The rain wouldn't stop. It hadn't stopped in days. It came like judgment—fat, hot, metallic drops that slammed onto the thatched rooftops and thick jungle leaves like a chorus of skin drums beaten by ghosts. The clouds above the coast boiled in greys and bruised purples. Lightning forked across the sky like cracks in an old god's mirror. Thunder bellowed like something trapped beneath the soil was trying to break free.
WAT. 13:43. Far Coast of the Oyo Kingdom.
The boy's name was Tayo. His feet slapped the mud as he ran, water splashing high with every stride. His giggles cut through the wet air like knives. Beads swung at his wrists and ankles, carved from bone and smoky amber, each one etched with marks his father said were older than the kings themselves. Men saw him coming and moved aside, not out of kindness but fear. Children of oracles weren't to be stopped. Not even by gods.
"Tayo!" his uncle called from the village entrance. "You will fall and—!"
But Tayo wasn't listening. He was too busy chasing the wind. Until he hit something.
Something cold.
Something tall.
Something not there before.
It looked like a man. It smelled like something dead—but not dead enough. Eight feet tall and thin like it had been stretched. Its skin was the color of soaked ash. Not grey. Not white. Ash that's been spat on. Its eyes were hollowed out, hanging from threads, swaying, sockets squirming like they were birthing more. Mouths lined its chest—mouths that whispered to each other. Whispered at Tayo.
The boy froze.
Its breath smelt like old blood and rotted yam. And its fingers—oh God, its fingers—were long and bone-thin, webbed, like roots dipped in oil, reaching.
Then the tree screamed.
A massive Iroko in the middle of the village center split open, its bark curling outward like infected lips. Vines of sinew and wet muscle peeled apart, revealing a cavity of red. Blood poured down its trunk like wine at a cursed wedding.
The villagers ran. Even the sky held its breath.
Then it vomited a man.
He fell headfirst in a mess of bile, moss, and time. Long coat torn, face stitched in shadows, eyes dark like pits no light could crawl out of. He rose from the ground without using his hands. Just... stood.
He came from a period far away to an unknown timeline.
The man spat. Wiped the filth from his face. Clicked his neck.
He looked around.
Then he opened his journal and began to write.
---
[Journal Entry | Jonathan H. Simpson]
WAT. 13:47. It's raining. Again. Good. The creatures hate the rain. I think. Or maybe I just like seeing them suffer when the sky cries.
This tree brought me in rougher than usual. Smells like rotted goat inside. My ears are still ringing. I saw a memory inside it this time. A baby... crawling backwards into a woman's mouth. Not mine. Maybe a warning.
There's a kid staring at me. He's wearing power. He's wearing fear too. That thing across the road—it's not local. The mouths whisper in a dialect I've only heard once before. The Red-Womb Maw from the 4th century B.C. in the Greek marshes whispered like that.
It shouldn't be here.
But I am.
---
Jonathan tore out the page, rolled it, and swallowed it. His jaw unhinged slightly—just slightly—as the flesh-bound journal sealed itself shut. He would remember it that way.
He approached the creature slowly.
"Tayo," he said without knowing how he knew the boy's name. "Go home."
The monster turned.
Its mouths stopped whispering. All at once, they screamed.
The wind died. And the villagers, hiding in huts and shadow, began to chant. Low. Deep. Like mourning mixed with prayer.
From the palace, talking drums started. Not for celebration. Not for war. These drums were for sending souls away in proverbs of mockery. A blacksmith hammered with iron near the royal grounds. Somewhere, an oracle pulled out her eyes and dropped them into a bowl of boiling snail water, whispering truths no one could bear to hear.
The King rose from his stool and looked toward the Iroko.
He muttered, "One of the keepers has awakened."
---
The creature ran—but not like a man. It slithered sideways, distorting, dragging its limbs in impossible directions, scattering beetles and worms as it passed.
Jonathan followed.
Not fast.
Just enough.
He opened his coat. Inside were tools of pain, love, science, and madness. A crossbow made from jawbones and sinew. A flask of goat tears and flint. A blade carved from a baby's last tooth.
He walked through the jungle. Wet. Alive. Pulsing with things that remembered the old gods.
The deeper he went, the darker the trees grew. They bent toward him like they were listening. The leaves were bleeding. Birds flew backwards.
Then came the city.
Not the one people lived in. The one beneath. Half buried in time and guilt. Stone pillars carved with things that never breathed but dreamed of breath. Faces molded into walls, mouths open in mid-scream.
The creature was waiting.
Its form now larger. Fatter. Fed.
Children's bones scattered around it. A cow's head, still twitching.
Jonathan stepped forward.
"Alright," he muttered, cracking his fingers. "Let's dance."
---
It wasn't a fight. It was a ritual.
The creature screamed and darkness responded. Shadows exploded from behind the walls, grabbing Jonathan, biting him. His coat caught fire. Not with flame. With memory. It screamed with voices from places he'd been.
He threw salt made from his own spine. The monster wailed. One of its mouths vomited hands. Tiny hands. Grabbing for him.
He swung the blade-tooth. It cut ideas. Not flesh.
He jammed the crossbow into its stomach and fired—releasing a bolt dipped in unborn regret.
Blood poured like tar. The jungle laughed. Thunder clapped so close it shattered a tree nearby. Lightning struck the city but didn't light it.
Then—
Silence.
Jonathan stood, bleeding. Right arm gone from the elbow down. Something twitched inside his throat. His left eye wasn't seeing right anymore. It saw too much now.
The monster was dying.
But it had bitten him.
Deep.
---
[Journal Entry | Jonathan H. Simpson]
WAT. 16:01. I'm alive. I think. My arm's gone. It's still twitching over there, clenching into the mud like it wants to keep fighting.
The beast whispered to me before it died. Told me my mother was still alive. Told me she was the first tree. Told me I would be too.
I laughed. I laughed until I coughed up my tongue.
This city isn't a ruin. It's a wound.
They buried something here. Something that breathes in reverse. Something that dreams in fever. The villagers feed it by accident. The kings protect it out of habit. The witches worship it because it gives them power.
I want to burn it all.
But I'm tired.
---
He limped out of the jungle by dusk.
The rain had finally stopped.
Children were dancing again. The King gave him silence and nod.
Only Tayo approached. Holding Jonathan's arm.
"Is this yours, monster-man?"
Jonathan smiled with teeth that weren't all his.
"Keep it," he said.
Then he walked toward the Iroko tree.
It opened. Smiling.
And swallowed him back.
---