The earth did not reject Chukwudi gently.
It cut him off.
When he woke, the ground beneath him was cold and unfamiliar, like lying on a stranger's grave. He pressed his palm into the soil out of instinct—and felt nothing. No pulse. No murmur. No ancient patience.
Only absence.
For the first time since his birth, Chukwudi felt truly unmoored.
He sat up sharply.
The camp was wrong.
Too quiet.
No insects. No wind. Even the cursed children slept without dreams, their chests rising and falling in stiff, mechanical rhythm. Adaeze lay apart from them, curled tightly, her body shivering as dark veins crept higher along her neck.
Idemili was gone.
That frightened him more than anything else.
---
The sound came at dawn.
Not footsteps.
Dragging.
A wet, patient sound, like something being pulled through mud that wanted to remember it.
Obinna woke screaming.
"It's under us!" the boy cried. "It's not a god—it doesn't have a name!"
The ground opened.
Not split.
Opened—like lips peeling back from rotten teeth.
Something rose.
Not flesh.
Not spirit.
A mass of compacted soil, bones, broken roots, and forgotten sacrifices, fused into a towering shape that bent reality around it. Faces formed briefly on its surface—men, women, children—then sank back screaming.
It had no eyes.
Yet it saw Chukwudi perfectly.
The cursed children scattered.
One wasn't fast enough.
The thing touched him.
The boy did not die.
He unwrote.
His body folded inward, erased like a mistake, leaving only a smear of warm earth that crawled back toward the creature.
Adaeze screamed.
The sound cracked stone.
---
Idemili appeared beside Chukwudi, her expression tight.
"You did this," she said.
"I didn't call it," Chukwudi replied.
"No," she said quietly. "You made space."
The thing spoke—not in words, but in pressure. In inevitability.
It was what rose when gods fell and the earth refused to answer prayers.
It was not an alụsị.
It was not divine.
It was a correction.
The earth's attempt to survive without belief.
---
Chukwudi stepped forward.
The thing reacted immediately—soil hardening, bones shifting into blades.
"You don't belong," Chukwudi said, though his voice shook. "You're devouring everything."
The pressure increased.
The meaning came clearly.
Everything already devoured itself.
This thing was not hunting.
It was cleaning.
---
Humans arrived before the confrontation could end.
Dozens of them.
Missionaries in iron-laced vestments. Hunters with god-killing weapons humming with cruel precision. Scholars carrying scrolls soaked in sacrificial ink.
They saw the creature.
And smiled.
"There it is," one whispered in awe. "A godless future."
They attacked.
The thing welcomed them.
Weapons sank into it—and became part of it. Men screamed as the soil climbed their bodies, pulling them down, erasing them slowly, lovingly.
Chukwudi realized the horror.
This thing did not distinguish between god and man.
Only between believer and burden.
---
Adaeze staggered forward.
Her skin split.
Scales erupted fully now, her form elongating, burning, shedding humanity like a discarded lie. The Snake Mother's shadow loomed behind her, not whole—but watching.
"Leave them," Adaeze hissed at the thing. "Take me instead."
The thing paused.
For the first time, it hesitated.
Chukwudi understood.
It sensed balance in her.
A bridge.
A choice.
"No," Chukwudi said, stepping between them. "You don't get to choose victims."
The earth remained silent.
So Chukwudi made a terrible decision.
He reached inward—not for memory, not for authority—
But for blame.
He took responsibility for the wound he had opened.
The ground screamed.
---
The thing recoiled.
Not in pain.
In recognition.
It bowed.
Not to him.
To what he represented.
A future without gods.
Without earth's protection.
Without forgiveness.
Idemili whispered, shaken, "It thinks you are its maker."
Chukwudi stared at the kneeling horror, at the children trembling behind him, at Adaeze collapsing as her transformation stalled halfway.
"No," he said hoarsely.
But the thing did not rise.
It waited.
Around them, the land began to change—hardening, dulling, preparing to endure rather than nurture.
Far away, other gods felt it.
Humans felt it.
Something ancient and patient had found a new axis.
And Chukwudi, son of the Snake Woman, realized the truth too late.
He had not ended the age of gods.
He had begun the age of what comes after belief.