What Sleeps Below

In the days that followed the fall of the Herald, Obade held its breath.

The skies, once shrouded in a restless mist, had cleared as if exhaling centuries of silence. But there was no rejoicing. The villagers spoke in hushed tones, their voices low and brittle like wind brushing against broken calabashes. The sacred grove remained untouched, heavy with the echoes of ancient drums now silent. Birds that once heralded the dawn avoided the river entirely, as if they sensed that time itself had shifted.

Yes, the drums were silent.

But the river had changed.

Where once its currents sang with the voices of ancestors and flowed in gentle rhythm with the seasons, now it pulsed with a slow, steady thrum like the heartbeat of something slumbering beneath. Something vast. Something watching.

By day, it shimmered with deceptive calm, its surface unbroken save for the occasional breeze. But at night, it vibrated softly, not loud enough to wake the sleeping, but deep enough to rattle the bones of those still listening.

Ola hadn't spoken much since the final strike of the broken drum that had shattered the Herald's hold. The memory of that moment the roar, the flash, the silence seemed lodged in his chest. He spent most of his time by the sacred tree, where the drum now lay buried, wrapped in white cloth, circled by river stones, and guarded by a silence that even the wind dared not cross.

Children no longer played near the banks. Mothers whispered old proverbs under their breath. Elders sat with their backs to the current. And in the evenings, Amaka could be seen kneeling by the shore, eyes closed, hands folded tightly in prayer. She mouthed the ancient words her grandmother once taught her words meant for comfort, for healing but now they served as fragile armor against what stirred below.

The village lived.

But something unseen now lived with them.

It was Èkóyé who felt it first.

She had always walked lightly across the land, her spirit attuned to the subtle movements of things long buried or forgotten. But this this was no buried artifact or lingering spirit. This was something deeper. She had been standing alone by the river's edge that dusk, watching the fading sun cast gold across the darkening current, when the surface of the water stirred.

Not from wind.

The ripples moved against the breeze, like a creature's breath moving through the lung of the earth. And then she saw it.

A shadow.

Broad.

Slow.

Ancient.

It passed beneath the water like a memory too old to name, its presence vast and heavy, rippling the reeds without touching them. Her breath caught in her throat, her feet rooted to the earth. Something in her knew: it was older than the Nightborn, older than the river's first song.

Heart pounding, she knelt by the edge of the bank. Her fingers, trembling, touched the surface. It was warmer than usual, but not in the way of sun-heated water. It was like touching skin.

And then it whispered.

Not aloud. Not with sound. But inside her beneath her ribs, behind her eyes.

"You have silenced the hunter,"

"But the source still stirs."

She gasped, staggering back as if the voice had struck her physically. Her legs gave out beneath her, and she dropped to the mud, tears pricking the corners of her eyes not from fear, but from recognition.

There was truth in the river's whisper.

A terrifying truth.

That night, she summoned the elders.

The meeting was quiet, held within the hollow of the Ancestors' Shelter a sacred dome near the edge of the village, where only urgent matters were spoken. Oil lamps flickered against the curved walls, casting long shadows behind each elder's weathered face.

"There is a chamber beneath the deepest bend of the river," Èkóyé began, voice low but clear. "A place even the Nightborn feared to enter. It is sealed by silt and memory, and for centuries we believed it dormant."

The elders exchanged glances. Even the boldest among them dared not interrupt.

She continued, her gaze sweeping the circle. "The Nightborn called it the Òjiji Ẹ̀mí the Shadow of the Soul. A place of forgotten rituals, swallowed before time had a name."

Gasps echoed softly. One of the elders, Odekule, an old man who rarely spoke since his wife passed, lifted his head and whispered:

"The Drowned One…"

The name hung in the air like smoke from a long-dead fire.

Few had heard it in this generation, fewer still had dared to speak it. The Drowned One an ancient entity buried beneath the river, bound not by chains but by story, by silence. It was said to be a forgotten god or perhaps the first memory of death itself. A being with no face, only a hunger to remember everything it had once lost.

Ola stepped forward from the shadows then, his face gaunt but his voice steady.

"If that's what lies ahead," he said, his eyes steady, "then we go together."

The room fell into silence again not from fear, but from the weight of resolve.

Èkóyé turned to him slowly. "No drum," she said. "No guardian sigils. Not even the river's favor can protect us there."

Ola didn't look at her. He was staring past her, through the door of the shelter, toward the silver path of moonlight gleaming on the surface of the river. His jaw tightened.

"Then we learn something stronger," he said.

The elders remained quiet, but something shifted in the air. The firelight flickered, as if acknowledging the choice just spoken. It was not a declaration of war it was a vow of remembrance. A promise to face what even myths had tried to bury.

That night, Obade did not sleep.

The news spread not by voice, but by silence. People moved slower, lighting candles by their thresholds. Children were ushered indoors. Mothers burned bitter herbs on stone altars. The wind howled once and did not return.

Amaka came to Èkóyé with questions, her voice shaking. "Will the river take us this time?"

Èkóyé held her by the shoulders and replied, "No. But it will ask for something."

"What?"

"Truth. In its purest form."

Ola, meanwhile, spent the night at the base of the sacred tree. His fingers brushed the buried drum through the soil. It was dead but not broken. Even in its silence, it carried echoes of all who had touched it. He pressed his ear to the earth, listening not to sound, but to the shape of memory.

He heard voices not of ghosts, but of ancestors. Not calling his name, but calling forward.

By morning, they were ready.

Ola, Èkóyé, Amaka, and three others chosen by the river's former guardian stood at the bank, cloaked in dark cloth soaked in palm ash and morning dew. Not for protection but for recognition. The river, they believed, saw only what was real. Pretending to be fearless would not save them. But honesty might.

They stepped into the water one by one, walking into its heart like mourners entering a temple. As they reached the deep bend, the current slowed not resisting them, not guiding them simply watching.

And then they sank.

Beneath the bend, the water grew darker, heavier. The deeper they went, the less they felt like people. Memories began to rise in the water around them not theirs alone, but others echoes of grief, fragments of forgotten names, the weight of generations left unspoken.

Then, the floor of the river opened.

It wasn't sudden. It was like the land had always been hollow and simply remembered to invite them in.

A chamber unfolded before them. Walls of bone-smooth stone, carvings so old they pulsed instead of glowed. Symbols from languages that predated language. The water inside was still, thick like oil.

And at the center

Something slept.

Not with breath. Not with motion. But with presence.

The Drowned One.

They stood at the edge of its slumber, barely daring to blink. Its form was unclear fluid, formless but the eyes, though shut, could be felt. They pressed against the hearts of the intruders like cold fingers on fire.

Suddenly, Èkóyé spoke.

"Not to awaken you," she whispered. "But to remember what you buried."

The waters responded, not in sound but in memory.

Visions filled their minds of wars fought without weapons, of pacts made in songs, of the first villagers who had once made offerings to keep the river asleep. The Drowned One had not always been a monster. Once, it was the keeper of balance. But when memory was hoarded, when truth was replaced by fear it was buried.

Now, it stirred.

Ola stepped forward. "We are ready to listen."

A hum rippled through the water. The chamber did not collapse. The Drowned One did not rise. But in its silence, a single word was given:

"Restore."

And then they were cast upward.

Thrown through water and current and light, back onto the surface where breath returned like a thunderclap.

They coughed, gasped, shook but were alive.

Behind them, the river stilled.

Not in peace.

Not in anger.

But in promise.