The river had been shimmering for weeks now.
Alive with rhythm. Light. Healing.
Children laughed on its banks again. Elders sang songs thought lost. And the Flame Archive glowed at its heart.
But beneath the shimmer—
Something moved.
Not fish.
Not spirit.
Shadow.
The Dreams Return
Ola was the first to feel it.
A pressure behind the eyes.
A silence that pressed instead of soothed.
He dreamt of a woman with no face.
Standing in the middle of the river.
Mouth open.
No sound.
But her arms… they were reaching.
Not to embrace.
To pull.
Rerẹ́ Feels the Cold
The flame inside the Archive dimmed for a moment. Just once.
And Rerẹ́ felt it in her chest like a skipped heartbeat.
She placed her palm to the drum-ring's edge.
Nothing.
Then suddenly—
A splash.
But when she turned, no one had moved.
"The river hides something," she said.
"Something unfinished."
Iyagbẹ́kọ's Warning
Iyagbẹ́kọ gathered herbs. Stones. Bones.
She knelt by the river at dawn.
And placed a single bead in the water.
It sank too quickly.
As if swallowed.
She turned to Ola and whispered:
"There is a current beneath the current.
And it is not flowing forward."
The Elders Remember
One by one, they came to the Flame Archive and spoke names no one else remembered.
A drummer accused of playing forbidden rhythms.
A twin child drowned for speaking in tongues.
A woman who wept herself into mist after being silenced too many times.
Each story ended the same way:
"We don't talk about that.
We just… moved on."
But now, the river was calling them back.
Echo Returns to the Water
She stepped in barefoot, her new name—Ẹlùwà—settled now in her chest.
The river felt warm at first.
Then colder. Colder still.
She pushed deeper until her waist disappeared beneath the light.
And then—
Silence.
But not peaceful.
Heavy.
She saw them.
Eyes.
Dozens.
Not angry.
Not vengeful.
Just… forgotten.
She gasped.
"You're still here."
And the river answered:
"You never let us leave."
The Shadow's Voice
It rose that night.
Not a monster.
Not a myth.
But a chorus.
Of names never said.
Of truths too painful to shape.
Of shame held too long in the blood.
The shadow took form—not as death, but as reminder.
It moved through the village without feet.
Slipped through walls.
Sat beside children.
Leaned into the Flame Archive and whispered:
"We were the ones your stories wouldn't hold.
Not because we lied.
But because our truths were too jagged to sing."
Ola Speaks to the Darkness
He did not run.
He met the shadow in the center of the Archive flame.
It flickered low.
He knelt.
"We are listening now."
The shadow hissed:
"Are you ready for the songs that won't heal?
Only haunt?"
Ola nodded.
"Even haunted songs must be remembered.
Or we become what we tried to bury."
A New Kind of Fire
That night, a new flame burned at the edge of the Archive.
Not bright.
But black-blue.
It did not warm.
It did not comfort.
It revealed.
And the village called it:
Ìná Àkọ̀kò
The First Fire.
The one that sees everything.
Even what we're not ready to face.
Final Lines
The river no longer shimmered alone.
It shimmered with light and shadow.
With story and silence.
Because healing is not the absence of pain.
It is the full recognition of all that came before.
And the river?
Now it sang in full spectrum.
Even the notes that trembled.
Even the rhythms that hurt.