Rerẹ́ Is Taken
They came with silence.
But silence had changed in Obade.
It no longer protected them.
It amplified them.
The Infiltration
At the hour just before the rooster's first call, a black transport van rolled down the outer ridge road. No lights. No horn. Just a slow crawl under the cloak of mist.
Inside: four agents of the Ministry of Cultural Continuity.
Clad in matte uniforms that absorbed moonlight.
Trained not in combat—but in erasure.
Rerẹ́'s Last Dream
She dreamt of laughter that tasted like smoke.
Of drums that whispered instead of sang.
Of a staircase spiraling downward—not into a chamber, but into a story still being written.
She dreamt of her own voice, multiplied a thousand times, echoing across a canyon of erased names.
And then—
Her dream ripped.
She woke to breath on her neck.
And a whisper:
"Don't scream."
But Rerẹ́ did not scream.
She bit.
Hard.
The agent reeled, and for a moment, the rhythm of violence began.
The Struggle
Ola was the first to respond.
He'd been sleeping by the Listening Bowl, staff always within reach.
The bowl began to hum before the agents reached the platform.
Iyagbẹ́kọ's eyes opened at once.
Èkóyé leapt from his mat, summoning fire with a single word.
But they were too late.
The agents had already seized her—gagged and bound with myth-dampening wire.
They dragged her toward the van as villagers stirred.
The Voice of the Village
A child saw.
And screamed.
The scream was not just sound—it was summon.
By the time the van turned to leave, twenty villagers blocked the road.
Drummers stood bare-chested, skin slick with morning dew, sticks ready.
Women linked arms and stepped forward.
One of the agents drew a myth-dagger—etched with sigils meant to cancel memory.
Iyagbẹ́kọ raised her staff and struck the ground.
BOOM.
The earth cracked.
Birds fled the trees.
And in a voice that carried the full weight of the river, she shouted:
"If you touch one child of this village again,
may every ancestor you've ever denied rise to meet you at your next breath!"
The Stand-Off
The van idled.
Rerẹ́, eyes wild, locked gazes with Ola as she was shoved inside.
He pressed a hand to his heart—then to the scroll still lying on the stone platform, untouched.
She nodded.
She would survive.
And they would come for her.
What They Didn't Know
The agents thought they had taken a girl.
They had taken a key.
For inside Rerẹ́'s blood now pulsed the names released by Ẹgbẹ́rẹ́.
And the ash-seeds she carried in her skirt pocket?
They had already begun to hum.
By the time the van reached the capital, the Archive servers failed again.
This time, permanently.
The Village Responds
Iyagbẹ́kọ gathered the elders.
Èkóyé called on the river's hidden priests.
Ola lit the three drums of rising—only used during moments of collective remembrance and war.
And the youngest children—those who had carved the palm glyph—formed a circle.
"We will not wait to be silenced," said Ola.
"We go to the heart of the Archive."
"We go to break it open."
Final Lines
Somewhere in a locked Ministry van…
Rerẹ́ sat in the dark.
The wire around her wrists began to loosen—not by hand, but by heat.
From within her pocket, the ash-seeds glowed red.
And she smiled.
Because they had taken her.
But not her song.
And when she returned…
she would not be alone.