Ejike The Betrayal

No one in Umuokwe remembered when the moon last rose red, but on the night Ejike turned twenty-five, it bled like a wounded goat. It wasn't just the sky that turned, the wind howled like an old woman mourning a son, and the trees bent as if in prayer.

Ejike, barefoot and half-drunk on palm wine, stumbled out of the village square. Laughter danced on his lips, masking the unease brewing in his belly. He was always laughing. The villagers said he joked to hide something broken inside, something that cracked when his father vanished in the forest ten years ago.

"Ejike the Fool," they called him. "Ejike the Laughing Hyena."

But tonight, even his laughter sounded hollow.

From behind the shrine of Amadioha, an old voice whispered, "He has returned."

Ejike froze. His gourd of palm wine trembled in his hand. "Who's there? I've not yet sinned today, so keep your ghosts to yourselves."

A figure stepped out from the shadows not a ghost, but almost worse.

Mama Udu. The blind seer, eyes whited over like boiled egg yolks. Her voice creaked like bamboo in the wind. "The forest remembers, child. It has been waiting."

"For me?" Ejike laughed again, but it came out choked.

"For what you carry," she said, stepping closer. "Your blood is not clean. It carries a debt."

Ejike frowned. "Look, Mama, I came for celebration, not riddles. It's my birthday. Let me be happy."

But she was already walking away, muttering into the night. "The moon never bleeds without a reason. Tonight, it marks the beginning of your betrayal."

Ejike stood still for a long time, the laughter drained from his face. Behind him, the drumming at the square faded. A wind swept through, colder than a mountain's breath.

And then he heard it.

A scream. Long and sharp. Not human.

Something had come out of the forest.

And it was calling his name.