I had never walked so far from my village before. The red earth stretched beneath my feet, hot from the sun, and each step I took felt heavier than the last—not because of the journey, but because of the voices I had left behind. The elders' warnings still echoed in my head: "The world beyond is no place for a child of our soil. Storms walk there, spirits wander, and men die in silence."
But I was no longer just a child of our soil. The night of fire had burned that away. I had seen gods hurl their rage across the sky and watched my people drown in the wake of their quarrel. If the storm had chosen me to survive, then I would not waste the gift by staying behind.
For days, I walked through plains where the grass bowed low as if afraid of the wind. Villages I passed were broken shells—roofs torn open, huts swept into mud, children silent as stones. I gave what little I carried, taught them how to rebuild as we had done at home. But even as their gratitude warmed me, I knew I could not stay. My feet belonged to the road now.
They say the Great Calamity split Africa in two — not the land, but the spirit. Cities crumbled. Forests wept. Rivers turned black, and old gods went silent. It was not a war of men, but of forgotten powers rising again, hungry and unbound.
My mother placed a blade in my hand, kissed my forehead, and whispered, "You will live and make us proud."
For days I walked through ash and bones, until I reached the ruined outskirts of Obu-Idemili. The forest there was cursed — twisted by the shadow things. I had nothing but my father's iron knife and my name.
And that's when I saw him.
He moved through the trees like smoke — silent, deadly. The way he held his Machete, the way his eyes scanned the dark… I knew instantly.
Ifeanyi.
The man whispered about in the war camps, the one who once tracked a lion for three days and killed it with a broken arrow. The one who faced a legion of the shadow-born and came out bloodied, but breathing.
He looked at me, and for a moment, only the wind spoke.
"Drop your weapon," he said.
I didn't.
So he attacked. Fast. Brutal. I barely blocked the first strike. Sparks flew as his blade met mine, and for a time, we danced — warriors testing each other, not out of hatred, but necessity. Every move he made, I matched. Every slash I threw, he turned aside.
He smiled. "You fight like someone with nothing to lose."
I spit blood. "I don't."
He laughed — a short, bark-like thing — then stepped back and offered me his hand.
That night, we sat by a fire of dry roots, sharing smoked meat and silence. I told him about the fall of my home. He told me about the day the stars changed and the gods turned their faces.
"We are the last of something," he said, staring into the flames. "But maybe… the first of something, too."
From then on, we walked together — three blades, one purpose. He taught me how to listen to the earth. I taught him how to fight with two blades.
He never called me "friend."
He called me "brother."