The cavern was a living thing, thick with age and wisdom, the air dense with memories that had long ago stopped trying to be heard. The shadows stretched in odd shapes, shifting and undulating in the flickering light of their lanterns. It was as if the walls themselves were listening, holding their breath, waiting for something.
A presence lingered in the air—heavy, ancient, unsettling. The woman who stood at the altar was neither moving nor speaking, but her very stillness seemed to dominate the space, as though she was part of the stone itself, as old as the earth beneath their feet.
Ola's throat tightened, her heart beating in her chest like a drum. She could feel the weight of her question before she even spoke it, a heaviness that pressed on her tongue, making her voice sound too small against the vast silence.
"Who are you?" Ola's words cracked the stillness, but they felt fragile, like a lone leaf fluttering in the wind.
The woman didn't answer immediately. Instead, she tilted her head ever so slightly, her eyes—dark, deep, and knowing—shifting toward Ola. There was nothing kind in that gaze, but there was recognition. It was as though the woman saw something in Ola that no one else had.
Ola's hand tightened around the lantern, the weak light flickering and dancing erratically. The air around them felt colder now, as if the cavern itself had begun to breathe in sync with her anxiety.
The woman raised her hand toward the altar. As she did, a low hum seemed to emanate from the stone beneath them. Slowly, from the cracks in the altar, fragments of bone began to rise. It started with a few small pieces, scattered like pebbles across the floor. But then the bones began to swirl in the air, weaving in slow, deliberate spirals. Shimmering like polished glass, they twinkled and caught the lantern light, casting eerie shadows on the walls. They looked delicate, but there was a power in their movement, in the way they hung in the air as though alive.
Echo stepped forward, her voice soft but filled with awe. "The Bone Oracle," she whispered.
Ola turned toward her, confused. "The Bone Oracle?"
Ọmọjolá's voice, rough and edged with reverence, answered her. "She is the keeper of all that has been forgotten. The stories that refuse to die. The bones speak through her, but she is neither curse nor blessing. She is the reckoning."
The Oracle's eyes—those deep, impenetrable eyes—shifted to meet theirs. A quiet tension settled between them, the weight of her gaze almost unbearable. For a long moment, no one spoke, and the silence seemed to stretch on forever.
Then, the Oracle moved. Her arm rose gracefully, and the bones stopped their swirling dance, freezing in mid-air like suspended stars.
"You seek answers," the Oracle said, her voice a low murmur, almost lost in the cavern's deep echoes. It was like the rustle of dry leaves caught in the wind, fragile but impossible to ignore. "But beware: some answers fracture the soul."
Ola felt a shiver race down her spine, her mouth dry. The Oracle's words were like a warning, but also a challenge. A challenge she knew they had no choice but to accept.
"We seek the truth," Echo said, her voice steady despite the obvious strain in her tone. "The truth buried beneath years of silence."
The Oracle's eyes flickered with something ancient, something deeper than time itself. She did not speak, but with the smallest motion, she reached into the hollow space beneath the altar, her fingers brushing against the bones.
There was a sudden crack, deep and resonating, and the altar split open—slowly at first, then violently, as if the very stone was protesting its secrets being revealed. The bones inside were fragile, ancient—some human, some... unidentifiable. They were worn smooth by time, but each one carried markings: symbols, scars, traces of forgotten rituals.
A bitter taste filled Ola's mouth as the Oracle lifted one of the bones—a femur, its surface polished to an almost unnatural smoothness. She held it delicately, like a relic, and for a brief, disorienting moment, Ola felt a pull, an invitation to know something she wasn't ready for.
The Oracle raised the bone toward the air, and as she did, the bones began to hum—soft at first, then rising in pitch, until it became an eerie, resonant vibration that filled the cavern and vibrated through their very bones.
"The bones tell of a time when memory was sacred," the Oracle said, her voice growing stronger. "When every name held power, and every story shaped the world. But power was stolen. Names were erased. Songs were silenced."
The bone in the Oracle's hand began to glow, faint at first, then brighter. The air crackled with energy, the shadows shifting as though trying to escape the weight of the Oracle's words. Ola could see them then—flashes, images flickering in the air between them, spinning in the web the bones wove.
She saw the burning of villages, of homes torn apart by an unseen hand. Children, their faces lost to time, were dragged away by faceless figures. The rivers ran red, their waters choked with the blood of those who had resisted. The images came too fast for Ola to process, one after another, each more haunting than the last.
Ola's breath caught in her throat. "Who did this?" she whispered, barely able to form the words.
"The ones who feared truth," the Oracle said, her voice growing cold. "The ones who built empires on silence."
The cavern seemed to contract around them, the weight of those words pressing down like an unyielding storm. The bones in the Oracle's hands began to pulse, the glow growing brighter, casting an almost blinding light across the cavern. For a moment, the world seemed to shift, the boundaries between past and present blurring until everything felt at once terrifying and real.
Echo, who had been silent for a while, stepped forward, her voice breaking the quiet like a stone thrown into still water. "And the Hollowed?" Her words trembled with something deeper than fear—something like grief, like they were a part of her too.
The Oracle's gaze hardened. "They are the children of that silence. Born from the void left by stolen memories, but not beyond hope."
Ọmọjolá, who had been standing silently to one side, spoke then. Her voice, normally filled with fire and certainty, was quieter now, softer, but no less fierce. "Then we must awaken the sleeping bones, give them voice again. We must bring back what was taken."
The Oracle's eyes softened—just the slightest shift, but it was there. "You will need more than courage," she said, her voice like the murmur of distant thunder. "You will need sacrifice."
Before any of them could speak, the ground beneath their feet trembled. The very walls seemed to groan as if the cavern itself was shifting, awakening. A deep rumble shook the stone, sending dust falling like rain from the ceiling.
The bones in the air hummed louder, vibrating through the very ground they stood on. The hum became a pulse, an almost tangible vibration that seemed to crawl under their skin, settling deep in their bones. The Oracle's eyes flickered again, her hand lowering slowly, the bone still glowing faintly.
"You are the keepers now," she intoned, her voice echoing in the chamber. "But beware: to carry memory is to carry the wounds of all who came before."
Ola swallowed hard, the weight of those words settling on her like a cloak of lead. To remember was to carry the wounds of all who had been forgotten. And those wounds… they would bleed into everything.
The Oracle's form began to fade, her body dissolving into the light of the bones. The pieces of bone slowly returned to the altar, spinning as they went. There was a final, loud crack as the altar sealed itself once more, the sound reverberating through the cavern. And then, silence.
The oppressive stillness that followed was heavier than anything they had felt before, suffocating in its weight. But it was different now. They were no longer alone in their thoughts. The unspoken stories, the forgotten truths, settled around them like a thick fog. It was overwhelming, but at the same time, there was a sense of relief. The Oracle had left them with something—an understanding that they had not carried this weight alone.
Ola turned to face her companions, her gaze drifting over Echo, who looked both haunted and resolute; over Ọmọjolá, whose fierce spirit burned brighter than ever in the face of the unknown; over Iyagbẹ́kọ, who had always been the steady one, now standing with eyes wiser than they had ever been before.
"We've begun the reckoning," Iyagbẹ́kọ said softly, her voice carrying a gravity that none of them had heard before. "And there is no turning back."
The words settled into the air like a final command. They gathered their lanterns, the first flickering flames of their journey lighting the darkness. The weight of the Oracle's words pressed down on them, but it was no longer a weight of fear. It was the weight of truth, of knowing they were part of something far greater than themselves.
As they began their ascent from the cavern, the Bone Oracle's final words rang in their minds, sharp and clear, like prophecy:
"To remember is to live—and to live is to resist."