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The elders of Umu-Ọchịchịrị say that every village has a night it never forgets.
For Umu-Ọchịchịrị, that night was the night the earth hissed.
Umu-Ọchịchịrị lay deep in the old forests of eastern Nigeria, where the trees stood so close they whispered secrets to one another, and the red earth remembered every footstep that ever touched it. By day, it was a quiet farming village—yam barns heavy with harvest, women laughing at the stream, children chasing dust in the sun. By night, however, Umu-Ọchịchịrị belonged to older things.
Things with scales.
Things with names no one dared speak aloud.
The village shrine sat at the edge of the forest, guarded by an ancient silk-cotton tree whose roots rose like coiled serpents from the soil. That tree was older than memory. Some said it drank blood. Others said it listened.
On the night Chukwudi was born, the tree shuddered.
---
Rain did not fall from the sky.
It rose from the ground.
The earth steamed as though boiling, and a low, slithering sound crawled through the village paths. Dogs whimpered and hid. Goats tore free from their ropes. Even the night insects fell silent.
Inside a mud house near the forest's edge, Nwanyị-Agwọ screamed.
That was not the name her parents gave her. It was the name the village whispered once they realized what she was.
Snake Woman.
Her real name—long forgotten—had been Mgbeke, a quiet woman with eyes too knowing and a shadow that never quite moved the right way. She had come to Umu-Ọchịchịrị years earlier from a far village, married Okorie, a respected hunter, and lived without trouble.
Until the signs began.
She did not age.
She walked barefoot even on thorns.
Snakes followed her without fear.
Okorie loved her anyway.
That love would cost him everything.
---
As labor seized her body, the oil lamp flickered wildly. The midwife, old Mama Udo, froze when she saw it.
The shadows on the wall were wrong.
They moved… separately.
"Nwanyị m," Mama Udo whispered, backing away, "what did you bring into this world?"
Nwanyị-Agwọ's eyes were glowing faintly—green, like moonlight through leaves.
"He is my son," she said through clenched teeth. "And he will be born."
Thunder rolled, though the sky was clear.
Outside, the silk-cotton tree groaned.
Then it happened.
A long, wet hiss filled the room.
Not from Nwanyị-Agwọ's mouth.
From her womb.
Mama Udo screamed and fled, tripping over herself as she ran into the night shouting, "Agwọ! Agwọ! The snake has come!"
The earth cracked.
And the child was born.
---
He did not cry.
He stared.
His eyes—dark, deep, ancient—followed the movement of the oil flame as though he understood fire. On his left shoulder, beneath newborn blood, lay a faint mark.
A coiled serpent.
Nwanyị-Agwọ held him close, her breathing slowing, her face suddenly calm.
"My son," she whispered. "My bridge."
At that moment, Okorie burst into the room with a machete in hand, eyes wild with fear and love battling inside him.
He saw the mark.
He felt the cold crawl up his spine.
Still, he lowered the blade.
"What is his name?" he asked, his voice shaking.
Nwanyị-Agwọ smiled—a sad, knowing smile.
"Chukwudi," she said.
God exists.
Outside, something answered.
A deep hiss rose from the forest, echoed by another… and another… until the night itself seemed alive.
---
By morning, the village had gathered.
No one entered the house.
The dibia, Eze-Mmụọ, stood at the threshold, chalk and feathers trembling in his hands. He looked at the child once and staggered back.
"This one," he said hoarsely, "was not sent. He returned."
The elders argued. Some demanded fire. Others demanded exile. A few—very few—felt something worse than fear.
Recognition.
Before a decision could be made, the forest went quiet.
Too quiet.
Then a single black snake slithered out of the trees and stopped at the doorway. It lifted its head and bowed.
The elders scattered in terror.
That night, Okorie disappeared.
They found only his machete—clean, unbroken—lying at the base of the silk-cotton tree.
Nwanyị-Agwọ vanished soon after, leaving the child behind.
No tracks.
No blood.
Only a lingering hiss in the wind.
---
Chukwudi grew.
The village raised him with one eye open.
He never fell sick.
He spoke late—but when he did, his words came heavy, like prophecy.
Snakes never bit him.
Sometimes, at night, the earth beneath his mat would warm… and breathe.
And deep in the forest, something watched.
Waiting.
Because Chukwudi was not just a child.
He was a promise.
And when the Snake Woman returns to claim her son, Umu-Ọchịchịrị will learn the truth they tried to bury:
Some bloodlines do not end.
They shed.