The night they left the Mouth of the Earth had already yielded to dawn's pale promise. Morning mist trailed behind them as they retraced their steps, but the shard remained heavy in Ola's satchel, pulsing faintly against his ribs—an echo of memory still seeking release.
Iyagbẹ́kọ moved ahead, her form steady and wordless. Echo stayed close behind Ola, her eyes trained on the horizon as though she could follow the shard's whisper with sight alone.
They walked without roads—only a deer trail twisting between choking thorn and abandoned yam fields. The farther they traveled, the thicker the air became, until breathing felt like laboring through silk soaked in clay.
Arriving at the First Place
By midday, the scrub forest receded, revealing a barren plain bleached white—cracked earth scattered with blackened stones that looked scorched by fire or despair. No map held its name. No feast marked its history.
This place wasn't meant for memory—only silence.
Echo voiced what everyone felt:
"This is not on any map."
And Iyagbẹ́kọ replied, her voice like dust settling:
"It isn't meant to be."
Ola scanned the emptiness where heat rippled into stillness.
"This is where it happened, isn't it? The first name."
At last she turned, her gaze flat and cold as obsidian shards.
"Long before Obade. Before the river ever sang, a people carved their souls into names, physical and sacred. To lose a name was to be erased—breathed out of existence."
Echo furrowed her brow.
"So they guarded names like shields?"
"No child spoke their name until adulthood. Lovers whispered names only as vows. And enemies never heard a name without risking the weight of it."
And yet, at this place, a name was stolen.
They came upon a shallow hollow ringed with broken black stones—jagged as anger held too long. The ring looked ancient, battered, hungry.
At its center, the earth seemed to draw breath. Ola felt the shard in his satchel strain toward the center.
Kneeling, he unbuckled the flap and drew it out. Its slow pulse quickened, heat climbing toward his face.
Echo crouched beside him quietly:
"It wants to be here."
Ola pressed the shard to the earth within the broken ring. Dust rose, the hollowness shivered, and light flickered in pulse.
Suddenly—
A sharp voice broke the stillness. Silent until now.
"You bring me home."
The sound came without form, echoing inside their minds rather than bouncing off the air.
Iyagbẹ́kọ whispered evenly:
"You were the one who stole the first name."
The voice chuckled. A dry sound without warmth.
"Names are not stolen. They are given—by choice… or by loss."
Echo stared into the center.
"Then you took it."
"I kept it." The voice hissed like bone scraping stone.
"And every name since has come to join it. They come willingly—they always do."
Ola swallowed.
"So what do you do with them?"
Earth rattled softly beneath them. Shadow crept around the shard, darkening.
"I wear them. I keep them safe from songs that soften them. From stories that turn truth into comfort. Until they no longer fit—or someone remembers what they truly felt."
His voice was steel in a whisper.
"So you hoard them."
"Safe from forgetting," the voice replied.
"From lies that make the dead polite."
Ola hesitated.
"And if I give you what's inside me?"
Darkness pulsed.
"They will stay sharp. But their sharpness will be seen. They will cut in the open, where they may sting—but not be buried in silence."
Echo glanced nervously at Iyagbẹ́kọ.
"That is... tempting."
Iyagbẹ́kọ was flat with resolve.
"Dangerous."
Another pause—until the voice spoke again.
"The choice is yours, carrier. Once given, you cannot take them back. They will live here until the earth forgets breath."
Ola stared at the shard—its pulse pounding against his palm like a second heartbeat. Names pulsed within: heavy, hollow, unyielding.
"Why me?" he whispered.
The voice softened.
"Because you know what it is to hide names—to fear their weight. You've hidden your own. You understand silence."
His hand shook. Echo laid a hand on his arm.
"You don't have to."
But faces flooded his sight: the woman with her tongue ripped out; the child singing into the river's current; the boy with unseen eyes. They didn't ask for mercy. They demanded memory.
He looked up, his voice final:
"I will give them. But not to bury."
Silence followed. Then:
"Explain."
"They stay sharp. Seen, not softened. Remembered in truth not convenience. Public, not hidden."
The voice was distant.
"Agreed."
A Decision Sealed
The earth cracked beneath the shard, glowing red-gold. Ola guided it into the cavity. The ground closed over it like a mouth sealing flesh, leaving only pale dust behind.
The wind shifted. Silence softened but did not vanish.
Iyagbẹ́kọ stepped forward and solemnly said:
"It is done."
"Ola" shook his right hand—the heat had burned lines into his skin, shaped by the shard's edges.
"Not yet," he replied. "Now we wait—and see who comes looking."
Echoes of a Name
They turned away from the cracked plain. Each step toward Obade felt lighter, but Radio silence—not stillness. A distant sound followed.
A single name.
Spoken aloud.
And it wasn't anyone they knew.
Ola's gaze snapped toward the distance. Fear mingled with resolve. He glanced at his companions.
"It begins."
The dawn had made the world grey and silent—but now it carried something new. A name spoken. A memory made manifest.
In that moment, they understood: this was not only the place where the first name was taken—but where every future name would be reclaimed.