The Visit
Before the Yellow Ones crossed the waters,
before names were carved into stone,
before the sun learned where to rise,
there was only memory and fire.
Some call it the beginning.
The gods call it a moment that has no first breath.
In the high silence of the heavens, Chukwu felt a wound where joy once lived. His son had gone to raise his own kingdom in the Sunlands, and the sky had become too wide, too empty.
The Fates whispered:
Build your empire.
Claim your worship.
Become the Sun.
And so Anyawu burned brighter.
His sister, Agbara, had already chosen her path. She walked ahead of him as she always had, carrying the moon upon her shoulders. Where Anyawu ruled by flame, Agbara ruled by light that calmed storms and softened fear.
Long before humans learned their stories, Chukwu shaped lesser beings from boredom and breath. He gave his children the world as a game — knowing that one day, those beings would call the children gods.
When the time came, the Fates called Agbara.
Go to the humans, they said.
They ask who owns the night.
Show them the moon.
And the heavens opened.
“Omaku! Omaku!”
A girl stepped from her mother’s hut, her wrapper still warm from the market sun.
“Yes, Mama?”
“Izigo, I’m going to the stream,” she said. “I had to change my clothes.”
“Have you seen your brother?” her mother asked.
“No, Ma,” Omaku answered, already running down the red-earth path to Obaku Stream.
“These children will not kill me,” Izigo sighed, turning away.
The stream waited alone for Omaku.
No laughter.
No footsteps.
Only the breathing of water.
She knelt and sang the song her mother once sang when nights were gentle.
I miss when Mama smiled, she thought.
She lifted her clay pot.
Then the world shattered into light.
Brighter than sun.
Deeper than fire.
The pot fell and broke like thunder. Omaku’s knees failed her. Her eyes burned. Her heart trembled.
From the sky descended a woman made of moonlight.
Silver skin.
Hair of night clouds.
Steps guided by something greater than feet.
Omaku fell to her knees.
“What is this feeling?” she whispered.
“What am I becoming?”
The goddess touched the earth.
And night found its queen.
