The Visit
When the Moon Chose the Earth
Before the Yellow Ones crossed the waters,
before names were carved into stone,
before kings learned to wear crowns,
before rivers remembered their courses,
before the first child cried beneath the open sky,
there was only memory and fire.
There was no beginning.
Only existence.
Only the endless rhythm of creation folding into itself.
Some would later call it the First Age.
The gods knew better.
To them, it was simply another breath in eternity.
Long before mankind measured years or built temples, before prayers rose from clay villages into the heavens, the universe belonged to beings whose names have been forgotten by every language except the oldest winds.
Above all sat Chukwu.
He was not merely king.
He was the first thought that became reality.
The first voice that echoed across nothingness.
The first silence after creation.
Stars drifted because he willed them.
The oceans waited because he allowed them.
Even time moved only after receiving his permission.
Yet for all his immeasurable power, Chukwu carried something no immortal should possess.
Loneliness.
It settled inside him like a quiet wound.
There had once been laughter within the heavens.
His children had filled the endless sky with arguments, music, impossible dreams, and reckless adventures.
But eternity changes even the hearts of gods.
His eldest son had journeyed eastward beyond the horizon of creation, where the skies never slept and the land itself burned with endless daylight. There, he built a kingdom of blazing gold that mortals would one day call the Sunlands.
His daughters wandered worlds unseen, shaping rivers, forests, mountains, storms, and dreams.
One by one they found purposes beyond their father’s throne.
The palace of heaven grew larger.
Its halls grew quieter.
The echoes remained long after the voices disappeared.
Sometimes Chukwu walked alone through those endless halls, hearing memories instead of footsteps.
Even immortals miss what they lose.
The Fates watched.
No one knew who the Fates truly were.
Not even Chukwu.
Some whispered they existed before creation itself.
Others believed they were the final law that even gods obeyed.
Their voices came without bodies.
Without faces.
Without mercy.
Three whispers.
One truth.
Build your empire.
Claim your worship.
Become the Sun.
The words drifted through eternity until they reached Anyawu.
Young.
Brilliant.
Proud.
He had inherited his father’s radiance but none of his patience.
Fire answered every emotion within him.
When he laughed, comets crossed the heavens.
When he became angry, stars died.
When he dreamed, dawn arrived.
The prophecy awakened something buried deep inside his heart.
Not ambition.
Destiny.
He would not merely rule.
He would become the light by which every creature measured existence.
From that day onward his flames burned hotter.
Brighter.
More magnificent.
The heavens themselves struggled to look upon him.
Yet there was one whose light never competed with his.
Agbara.
His elder sister.
Where Anyawu blazed like a thousand suns, Agbara moved with the quiet certainty of moonlight.
She never demanded attention.
She never needed it.
She wore silence as gracefully as queens wore crowns.
Dark clouds braided themselves through her silver hair.
The moon rested above her brow like a sacred jewel.
Wherever she walked, fear dissolved.
Storms lowered their voices.
Wild beasts lay down beside frightened children.
Even death paused long enough to admire her passing.
The gods often argued over who among them possessed the greatest strength.
Some praised the storms.
Others praised fire.
Others praised war.
But the oldest spirits knew a secret.
Power that terrifies lasts only until something stronger arrives.
Power that comforts is remembered forever.
Agbara never desired kingdoms.
She desired balance.
Long before humanity existed, Chukwu amused himself by shaping smaller beings from clay, wind, rain, and forgotten pieces of starlight.
Some flew.
Some crawled.
Some hid beneath rivers.
Others wandered forests that had no names.
Each possessed only fragments of thought.
Enough to survive.
Enough to wonder.
Not enough to understand.
The gods watched these creatures as children watched insects beneath leaves.
Sometimes they laughed.
Sometimes they interfered.
Sometimes they created miracles simply to ease their own boredom.
“What shall they become?” one spirit once asked.
Chukwu smiled.
“Stories.”
“And what shall we become?”
He looked toward eternity.
“They will decide.”
Centuries passed like heartbeats.
The creatures learned.
They gathered.
They built homes.
They buried their dead.
They loved.
They feared.
And when lightning split the heavens...
they looked upward.
The first prayer was born.
The Fates returned.
This time they spoke only one name.
Agbara.
The heavens became still.
Even Anyawu dimmed his light.
The moon goddess lifted her eyes.
“I hear you.”
The voices surrounded her.
“The children ask who owns the night.”
“They fear darkness.”
“They fear what waits beyond the fire.”
“They fear themselves.”
A long silence followed.
Then came the command.
Go to them.
Show them the moon.
The stars bowed.
The heavens opened.
A silver path stretched from eternity toward the newborn earth.
Far below, where forests covered the land like emerald oceans and red earth clung lovingly to bare feet, life continued without knowledge that heaven had begun to move.
Morning drifted lazily across the village.
Women pounded yam beneath wide trees.
Smoke rose from cooking fires.
Children chased one another through dusty compounds until laughter echoed beyond the huts.
Goats wandered freely between narrow paths.
Roosters argued with the dawn.
The village breathed.
Simple.
Peaceful.
Unaware.
“Omaku!”
The voice cut through the afternoon.
“Omaku!”
A young girl stepped from the doorway of her mother’s hut, brushing dust from the wrapper tied carefully around her waist. The cloth still carried the warmth of the afternoon sun.
“Yes, Mama?”
Her mother, Izigo, balanced an empty clay pot against her hip while searching the compound with tired eyes.
“I’m going to the stream,” Omaku said quickly. “I only came inside to change my clothes.”
Izigo nodded absentmindedly before asking,
“Have you seen your brother?”
Omaku frowned.
“No, Mama.”
“He was supposed to gather firewood.”
She sighed deeply.
“That boy would lose his own shadow if it weren’t tied to him.”
Omaku laughed.
“I’ll find him later.”
“Go carefully.”
“I will.”
Without waiting another moment, the young girl hurried down the narrow red-earth path leading toward Obaku Stream.
Dry leaves crunched beneath her feet.
Birds scattered from nearby trees.
The wind carried the scent of wet earth, palm fruit, and distant rain.
Usually the path buzzed with voices.
Women washing clothes.
Children splashing through shallow water.
Old fishermen arguing about whose catch was larger.
Today...
nothing.
The silence felt unusual.
Not frightening.
Just... empty.
Obaku Stream waited beneath ancient trees whose roots reached deep into the earth like forgotten fingers.
The water flowed gently over smooth stones polished by centuries.
Dragonflies skimmed its surface.
The breeze barely disturbed the reflection of the sky.
No laughter.
No conversation.
No footsteps.
Only water breathing against stone.
Omaku smiled anyway.
She always loved the quiet.
She knelt beside the stream and placed the clay pot carefully beside her.
Without thinking, she began singing.
It was an old song.
One her mother used to sing before sadness settled behind her eyes.
A song about moonlight blessing sleeping children.
A song promising that no darkness lasted forever.
Her voice floated across the water.
Soft.
Fragile.
Beautiful.
She closed her eyes.
I miss when Mama smiled.
The thought came without warning.
She remembered evenings filled with laughter before her father died.
Before worry became part of every conversation.
Before silence replaced songs inside their home.
She dipped the clay pot into the stream.
Water swirled gently around her hands.
Then—
The world exploded.
Not with sound.
With light.
A light brighter than sunrise.
Brighter than lightning.
Brighter than fire itself.
The sky became white.
The river shimmered like molten silver.
The trees bent away as though bowing before something ancient.
Omaku screamed.
The clay pot slipped from her trembling fingers.
It struck the rocks below.
The sound echoed like thunder.
Cracks spread across the clay.
Then it shattered into countless pieces.
Her knees collapsed beneath her.
She covered her eyes.
But the light pierced even closed eyelids.
Her heart pounded so violently she feared it might burst from her chest.
“What...”
Her voice trembled.
“...what is happening?”
The light slowly softened.
Not weaker.
Gentler.
Warm instead of blinding.
Omaku forced herself to look.
Someone stood where moments earlier there had been only water.
A woman.
No...
not a woman.
Something greater.
Her skin glowed like polished silver beneath a full moon.
Dark clouds drifted lazily through hair that seemed woven from the night itself.
Every step she took left faint trails of starlight upon the earth.
The stream grew still.
The wind stopped breathing.
Even the birds refused to sing.
Creation itself waited.
Omaku’s body moved before her mind could think.
She fell face-first onto the earth.
Tears streamed freely down her cheeks.
She did not know why.
Her chest ached with emotions too vast to understand.
Wonder.
Fear.
Joy.
Sorrow.
Love.
All at once.
“What...”
she whispered through shaking breaths.
“What is this feeling?”
Her voice cracked.
“What am I becoming?”
The radiant woman said nothing.
She simply looked upon the frightened girl with eyes older than the moon itself.
Then she smiled.
It was not the smile of a queen.
Nor of a goddess.
It was the smile of a mother seeing her child for the very first time.
She stepped forward.
Her bare feet touched the earth.
At that single touch, flowers bloomed where none had grown before.
The stream shimmered.
The trees bowed.
The night itself seemed to awaken though the sun still hung above the horizon.
Agbara stretched out one graceful hand.
Her fingers brushed the soil of the world.
And from that sacred moment onward...
the night belonged to a queen.
