The One Who Knocked

For days—maybe centuries—none had asked.

The gods had walked past Ayola like wind through a broken house. Some with purpose, others with indifference, but none with permission.

And Ayola, seated at the center of Ginen's vast and sacred Crossroad, thought that was simply the way of it.

Until the knock came.

A soft, deliberate tap. Not on stone or door, but on something older—the invisible gate woven between silence and passage.

Ayola's eyes opened.

The Crossroad, too, stirred. A faint hum. Like something had awakened that did not belong.

She stood.

No god had knocked. Not one.

Even Papa Legba hadn't knocked—he was the Crossroad.

But this… whoever this was… asked.

"You felt it too, didn't you?" came a voice from the boundary, amused and sharp like obsidian.

A shadow formed where there had been no light. It did not bleed darkness. It drank it. Cloaked in nothing but heat and suggestion, the figure stepped forward slowly.

Two golden rings hovered above its horns. Its skin shifted—sometimes scales, sometimes flesh. Its presence was wrong, but disciplined.

Ayola raised her staff instinctively. "Name yourself."

The being chuckled. It was a laugh too patient for a mortal, too hungry for a god.

"Names are prices. But since you asked politely… I am called Duthak by the last realm that tried to seal me."

She held her ground. "You're not of Ginen."

"I'm not of anything. Not anymore." He tilted his head. "But I knocked, didn't I? I asked."

The Crossroad said nothing—but it hadn't rejected him.

Ayola narrowed her eyes. "No one has ever knocked. They come and go as they please."

Duthak smirked. "Because they assume Legba allows it. But assumptions aren't permissions."

He stepped closer, and for the first time, Ayola noticed:

There was something chained around his ankles.

Not physical—but cosmic.

Old rules. Old bargains.

He was bound. But not weak.

Ayola lowered her staff slightly. "Why are you here?"

Duthak's smile faded. "A storm is rising. Something old. Something untended. The chosen you nearly touched? Their awakening rippled through my prison. It reminded me of a promise I once made."

He looked up, golden eyes flashing. "Not to the gods. To Balance."

Ayola's heart skipped.

"Why ask to enter, then?" she said softly.

"Because I am not welcome here," Duthak replied. "And even demon gods don't cross the Crossroad without Legba's leave."

Ayola blinked. "But he's gone."

"Exactly." The grin returned. "So you sit in his place."

The Crossroad thrummed around her—subtle, but affirming.

Ayola hadn't known.

But now she did.

She wasn't just the witness anymore.

She was the one who let them in.

Duthak waited. One foot just outside the boundary.

"Do I pass, Gatekeeper?" he asked, voice now quiet. "Or shall I wait until your heart stops trembling?"

Ayola studied him—his patience, his burden, his truth.

Then she stepped back once and said, "You may pass. But no binding shall be broken while you are here."

Duthak bowed. Not mockingly. But like a being who understood rules deeper than power.

"Then I pass in silence. And speak only truth."

And just like that, he was through.

The wind shifted. The Crossroad adjusted.

And Ayola sat again—this time knowing what she was.

She wasn't just watching.

She was keeping.

And something told her Duthak wouldn't be the last to knock