The melody rose slowly, as if exhaled from the river itself.
It was not a tune sung by human voice, nor one played by any living hand. It came from the water from deep below, where sunlight never touched and memory ran thick. A hollow, haunting sound. A low, eerie hum carried on the wind, weaving through the village like a whispered secret, like a ghost remembering the shape of its name.
The children were the first to notice.
Their games stopped mid-laugh. One by one, they turned toward the river, wide-eyed and quiet. Dogs tucked their tails and whimpered, ears twitching, retreating from the direction of the sound. Even the trees, usually stirred by night breezes, stood still as though listening.
Near the ceremonial stone, the stranger stood rigid. Their eyes, which had until now remained cool and composed, narrowed as the melody deepened. Their cloak fluttered in the breeze, the carved box still pulsing faintly at their feet.
"This song…" they murmured, voice strained, "it is a warning."
Amaka tightened her grip on the ancient drum she now held. It felt heavier than before, as if the object had absorbed the river's unease. She pressed it close to her chest, the cracked skin rough beneath her fingers.
"What is this shadow?" she asked, barely louder than the wind.
The stranger's gaze did not leave the river. Their voice dropped low weighted with fear that didn't belong to this century.
"A forgotten power," they said. "Buried beneath the river's bed. It waits. Patient and ancient. Not of the living, nor the dead. Older and darker than even the Drumfather."
The words fell over the villagers like stones dropped into water deep, echoing, impossible to ignore. A collective shiver passed through the gathering. None spoke.
Ola, who had remained in the shadows, stepped forward.
His face was pale, but his voice was firm. "Then we must prepare," he said. "If the river remembers, so must we."
There was silence thick and stifling. Then Amaka nodded.
She turned toward the villagers, who stood grouped in quiet fear.
"We light no fires tonight," she said. "We keep silence and we listen. Let the river speak."
The stranger placed the carved box at the foot of the stone again and stepped back, their eyes now scanning the horizon, as if expecting the past to arrive by moonlight.
And so night fell upon Obade not with rest, but with vigilance.
That night, the full moon rose high above the canopy, its pale light bathing the village in silver. Shadows stretched long and strange across the ground, and every surface reflected a ghostly sheen. But it was the river that changed most.
At first, it merely stirred gentle ripples rolling across its surface as if from a distant breeze. But the wind had died hours ago.
Then the ripples thickened. Grew.
Waves began to rise where no waves should be. The water's smooth body shivered, then churned, its color shifting under the moonlight. What was once brown and murky now glowed with a faint, unnatural blue radiant, as though lit from below.
The villagers gathered at the edge in a silence that felt carved from stone.
Even the elders, who had seen flood and famine and all manner of portents, stared with wide eyes. Amaka stood at the front, the drum clutched to her side. The stranger stood beside her, unmoving.
The glow deepened.
Then the river groaned.
It was not a sound made by any creature of the forest or swamp. It was low, guttural, like the earth itself exhaling through a thousand years of sleep. The trees along the banks leaned away from the sound. Birds hidden in their branches took flight all at once, their dark wings like ash flung into the night.
And then something moved beneath the surface.
Slow. Immense.
A bulge rose in the middle of the river, disrupting the waves. Water slid off the top of it in sheets. For a breathless moment, the moonlight caught the shape just enough to hint at scale. It was not a fish. Not a log. Not something that could be named.
A mass. A body.
Something old.
Gasps broke from the crowd.
"What is that?" someone whispered.
Ola's voice came back low and steady. "The river's secret… is no longer sleeping."
The shape shifted beneath the surface again, slowly submerging. The glowing water dimmed, but the waves did not calm. The river now moved with restless energy, as if remembering motion it had forgotten.
"We've woken it," Amaka said, her voice raw.
"No," the stranger corrected. "It was already waking. We merely heard it first."
Another tremor passed through the ground beneath their feet. A thrum, rhythmic and deep like the first beat of a great drum far below. One. Then two. Then silence.
In the moonlight, the carved box shimmered faintly, as though answering something not yet spoken.
"What does it want?" someone asked.
No one answered.
Because deep down, they all understood: this wasn't about desire. It wasn't about want. This was about memory. About promise. About an ancient pact broken or forgotten.
The river had been quiet for too long. And now it had remembered.
As the villagers slowly backed away, the drum in Amaka's arms grew warm. She looked down. For a moment, she thought she saw a thin, silver thread like a vein of moonlight running across the old drum skin.
Her fingers trembled.
"Ola," she whispered, "the drum is waking."
He nodded. "Then the river will soon speak through it again."
They stood together, watching the water shift and twist, unsure of what waited beneath.
But they all knew this: Obade was no longer just a village by a river.
It was now a village within it.
And the river no longer just water was now something else.
A sleeping giant.
Awakening.