Chapter 2: New Reality
Chijioke's eyes snapped open and he immediately felt it.
Something was wrong.
Chijioke might have hated the feeling his family house gave him but he was sure he'd never hate it enough to sleep walk out of it in the middle of the night.
The first thing he noticed was the sky. Not the familiar sight of his bedroom ceiling but an open sky, clear and vast, dotted with birds soaring high above.
The air smelled different, earthy, fresh and alive. Lacking the pollution he was accustomed to.
He sat up and immediately felt a wave of dizziness and unfamiliarity.
His body felt strange, lighter yet stronger, as though it belonged to someone else. He looked down at his hands that were calloused, rough, and covered in tribal marks? tattoos? he didn't remember having and panic set in.
"What the hell?" The words left his mouth, but the sound that came forth was different; deeper, richer, laced with an accent he didn't recognize as his own.
Before he could react, pain like a spear through his skull shot through him, forcing him to clutch his head as a flood of memories, memories that were not his, invaded his mind.
A village, bustling with life. Men farming, women weaving baskets, children splashing in the river, carefree and untouched by time.
A ceremony, where he and other young men stood before the elders, their faces painted with white chalk as they were initiated into the Otule Age Grade.
A beautiful woman, her dark eyes full of fire, smiling proudly as she handed him a matchet
Then—war.
The sound of war drums, the cries of warriors, the clash of metal against metal, the smell of blood and burning thatch.
Ogurugu warriors.
A fight.
A blade sinking into his side.
Pain.
And then, Darkness.
Chijioke gasped and clutched his head.
He was not himself anymore.
Or rather, he was himself, but he was also Obinna, a young warrior of Aku who had just died in battle.
Except now, Chijioke was inside his body.
His breath came in short gasps as reality set in.
He had traveled back in time.
And he was in the body of a man who was supposed to be dead.
The pain in his head subsided and Chijioke, no, Obinna, stood shakily to his feet.
Around him, the battlefield was eerily quiet. Bodies littered the ground, some moaning in pain, others lifeless. The air was thick with the smell of blood, sweat, and smoke.
He touched his side, expecting to find a deep, fatal wound.
Nothing.
The pain was gone, as if his body had healed itself prior to his arrival.
Shouts rang out in the distance and he snapped his head to see warriors of his village returning from the battle, their faces hardened with grief and fury.
A group of them spotted him before their eyes widened in shock.
"Obinna?!" One of them, a tall, rugged and muscular man with a deep scar across his chest, staggered back. "But… we saw you fall!"
He said in a thick igbo accent that he found both weird and familiar.
The others murmured in agreement, some making the sign of protection against evil spirits.
This was dangerous.
He knew why they were acting the way they did. Obinna's memory of the beliefs and traditions were fresh in his head.
If he wasn't careful, they would see him as an abomination(Arụ); a spirit returned to the land of the living, an omen of something unnatural.
His mind raced.
He had just inherited a life he barely understood. The memories were there, but disjointed, like pages torn from a book and scattered in the wind.
He couldn't afford to stumble now.
Chijioke wasn't someone who could claim to hold a conversation in any form of the igbo dialect without mixing in a few English or *pidgin* in-between.
That was how messed up his language skills were in his own Mother tongue.
At the current situation, he couldn't afford to mess up right now. Although he had just received Obinna's memories he had yet to fully grasp the young man's life.
Chijioke took a slow breath. He needed to think fast.
He had two choices: Panic and eventually lose their trust or embrace his new identity and use this second chance wisely.
From his memory, he knew what Obinna had stood for.
Born into a respected but not particularly wealthy lineage, he has always been a sharp thinker.
Unlike many of his peers, who are focused on traditions, he often questions the status quo.
He believes the Igbo people should unite against both external threats and internal betrayals. He saw age grades as more than just social divisions, they could be the foundation of cooperation across villages rather than tools for senseless feuds
And now, Chijioke knew what lay ahead.
From Obinna's memories, this was probably the 1700s or 1800s, a time of great social and political tension amongst the Igbos.
The slave trade was in full force, tearing communities apart. European merchants, in league with African intermediaries, fueled chaos.
Some villages resisted fiercely, while others succumbed, selling their own people for guns and foreign luxuries.
Aku had, so far, remained independent. But war was inevitable. Ogurugu had already made its move. If nothing changed, Aku, his people, would be next.
This was his moment to change history.
To prevent the division of his people, to fight against the impending wave of colonization, to reshape the fate of Igboland.
He clenched his fists and looked them in the eye.
"The gods have brought me back," he said, his voice steady and loud. "Because our fight is not yet over."
Whether from Obinna's mental exhaustion or Chijioke's, as soon as his words left his mouth, a wave of drowsiness hit him as his consciousness faded into darkness.
…
Chijioke stirred, his fingers brushing against something rough and woven.
His brows knitted together. This wasn't his bed.
His senses sharpened as his eyes shot open to take in his surroundings.
The ceiling above him wasn't the smooth plaster of his room but a tightly woven layer of dried palm fronds.
The walls weren't concrete; they were compacted mud, cool and firm.
He sat up, feeling the stiff texture of the mat beneath him.
No mattress, no bedsheets—just a woven mat barely lifted off the ground.
The air smelled different, earthy and rich, carrying the faint scent of burning firewood and freshly pounded yam.
From outside, he could hear the rustling of leaves, the chirping of birds, and distant voices speaking in fluent Igbo.
His heartbeat quickened.
Something was off.
He looked down at his hands—bigger, rougher, calloused, lined with scars he didn't remember earning.
A strange panic seized him as he ran his fingers over his arms, his chest, his face. His breath hitched.
It wasn't a dream.
He really wasn't in his body.
Slowly, his gaze landed on a wooden bowl filled with still water in the corner of the hut.
He crawled toward it, his movements unsteady as if his muscles had to remember how to work.
Taking a deep breath, he peered into the water.
And froze.
The reflection staring back at him was not his own.
It was Obinna's.
His mind reeled.
He had thought he was in a lucid dream of some sort due to his depression, but…
Had he truly traveled through time?
Had Obinna's soul left, only for his to take its place?
His fingers curled into fists, an unfamiliar strength thrumming beneath his skin.
This was real.
His body was never this built.
He was no longer just Chijioke. He was Obinna. A son of Aku. A man who had fallen in battle… yet lived again.
As if a bulb went off in his head, he understood why.
He had been caught up in a wish situation.
The past had called him here.
Suddenly, the voices outside grew closer, shadows moving past the entrance.
He turned toward the doorway, his jaw tightening as the first rays of sunlight filtered through the gaps.
This was his moment.
And he would not waste it.
Just then, the ụzọ akwa(curtain) was pushed aside, and a woman stepped in.
Chijioke's breath caught the moment he saw her. She was young, perhaps in her late teens, with dark, radiant skin and delicate tribal marks etched faintly on her cheeks.
Her wrapper was tied firmly around her chest, her hair woven into neat braids adorned with cowries.
But it was her eyes that struck him the most; deep, expressive, filled with something raw and familiar.
The moment her gaze landed on him, she froze.
Then, before he could react, a strangled gasp escaped her lips, and she threw herself at him.
"Obinna!" she sobbed, gripping his shoulders tightly as her body trembled against him. "Obinna, Chineke ekwela ihe a mee! (God did not allow this to happen!) They told me you were dead!"
Chijioke stiffened, unsure how to respond. The memories flooding his mind whispered her name, Adanna.
His sister.
He had a sister.
The very one who had sent him off to battle where he…Obinna died.
Awkwardly, he raised his arms, hesitating for a moment before wrapping them around her shaking form.
The scent of palm oil and shea butter filled his nose as she clung to him like a drowning person grasping for air.
"Obinna… Obinna…" she kept whispering between sobs, her fingers digging into his back as though afraid he would disappear again.
Chijioke swallowed hard, his throat dry.
Everything was happening too fast.
He was in a body that wasn't his. In a time that wasn't his. And now, he had a grieving sister who thought she had lost her brother.
He took a slow, shaky breath.
He had to say something.
He had to be Obinna.
Gently, he placed a hand on the back of her head, steadying her as he whispered the only thing that came to mind—
"I am here, Adanna."
And for now, that would have to be enough.