PART 2: “The Baby Who Brought Fire to the Sky”

“The Baby Who Brought Fire to the Sky”

PART TWO: THE THINGS THAT CRAWLED OUT WITH HIM

Obidi walked into the village square barefoot. Naked. Smiling.

But it was not the smile of a child.

It was the weary grin of someone who had seen centuries burn and men reduced to dust. His feet barely made a sound on the cracked earth, but every step sent a ripple through the air, like heat bending reality. The clouds above twisted, and birds turned mid-flight, fleeing in frantic patterns.

An eerie silence swallowed Odu village once more.

Those who saw him that night swore it wasn’t just the baby that came out of the hut.

They claimed… things followed.

Shadows with no bodies. Whispers without mouths. A crawling cold that slithered along the walls. Doors opened slowly with no wind. Dogs barked and then whimpered, tails tucked between their legs, retreating into the forest.

The village square, once the place for moonlight tales and palm wine gatherings, became a stage for something old… and angry.

“Who is watching him?” an elder whispered.

Obidi stood in the center, alone, looking up at the sky as though waiting for it to speak. When nothing came, he closed his eyes.

And then, he screamed.

It was not a baby’s scream.

It was the sound of a thousand throats, crying out from under the earth.

The sky flared—lightning without clouds, thunder with no rain. Roofs trembled. The well cracked. The sacred tree by the river bent toward the ground as if kneeling.

Then it stopped.

And Obidi opened his eyes again, this time with a soft, infant giggle.

The villagers were frozen. No one moved. Except for old Mama Kaego, who dropped to her knees and began chanting the forbidden hymn of the Elders:

“The sun remembers.
The soil remembers.
The first-born has returned.”

But not all were ready to kneel.

Chief Ogene, prideful and defiant, marched into the square with his staff raised high. His voice thundered, louder than the drums.

“This is blasphemy! This child is cursed! We shall not be ruled by a demon suckling at a dead woman’s breast!”

Just then, the baby’s head slowly turned toward him.

Still smiling.

Still silent.

Ogene faltered.

Then, from behind him, his staff caught fire. The flames slithered down the wood and up his arm. He screamed, tossing it away—but the fire clung like it had chosen him. It crept over his skin like it knew the path.

They say he didn’t die.

They say he vanished.

Vanished mid-scream—as though pulled into the earth.

Only his shadow remained, burned into the ground like a warning.

---

The villagers fled to their homes. Doors slammed shut. Mothers clutched their children. The men refused to speak. No one dared touch Obidi. Not after that.

Except one.

Adaku, the madwoman who lived by the riverbank, approached Obidi under the blood moon. Her skin was marked with charcoal symbols, her voice cracked from years of wailing songs no one understood.

She bent low before the child and whispered:

“You walked with us once, before the first sun. You gave fire to the rivers. You drank the soul of the mountain. Why have you come again?”

Obidi looked up at her and replied, in a voice too deep for his body:

“To complete the forgetting.”

Adaku smiled. Then she screamed.

But not in fear.

In worship.

She danced around him, chanting, speaking names the wind had long buried. And for a brief second, he smiled back.

Then, from the trees, they came.

The Crawlers.

Twisted shapes, half-man, half-beast, with eyes like melting oil and tongues that dragged behind them. They didn’t walk—they slithered on jointless legs, bones bending in impossible ways.

The villagers saw them. From the cracks in their doors. From between fingers pressed tightly over their eyes.

They didn’t touch anyone.

They just stood behind Obidi, as if awaiting instruction.

Then, one by one, they began to mimic the villagers’ movements—mocking them, mirroring them, studying them.

A child tried to run.

A Crawler followed.

The next morning, only his teeth remained on the path.

---

In the following days, rituals returned.

Elders began making offerings to the shrine for the first time in decades. Chickens were sacrificed. Drums were silenced. The moon was watched with reverence, and no one left their home after sundown.

Mma Awele, the boy’s mother, had not been seen since the night Obidi walked out. Some claimed she had been taken by the Crawlers. Others said she had become one.

But her voice could be heard at night.

Whispering lullabies.

To no one.

Or maybe… to him.

---

The village council met in secret.

The plan was simple: End it.

They would lure the baby into the sacred grove and trap him within the Tree of Memory—the only relic left from the old world, the one place untouched by his presence.

The seven elders armed themselves with ancient charms, bones wrapped in ash, and red dust from the River Nzu. They drew a circle at midnight and waited.

Obidi came.

He always knew.

He walked straight into the trap, laughing softly, tiny feet lighting embers with every step.

“Now!” Elder Bako shouted.

The charms glowed.

The earth groaned.

The Tree of Memory pulsed.

And just as Obidi reached the circle—he stopped.

Looked at them.

And began to weep.

Not cry.

Weep.

The sky darkened instantly. The charms crumbled to ash. The tree screamed—a long, shrill noise that bled from the bark like sap.

Then everything went silent.

The next morning, the sacred grove was gone.

In its place: a circle of graves.

Fresh.

With the names of the seven elders carved in bark.

---

Only Mama Kaego remained.

She gathered the villagers and spoke plainly.

“He is not here to kill us. Not yet.”

“Then what?” they asked.

Her lips trembled.

“He is here… to remember. And once he remembers enough… he will become what he was.”

“And what was that?”

She turned her eyes skyward.

“A god who bled nations and built them again with his bones.”

---

And so they began to kneel.
One by one.
Village by village.

Until only a few were left standing.

But Obidi never stopped watching.
Never stopped drinking.
Never stopped changing.

And far beneath Odu, something began to stir.

---

🕯️ TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3