Ụmụọkụ village was not a bad place. People farmed, married, buried their dead, and argued in the market like every other village in Nigeria. But there was one rule everyone grew up knowing:
Do not go near the tree in the old forest.
No one remembered who made the rule. It was older than the village stories. Older than the elders themselves. The forest lay behind the last mud houses, thick and quiet, like something watching and waiting. And inside it stood the tree.
It was not the biggest tree, but it was the wrongest.
Its roots came out of the ground like bent fingers. Its bark was black in some places, wet in others, even during dry season. When the wind blew, other trees moved. That one did not. At night, people swore they heard something breathing from that direction—slow, heavy breathing, like a tired animal that refused to die.
The villagers never spoke about it openly.
Until Chukwuemeka started screaming.
Chukwuemeka was eleven years old. Small for his age. Quiet. The kind of child adults forget is around. His parents were dead, so he lived with his aunt, Mama Uju, who believed prayer solved everything and silence solved the rest.
The first time Chukwuemeka cried about the tree, it was at night.
He woke up shouting that something was standing beside him, something tall that smelled like soil and blood. He said it had no face, only bark where a face should be. Mama Uju slapped him, prayed loudly, and told him to shut up.
"Dreams are not real," she said.
But the dreams did not stop.
Every night, the same thing. The tree calling him. Not in words—inside his head. Pulling him. Promising him things he did not ask for. Sometimes he woke up with mud on his feet, even though the door was locked.
One morning, villagers found him standing at the edge of the forest.
Barefoot. Shaking. Smiling.
When they asked him what he was doing there, he said something that made them uncomfortable.
"It knows my name," he said. "It said I belong to it."
People laughed, but it was forced laughter. The kind people use when fear is close. Some said the boy was mad. Some said his parents' spirits were disturbing him. Nobody said the truth—that they were afraid he might be right.
Then the marks started appearing.
Dark lines on his chest. On his back. Like roots growing under his skin. He said they burned when the tree spoke. He said something was growing inside him, something old and angry.
The elders met once and decided it was nothing.
Children lie. Children imagine things.
But that same week, a goat was found dead near the forest. Its body was dry. No blood. Its eyes wide open, like it died screaming but no sound came out.
Chukwuemeka stopped crying after that.
He stopped complaining.
He stopped asking for help.
Instead, he started listening.
And the tree was no longer whispering.
It was waiting.