The light from Kareem's flashlight flickered, then steadied.
The ground beneath his feet was no longer earth it was stone, carved into a circular stairwell, winding downward beneath the ruins of Lower Obade. The entry had been hidden under a slab near the altar. A perfect fit. Meant to be forgotten.
Behind him, Amaka followed, cradling the painted jawbone in her pack, the air around her unnaturally still.
Neither spoke.
Words felt dangerous down here.
They descended for what felt like hours.
The deeper they went, the wetter the walls became slick with moss and something that felt more like sweat than moisture.
Then, at last, the tunnel opened into a chamber.
Wide. Circular. Ancient.
Its walls were covered in pictograms crude drawings of a woman surrounded by waves, her arms bound, her mouth open in a scream that stretched across every wall like a repeating curse.
In the center of the room lay a pool.
Still. Black. And whispering.
Beside it sat a boy.
Ola.
He didn't look scared. Or even surprised.
He looked... calm.
"Hello, Kareem," he said.
Kareem ran to him. "Are you hurt? Where have you been?"
"She showed me," Ola said quietly. "Everything."
Amaka stepped forward. "Who? The woman in the river?"
Ola nodded. "She's not evil. They made her that way. They used her. Bound her voice. Made music from her bones so people would forget what they did to her."
He stood slowly, pointing at the pictograms.
"She was a priestess. A guardian of the river. They betrayed her. Drowned her. And then they made the drum from her spine so her power would serve them, not judge them."
Kareem looked around, piecing it together. "That's why the town kept sacrificing. To feed her rage just enough to control it. But the drum broke."
Amaka reached into her bag and slowly revealed the jawbone.
The water in the pool shimmered.
"She wants it back," Ola said. "She wants all of herself returned."
Suddenly, the pictograms began to glow.
The whispering grew louder no longer a voice, but a memory made of sound.
Kareem saw visions:
—A village in flames.
—A priestess bound in chains.
—A drum soaked in blood.
—Men dancing around her body, laughing.
He clutched his head, overwhelmed.
"She wants justice," Amaka said.
Ola turned toward the pool. "She wants to rise not as a monster. But as herself."
Then, a voice not a whisper this time, but a voice full of pain and thunder filled the chamber:
"Return me. Or drown with your silence."
Kareem held the jawbone over the pool.
It pulsed in his hands alive, vibrating, yearning.
"Are we sure?" he asked.
Amaka nodded.
So did Ola.
He dropped it in.
The moment it touched the water, the chamber shook.
Walls cracked. The pool boiled. The screams of the drowned echoed like a song reversed.
And then
She rose.
Not as a corpse.
Not as a ghost.
But as a woman of water and rage her form made of mist and moonlight, her eyes glowing with centuries of grief.
Ìyá Mú.
The Mother of Silence.
She looked at them.
Then spoke:
"The drum is broken. The silence is lifted. Now let truth flow like blood."
And just like that
She vanished into mist, slipping through cracks and roots, flowing back toward the river.
Kareem helped Ola up. "It's over."
"No," Ola whispered, looking toward the surface.
"It's just begun."