people in danger. He looked up and tried to meet Mama''s eyes but she cast them down in fear.


    "Please," she said in between her sobs, "just leave, please."


    "Ma¡ª" Odion began to say.


    "Leave!" she screamed. And Odion didn''t even know what else he could say, how could he even explain?


    He was used to running, by now it had become a second language to him. He left the small community but he stayed and watched it for the night, no more harm would come to this innocent people. In the early morning, at first light, like the moon, he was gone.


    He had a feeling that the man in his dreams was responsible and he swore under everything holy that he would get his pound of flesh


    ''''''


    He began walking as soon as first light arrived. He didn''t know quite where he was going to but he knew he needed to find the Long Enduring as soon as possible so he could get the gold chain and continue with this quest. Every step he took seemed to remind him of the events the day before and it broke his heart every time. He knew he had to leave but that didn''t make him feel less sick. He had cried for hours the night before, wishing t any force in the universe that things could be different. That maybe, just maybe, he could have had a normal childhood, that his parents were alive and there wasn''t a target on his back that endangered even the kindest souls that tried to help him.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Nothing changed as he opened his tear swollen eyes.


    He clenched his fists, his nails biting into the soft skin of his palms. He had to find a way to right this wrong. Somehow. And the god that had sent wolves to that village?


    He was going to make him bleed. He swore to himself at least that.


    Anger was the only thing keeping him going at this stage but he couldn''t deny it, when he had fought the wolves, something in him changed. It was like his blood became pure energy and every part of his body tingled. His eyesight became sharper and he could feel himself getting stronger. He had almost felt like a.... He shook the thought out of his head. What had Ala said before? That he had powerful blood inside of him?


    He stretched his hands in front of him and turned it around. He observed them closely, they were the same hands he had always known. There was the scar on his left thumb that he had gotten when he was seven and had tripped, scraping his arm on the ground. He remembered his father''s faint voice now as he found Odion crying in the dirt, telling him softly that it was okay, that it would always be okay.


    Odion felt the pang in his chest and it was like someone had stabbed him with a knife and they just plunged the blade deeper in his heart. Twisting it to cause him more pain. He turned sharply into Broad Street moving slightly to avoid a young man who was walking briskly. Odion turned his left wrist towards him and only then remembered that he didn''t have a watch. He shrugged it off and decided to ask someone instead. All the years he had been on his own he had never really needed a watch. What was the use? It wasn''t like he had had anywhere to go to. He went towards a man setting up shop and asked him what the time was. Odion thanked the man, bowing slightly as he answered kindly and told him it was just 6:30 in the morning. Seeing the man setting up shop, Odion fully realised where he was. Broad Street wasn''t just any other street in Lagos Island, it was practically the life of the whole place.


    His mother had told him once as they drove by that Broad Street used to be another locality where local families lived but as time passed, it became a lot more. Odion could see from where he was standing that it had become a very commercial area. He could see the faint logo of Access Bank atop its building front his distance and he could tell that King''s College, one of Nigeria''s prestigious schools was nearby.


    He walked down the street and felt a bit intimidated by the large buildings and bustling life of the people and the cars. He knew that although it was a bit quite now, in an hour or two, the whole place would spring to life erupting into a place full of life and business. He looked to his right at a greyish white building with lots of windows, it stretched for quite a distance and was shaped in an L, it was also two storeys tall. He didn''t know why but it reminded Odion of a church but without the crucifix on the outside. After passing the signpost, Odion realised that this was the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization. It was an imposing building, not really emitting a sense of pride but not really one of self-loathing either. He felt like it could use a paint job or two. But that was how it was in Nigeria, he thought.

 M??k脿nl茅l贸g煤n

    Ij¨® t¨ª k¨¬¨ª ?e ij¨® ?ni, ¨¬w??n l¨¤ ¨½k¨® gb??du ?? l¨®j¨²de ?ba.


    Be modest to indulge in a dance you are not adept at, in the king''s presence.


    Arts and literature were given a kind of backseat, thought to be less than politics or science. Things like self-expression and actualization seemed to be things that came hard to his people.


    Further down this road, he knew Freedom Park was down the way. And suddenly, an idea hit him. He was looking for the Long Enduring in the tallest tree on the Lagos Island. Freedom Park had a lot of history attached to it and it was a park, there were definitely lots of trees there.


    He didn''t really have any other plans and something seemed to be drawing him there, the same way he had been drawn to Sango that day. He thought back and it felt like it happened years ago, even though it happened earlier in the week.


    So, he decided he was going to the park. Luckily, nothing wanted to kill him there.


    He patted the dagger in the waistband of his jeans to make sure it was still there.


    Luck hadn''t helped him so far.


    He walked through the tall black gates and as the security guards searched him, he wondered to himself why they couldn''t seem to see or even feel the dagger. It was right there, bulging against the underside of his shirt and yet, not a single cry of alarm was given. Maybe there was a magic spell attached to the dagger that made it imperceptible to everyone else.


    After he was let in, he walked around a little, trusting his instincts to guide him. Freedom Park was a beautifully constructed place now that he thought about it.


    He walked in and his eyes were immediately greeted by a beautiful scenery of shrubbery and statues made of some kind of black stone. He walked on the pathway that led to the main atrium of the whole place. He saw lots of people there and wasn''t surprised, events being hosted here weren''t uncommon since it was a truly beautiful place.


    Odion steeled himself as much as he could, reminding himself of his task and searNd?ng for the tree. As he walked through, he felt something odd, tingling through him. It was a cold feeling that he couldn''t quite pin down and it reminded him that he wasn''t safe. He looked behind him to make sure he wasn''t being followed by yet another supernatural creature that wanted to kill him.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    After two hours of searNd?ng, he finally decided that he needed a break as he sat down on one of the nearby wooden benches to think about what he was actually doing.


    He was looking for the tallest tree in the area and though all the trees were around the same height, nothing seemed exceptional about them. He had found the tallest tree earlier but there was nothing special about it. Just another tree.


    He was staring to get a dull ache in his stomach, what if the spirit had tricked him and now she was still deep in the market, laughing at him. "Silly Nd?ld, what could a tree possibly bring him?"


    He dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand, passers by looked at him in confusion but he didn''t care, he was getting tired of this place anyway. He had read somewhere a long time ago of how the park was once a prison for the queen or something like that. He didn''t know how but the air had a certain weight of it. He thought to himself that maybe sometimes, no matter how well you decorated something, the ugliness of the past still prevailed.


    The past.


    That thought seemed to send a light through his entire being, reminding him of something important that he''d missed. The spirit was old, her skin voice and everything else about her told him that much. She must have existed for a long time but when the age of gods had gone, she must have settled down in that niche, meaning that she probably hadn''t been outside the marketplace in over a century.


    In over a century, a lot can change, and trees can surely die. She had said to look for the tallest tree in the area from what she remembered, for all Odion knew, that tree could''ve died by now or...


    Odion stood up quickly and went to the nearest park attendant clad in a red and black uniform , a short woman who was probably in her mid-twenties. Her round glasses framed her face almost perfectly and she greeted Odion with a warm smile.


    "Hello, good afternoon, what can I help you with?" she said in a perky happy tone.


    "Good afternoon, please where can I find the oldest tree in this park?" Odion answered.


    She looked at him strangely the way any sane individual would if asked such but after a moment of thought, she replied. "Well, there was an Iroko tree planted a long time ago that''s practically rotted by now. It''s been here for ages, even before the times of the civil war. It''s just over there, go forward and turn right and the book stalls." She pointed. Odion shouted a hurried ''thank you'' as he hurried past all the people and went in the directions the woman gave him.


    It didn''t take him long to get to the tree and in a way, he felt it before he saw it. There was definitely something magical there. His body seemed to tingle and the dagger suddenly felt warmer. He turned around the corner and amidst the crowd of people, he saw the tree. And God, it was old.


    It was a crooked thing that time had truly battered. Its roots were still large and its trunk was almost as wide as five of Odion''s torsos. But they were so grey and aged, just looking at it made the Odion feel tired, like his energy was being drained. He craned his head upwards and marvelled at the trees empty barren appendages. They were long and spiky and as Odion walked forward, he could almost imagine this tree as it was before. Young and tall and strong.


    Time kills everything in the end, he thought.

 Og? Na Ab??

    Ch?? ewu ojii ka chi d?


    Make hay while the sun shines


    He noticed that the people didn''t even look at the tree as they passed by and it''s not that he expected them to but it was till strange, it was like it was invisible. Odion was in front the tree now and he noticed a wooden placard that looked like it had been nailed into the soft earth. It read: This tree was generously donated by our sponsors, Hues Inc. Odion looked at the tree and wondered how it had even survived this long and how the "generous sponsors" could even leave the tree to die.


    Something happened then and it was like Odion''s eyes adjusted more. There was a long chain that seemed to be made of pure light and it strung from the highest branch and went all the way down to its roots where it was tied around a turtle that seemed to be trying to climb the tree but each time it kept falling.


    Odion felt something now that he was so close and he knew deep in himself without a doubt that that beam of light was the golden chain of creation. He bent down to pick untie the chain from the turtle when he heard muttering. "I have to get back up...stupid god...must get back...danger."This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Odion whipped is head around to see who had spoken but no one was even around him, let alone paying attention to him. He turned to the turtle and out two and two together. "Well, here we go." He said, thinking to himself if maybe a talking turtle was the strangest thing he had seen so far on his journey. He bent lower and to try and listen more to what the turtle what saying but no luck, just more gibberish.


    The turtle was big, Odion thought, its skin green and scaly but the shell was brightly coloured with warm greens and cold blues with dashes of red. Odion found it beautiful in a strange way. The same way you could look at abstract art and marvel at the absurdity, admiring the beauty within the chaos. Odion looked closely at the turtle and he noticed that something was wrong with its features. He brought his head just near the turtle''s as it made its Sisyphean journey back on the tree trunk and he looked at the face.


    It was the eyes, they seemed more sentient than a normal turtle''s, not that he was an expert. They seemed almost... human.


    He whispered to himself. "What are you?" as he brought his right-hand close to the animal''s body where the chain was wrapped around before realising why that was a bad idea.


    As soon as his fingers touched the turtle''s shell, his mind seemed to shift a bit, welcoming the mind of another, a lifetime''s worth. His whole body went numb as he was taken to another time, another experience, another life.

 M??t脿l茅l贸g煤n

    ?ni t¨ª k¨° b¨¢ gba k¨¢d¨¤r¨¢, y¨®¨° gba kodoro.


    Whoever won''t accept his destined lot per time would end up with nothing


    He opened his eyes and suddenly, he wasn''t himself anymore, he felt shorter, his joints were smaller and more rigid and his body felt heavy and seemed to weigh him down. His eyesight seemed different somehow, the colours were all toned down to an almost greyscale. He looked around and he was in some kind of throne room, but this wasn''t the one he had been when he and Sango had shared minds. Something was off, he thought. There were more art pieces in this one, drawing on the walls that seemed to depict a story that Odion didn''t know. Pottery was arranged beautifully around the room, all crafted with inscriptions and drawings intricately drawn on them. Odion started walking and he knew he wasn''t in control but it still felt like it was him controlling the movement. Whose mind was he in this time?


    A voice spoke in his head, a raspy voice. I am Nwa Aniga, the long enduring.


    Odion was no stranger to voices in his head by now but it didn''t make it less discomforting. He instead decided to focus on the scene, maybe he could learn something from this turtle.


    I''m a tortoise, foolish boy, the voice said in a cantankerous tone.


    Odion inwardly rolled his eyes as he/Aniga began to walk along a long corridor beside the throne room. As he walked, he started to feel anxious, scared even and Aniga''s thoughts began to flow into his.


    What if something goes wrong? What if I have misjudged his situation? What will I-?


    Aniga stopped short of the door at the end of the corridor and took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm himself. The door was a tall and wide one, adorned with bright sparkling jewels, it was made of a dark wood that seemed strong and hard.


    Aniga rose his hand and knocked on the door and only then did Odion realise that he didn''t have hands anymore. These were front feet and Odion looked down and found that he was walking on hind legs. Gods, why didn''t he connect the dots earlier. He was a turtle!


    Tortoise, and if you ask me, it''s definitely an upgrade from your flimsy limbs. Now shut up and watch, the voice said.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Odion started to panic. He suddenly felt uncomfortable and scared. How could he be a turtle? What kind of turtle could even talk?


    Odion was about to ask more questions to the voice when the door opened and he saw who had opened the door. Odion knew immediately that this was a thunder god. His eyes were a light grey, and he had a short wispy beard that seemed to move like storm clouds. Where Sango was built like general, this god seemed to have a runner''s physique. He wore nothing but a simple garb and a golden wrapper that was tied from his right shoulder to his waist and yet, he still looked impressive. He was easily over six feet tall and Odion/Aniga had to crane his neck to see his face. Odion knew who it was without his name even being said. Who didn''t know the name of¡ª


    "Amadioha, my lord." Aniga said as he bowed down.


    Amadioha''s face was emotionless and resigned, like thunder clouds, rearing up before a storm. He beckoned to Aniga to rise with a simple hand gesture and walked slowly into his chambers. As he walked, thunder and lightning seemed to shift with him beneath the folds of his garb. Odion looked closely and realised Amadioha''s skin wasn''t even properly brown, it had a greyish tint making him look like he was part of the storm clouds. Which in a way, he was.


    Amadioha said nothing for a while and Odion could feel Aniga''s nervousness build up inside of him, waiting, in anticipation for what his lord was about to say.


    Amadioha splayed his fingers before speaking, as if to stretch them. "What do you think of Sango''s incoming arrival today?"


    Aniga thought carefully before he spoke. "Sango is a wise deity, he means no harm. He may be the god of war but he believes that our involvement in this mortal issues may¡ª"


    "Our people are dying by the second!" Amadioha said with rage standing up from the throne in the middle of his chambers his eyes glowing a dangerous grey, the colour of flashes of lightning before a storm. "I hear their cries in my mind every single second, how can I not do anything about it? Will Sango stand aside and wait if it were his people?"


    Aniga recoiled at his outburst but still managed to maintain a calm tone despite the fear Odion could feel from him. "Sire, I suggest that we at least hear what Sango has to say to try and avoid a war that could destroy all of us."


    The light in Amadioha''s eyes didn''t die but he seemed to calm down a little as he sat back down with a grim expression. "We will see."


    The scene changed fluidly like water and suddenly, Aniga was in a room that looked like an armoury. It was a small room and it looked like most of the shelves had been stripped bare of the weapons that once held them.


    The war had begun, we needed to be ready.


    He was anxiously searching for something, muttering to himself asking where it was. He bent down low and used his claws to remove the wooden boards on the floor that was marked with a strange symbol. Aniga let out a breath of relief as he saw a deep brown rope that seemed ordinary enough. As soon as Aniga touched it, though, it seemed to become longer and took a golden hue, transforming into a golden chain glowing with an aura that could only be spoken of as divine. It illuminated Aniga''s face brightly, making him close his wrinkly eyelids a little, almost squinting. As he was about to put the rope into his shell, he heard a creak behind him.


    Before he turned, he already knew who he was. He felt the fear before he could see it. Eshu

 Og? na an?

    E chinye mmanya ma a kpat?ghi ya aka, ? b?r? ida mba.


    If the wine tapper does not re-visit the tree top, it appears as if he has abandoned the tapping enterprise.


    His green eyes had taken a manic glint and were now invoking emotions that even the great Aniga found difficult to control. His fears and insecurities, once under his disposal were now grave enemies. Eshu was wearing his battle gear, a dark green dyed leopard skin with adorned with the weapons of his fallen enemies. Swords, daggers and arrows, all of which he used none of; there was no need for weapons when you were the weapon. His beard was scraggly and rough, blood was splayed all over his body, whether it was Eshu''s or a fallen comrade, Aniga couldn''t tell. He seemed stronger than usual and Aniga could feel it from his aura even if he couldn''t see it.


    Eshu thrives and gets his power from chaos and what greater chaos is war?


    Aniga gestured with his left claw and called his staff to come and the 3-foot-long curved stick appeared. It was made out of the first tree to ever exist and it was crafted with all sorts of magic that would hopefully help him in this fight against Eshu.


    "Eshu," Aniga said, speaking with authority hoping to hide the fear he was feeling as he avoided Eshu''s eyes. He knew what they could do. "You know you can''t take this chain from me. The tools of creation must be given freely with the holder''s consent until death as it was in the beginning."


    Eshu simply smiled. "Or I could kill you right now and take the chain." He put his blood covered finger to his chin, comically appearing to think. "But I will not, I do not need the chain for anything, I''m powerful enough now and after you''ve all destroyed yourselves, I''ll finally be able to do what want with this damned world."This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    Aniga willed his staff to glow with power from the earth goddess, Ala. "I will not allow you, Eshu."


    "You don''t have a choice." He answered, suddenly angry. Like a mirage, the world spun and suddenly they were in a prison ground in front of a large tree.


    Eshu spread his arms in a ta-da gesture and Aniga struck even quicker than neither of them had expected but as the staff connected with Eshu''s jaw, it shattered and broke, the pieces falling on the ground turning to dust.


    Aniga recoiled in shock. "But...how...how is this possible?" Aniga said, his eyes widening. In over a hundred years, he had used the staff to vanquish enemies and maybe some friends. How then could he now be looking at the dust particles from this same staff.


    "I told you," Eshu said. "I''m more powerful than I''ve ever been and these pesky tools of creation are a threat." He walked towards Aniga on the floor as Aniga moved backwards in fear. "And you know, turtle, what I do to threats."


    Aniga faced Eshu and a new bravery seemed to form. "Do you worst, kill me and let me die for order and good that I have lived for. Do it, you coward!"


    Eshu flashed his teeth in a sick smile. "I won''t kill you, turtle, I''ll do much worse."


    Eshu knelt down and faced Aniga at eye level, his green eyes shining brightly paralysing Aniga. "Do you remember back then, when you had all your adventures? Before you had gone to the side of the angels?"


    Eshu stood upright and walked to the tree, making Aniga trail behind him. He placed his arm on the tree bark. "I particularly loved the time when you tried to make it to heaven, do you remember? Why don''t you try to make it again, this time climbing this tree? Hmm, how does all of eternity sound?"


    Aniga walked towards the tree, mindlessly as he began to climb, each time slipping and falling down, only to climb up again.


    A Sisyphean journey that would never end.


    Hey! Thank you so much for reading, please don''t forget to vote , comment and share.

 M谩r霉ndi?nl贸?gb??n

    ¨¤gb?? t¨® j? i?u t¨¢n, t¨® t¨²n j? ¨¨b¨´ i?u p??l¨² r??, k¨ª l¨® m¨¢a j? l¨¢¨¤m??d¨²n?


    What will a farmer who ate his yams along with the yam seeds, eat next year?


    The world seemed to tilt and Odion fell away, finally feeling like himself. He fell to his left knee, his right hand to his temple. He hated when this happened but the headaches after were short lived but mind splitting.


    He raised his head up to see Aniga looking at him with brown eyes which were strange for a tortoise, it made him look intelligent and cunning. He was about four feet tall and stood on his hind legs, his shell on his back like a hemispherical schoolbag. His skin was green and wrinkly, his underbelly a dull shade of yellow. He flexed the muscles in his left claw and then his right, he looked at Odion once more and then turned away, walking past him.


    Despite Odion''s state, he stood up and chased after Aniga then dragged him by his shoulder. What happened next was a blur and before he knew it, Odion was belly-down on the ground, his arm pinned behind him.


    He felt the sharp pain erupt at his shoulder point and knew instinctively that it would be dislocated with a little gentle move by Aniga. "I don''t know who you are." He said, with a voice that sounded like it hadn''t been used in a long time. A voice time had long since worn down, leaving strain behind. "And I don''t care, but I have a war to fight, I don''t need this or you."If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Odion would''ve made a witty response but he was too busy concentrating, trying to find his centre like he''d once learned while he wrestled with the other boys in the street gang. He grunted as he gritted his teeth, twisting his waist and as Aniga shuffled to find his bearings, Odion whipped out the dagger, the bright sunlight bouncing off the blade of the knife.


    Aniga stopped then and looked at Odion- no, he looked at the dagger with a mix of curiosity, awe and something else, a deep guttural fear. There they stood, looking at each other, quietly observing.


    Odion took two breaths before speaking. "I know you''re scared and confused but the war is over, but something else is coming and I need the chain."


    Aniga asked simply. "Where did you get that dagger?"


    Odion began to answer. "You just tried to dislocate my should¡ª "


    Aniga moved faster than any turtle should have and he closed the space between them in a matter of seconds, his staff suddenly under Odion''s chin, ready to strike. Odion was really getting tired of being at the receiving end of that thing. "Sango gave it to me before he... before he died"


    Aniga shuffled back as if Odion had hit him, though he had wished he had. "No, no it can''t be. No, she wouldn''t." He muttered under his breath, frantically moving around, circling himself on the lawn.


    "What are you talking about?" Odion asked.


    Aniga ignored the question, waving it with his hand. "You said the war was over, what year is this? What happened?"


    Odion sat down on the lawn, tired from his journey so far and filled Aniga in on everything that had happened. Though he left out some details.


    Something about the turtle didn''t seem right with him.