The Calling

“Do you understand what you just did?” he asked, exasperated, his hands clutching the back of his head in disbelief. George stared in horror at the sight before him—a pool of blood spreading across the tiled floor, encircling the lifeless body of his mother.

“You’ve gone mad, Chidima!”

“You've have finished me, oh!”

“Oh Lord of my ancestors—she’s taken her from us!”

“What have you done, Chidima? What have you done?”

His cries echoed off the walls, filling the growing hollowness inside Chidima’s mind. She remained still, frozen in place, kneeling beside the corpse. Her wide eyes were vacant. Her lips parted slightly, but no words came.

“The goddess told me to do it,” she mumbled, still staring at the door.

“She said she was hungry.”

Her words spilled out like wine knocked from a table—accidental, irreversible.

“Eh? Chichi, what did you say?” George’s voice cracked, sharp and cold, like a slap from the South’s winter wind. Chidima flinched.

“She told me...”

“She kept screaming...”

“I had to stop the screaming... I had to make it stop...”

Her voice trembled as tears began to fall. One by one, they landed—on the forehead, the open eyes, the dry lips of the corpse.

“Oh! My Chidima, you have finished me! Come and see! She has finished me!” George wailed. He collapsed to the ground, knees hitting the tiles with a dull thud. His upper body folded over the corpse’s abdomen.

“Chichi, you have killed me!” he wept, his cries muffled by the patterned wrapper the body still wore.

“Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t understand,” a voice whispered beside Chidima.

The goddess had appeared.

Chidima didn’t move. She was too far gone—adrift in a storm of shock. Her body was paralyzed, her mind unraveling.

“The goddess is very pleassssed with you, my child,” the voice hissed, the ‘s’ stretching like a serpent's tongue. A forked tongue flicked against her ear, sending a violent shiver through her body.

George’s sobs faded into background noise.

“She owed me a debt... and now she has paid it. You understand, don’t you, Chidima?” the goddess cooed.

Her tongue curled around Chidima’s ear like ivy. Her words were sweet and slow, sticky with power. Chidima dared not move—afraid that the slightest gesture might bring the goddess’s wrath.

“Right?”

The goddess’s lips curved into a smile Chidima had never seen before. Unnatural. Otherworldly. And terrifying.

After what felt like hours of silence, Chidima nodded.

“Good girl,” the goddess purred, her voice like honey over broken glass.

“All those who break the sacred bond must pay the price. All those who break the sacred bond must pay the price. All those who break the sacred bond must pay the price.”

The chant grew louder. The goddess rose above the horrific scene, her figure blurring with the shadows. The incantation cloaked Chidima like a shroud, and her lips began to move.

Her voice was soft at first. Then stronger.

Her head tilted back. Her chest heaved. Her voice grew louder and more desperate.

George looked up—and froze.

Chidima’s eyes had rolled back. Her body convulsed. She spoke in a tongue he didn’t recognize.

“All those who break the sacred bond must pay the price.”

“All those who break the sacred bond must pay the price.”

She chanted faster. Louder. As if compelled—whipped forward by some unseen force. Every word sent tremors through her.

“Yes, Chidima! Yes! Worship me, my child! Louder!” the goddess roared, her voice laced with joy. With every chant, she fed off Chidima—draining her essence, her spirit, her life force.

That’s when the snake appeared.

A twelve-foot python slithered into the room as though summoned from the depths of the underworld. George leapt to his feet, heart hammering in his chest. The serpent moved with eerie grace, drawn to the energy pulsing from Chidima.

Still she chanted—

“All those who break the sacred bond must pay the price...”

Her head thrown back. Eyes glowing white. Tears streaking her cheeks. Her voice a thunderous echo through the house.

She was no longer there.

Chidima was now a child of the serpent.

The python slithered up to her and began to wrap around her slowly—carefully, but firmly. Hypnotized, she stood motionless. Her heart pounded. Her thoughts screamed. But her body didn’t move.

“You belong to me now, Chichi. You all will belong to me,” the snake whispered as it coiled around her, binding her.

“I will protect you, Chichi. Better than she ever could. Better than anyone ever could, Chidima.”

Now fully wrapped around her frame, the snake looked into her with massive almond-shaped eyes and a deep, black iris. Chidima cried. But no one could hear her.

She was no longer in the room.

She was in a black void—silent, lightless—alone with the serpent. Its eyes glowed with twisted affection.

It smiled.

And tightened.

“Don’t cry, child. You belonged to me. You always have. Your she stole you away. But now... now you are mine. Don’t cry.”

“Heyi! Heyi! My Chichi is possessed!” George screamed as he stumbled out of the house.

“Help me! Help me! The devil has my Chichi!”

He ran—barefoot, wild with terror. Past the gate, into the compound. His cries tore through the stillness of the night.

He ran faster than his feet could carry him. Faster than breath could keep up.

His mind raced ahead of his body—directionless, frantic. He didn’t know where he was going. But with every cloud of dust kicked up from the dirt road, he ran and wailed like a distant ambulance, shouting the same words over and over again:

“Help oh! My Chichi has finished me!”

The words tumbled from his mouth like pebbles tossed into a river—each one cast with the hope it would send ripples far enough to bring help.

Under the blackened sky and the faded eye of the tapered moon, he ran.

Each breath sharp and shallow. Each step desperate.

Each cry a prayer flung into the dark.

He needed to save her. But how?

What would he even say?

That his nine-year-old daughter had murdered her own mother?

That she now served a goddess who whispered through snakes and blood?

“Heyi, Lord... please... save me.”