Voices Beneath the Current

Ola took a deep breath.

The surface of the river shimmered before him not like water, but like a veil stitched from light and memory. It pulsed softly, responding to something unseen. As he stepped toward the edge of the ceremonial platform, the earth beneath his feet felt warmer, more alive, as though the river itself was reaching out to him.

He hesitated for the briefest moment.

Then stepped in.

The water enveloped him not cold or sharp, but warm, like the embrace of someone who had waited too long to speak. It slid over his skin like silk and pulled at his chest with the gentle insistence of breath.

The world above faded.

And then, everything changed.

The current took him not violently, but with grace and the river's embrace deepened. He was no longer sinking or swimming. He was falling through memory.

Light bent around him. Colors bled into one another, then melted into sound notes, rhythms, voices.

Whispers surrounded him. They came not from a direction, but from within the water itself. As if the current was not liquid, but language.

"Ola…"

A single voice.

Then more, layering over each other like harmonies passed down through generations.

"Son of drums…"

"Bearer of ash…"

"Keeper of the forgotten beat…"

He floated, suspended in something beyond time. Around him, the river shimmered with flashes memories, faces, movements. His ancestors drifted into view, not fully formed, but outlines wrapped in cloths woven from reed and smoke. They danced not with their limbs, but with their eyes. And their eyes saw him.

One stepped forward. A woman.

Her skin was the color of fertile soil. Her voice, when it came, carried the weight of both thunder and lullaby.

"You carry silence that was never yours."

Another figure a man, tall, with shoulders like carved stone added:

"But it chose you. As rhythm always chooses those who can hold contradiction without breaking."

Ola wanted to speak, to ask, to explain.

But no words came. Only feeling. Only breath.

And then a single voice cut through the rest older, slower, deeper.

"Remember, child. The river does not flow just to carry."

The current slowed. The world dimmed, allowing only this voice to linger.

"The river flows to connect. To reveal. To forgive."

Ola's heart pounded.

Somewhere in the center of his chest, something sparked. A warmth, small at first, then growing.

He reached out instinctively, brushing his fingers through the current. But what he touched wasn't water it was thread.

Invisible strands passed through him like a loom threaded with sound, memory, and breath. Each one connected to a drumbeat long buried. A mother's lament. A child's laugh. A truth silenced before it had a name.

He gasped.

And the river sang.

A full chorus of ancestral voices surged around him:

"Sing the song.

Heal the silence.

Restore the rhythm."

The threads pulsed.

One strand wrapped itself around his wrist, like a bracelet woven from moonlight. Another curled around his throat not to choke, but to open his voice.

Then came a sound not external, but from within him.

A drumbeat.

Soft. Gentle. Steady.

Like a heart remembering its first cry.

He clutched his chest. Light bloomed beneath his skin. It spread outward in waves, glowing from within, illuminating the river's depths like dawn rising through water.

And then, as if satisfied, the current shifted.

The river began to move again not with chaos, but with purpose. Ola felt himself being pulled not downward, but inward.

The current twined around him, carrying him through a passage formed not of stone or coral, but memory.

Symbols glowed along the walls marks from his childhood dreams. The eye of the drummer. The river spiral. The twin palms of blessing and mourning. He reached for them as he passed, and each one pulsed with recognition.

Then the current released him.

Gently, reverently, it deposited him on a smooth stone floor.

He opened his eyes.

And beheld the chamber of Ẹ̀nítàn.

It was vast. Immense in a way that had nothing to do with size.

The walls shimmered with liquid light echoes of forgotten songs moved across them like shadows cast by music. Pools of still water reflected not the ceiling, but faces countless faces, watching in silence. Witnesses.

The air was thick with something sacred.

He stepped forward slowly.

His feet made no sound. The floor, smooth as polished bone, glowed faintly beneath each step. Drip by drip, water fell from the domed ceiling, striking ancient instruments left abandoned in corners calabashes, slit drums, hollowed gourds. And with each drop, a note sounded.

Plink. Plunk. Toh.

Plink. Plunk. Toh.

A rhythm began to build not from him, but around him. The river was building a song. One that had waited too long for its final verse.

And there, at the chamber's far end, she waited.

Ẹ̀nítàn.

The River Queen.

She did not wear a crown. She wore her absence like a robe.

She sat tall on a throne formed from the remnants of broken drums, layered with coral strands and silvered reeds. Her hair flowed outward like ink in water. Her eyes glowed two small suns submerged in centuries of silence.

And when she saw him, she stood.

Slowly. As if rising from sleep.

Their eyes met.

No words.

Only weight.

Ola fell to his knees. Not from fear but reverence.

The rhythm in his chest matched hers. He could feel it.

She stepped down from the throne, bare feet touching the stone with the grace of ritual.

She extended her hand.

Not as a queen demanding allegiance.

But as a memory reaching for recognition.

"Ola."

Her voice was a ripple through stone.

"You carry the last rhythm."

He looked up, breath caught in his throat.

"Then let me give it back."

He placed a hand over his heart.

The pulse inside him responded once, twice, then louder.

And without thinking, without rehearsing, he sang.

Not in full voice.

But in drum.

His chest became the skin. His breath, the mallet. His heart, the rhythm.

And as he sang, the chamber woke.

The pools of water shimmered and rose into the air like liquid spirits. The walls pulsed in color. The instruments along the edges played themselves. And above them, a constellation of ancestral faces formed a ceiling of memory.

Ẹ̀nítàn listened.

And when he finished, she wept again.

But this time, the tears did not fall.

They rose floating like starlight, spreading across the chamber.

Each tear a gift.

A name restored. A child remembered. A song returned.

Then she spoke once more:

"You have brought me home."

And with that, the drums silent for generations began to play.

Not with rage.

But with mercy.

And the river, now free, flowed with voice again.