EPISODE 4, THE CHILD WITH NO EYES
I didn’t return to the cursed house that night. I begged Mama Chinyere to let me sleep in her shrine, and she agreed—with one warning:
The air was heavy. Too quiet. The floor creaked without being touched. I tried to close my eyes, but something kept tapping—tap… tap… tap—from outside the clay wall. Like small fingers trying to scratch their way in.
At exactly 3:15AM, I heard the faint sound of children laughing. Innocent. Joyful. It floated like a memory.
I broke the rule.
I stood and peeked through the shrine curtain.
That was when I saw him.
A little boy, maybe six years old, walking slowly near the well. He wore a blue school uniform… barefoot… head bowed.
I stepped out, whispering,
“Hey… are you lost?”
The boy stopped.
Then slowly lifted his face.
There were no eyes.
No mouth.
Just a blank, hollow space where his features should be.
His head tilted sideways.
Then he raised one hand… and pointed directly at me.
I stumbled backward, and the shrine door slammed shut behind me.
Inside the room, Mama Chinyere was already lighting a candle, shaking with fear.
“You saw him?” she asked.
I nodded, too shocked to speak.
She began to cry, whispering over and over:
“Uzoma… that was Uzoma…”
Uzoma was once a real child. He broke the rule.
He ran out after 6pm to chase a butterfly.
The villagers searched for him the next day and found him sitting by the well, but he was no longer human.
Just an empty shell, silent and staring.
> “Now he belongs to her. He leads her to new souls. If you saw Uzoma… you’re marked.”
I felt sick. My hands were shaking.
“What does that mean? What does she want from me?”
Mama Chinyere whispered the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard:
“She doesn’t want your life. She wants your pain. She feeds on it. And she’ll keep haunting you… until you break.”
Later that morning, I tried to blend into the village. I went to the stream where a few women were washing. They fell silent when I approached. One dropped her wrapper and ran.
But one woman whispered to me:
“I heard the child laugh last night near your house. No one survives that sound. Get ready.”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
She looked away and muttered,
“The next time he comes… he won’t come alone.”
I went back to my house just before 5PM. My chest was tight. My vision was blurry. Every corner of the home felt colder than the last.
Then I saw it—on the wall above my bed.
A new handprint. Small. Wet. Bloody.
And underneath it, a message written in red:
“You saw Uzoma. You belong to her now.”
I screamed and backed away—but when I turned to run, I saw a new figure at the window.
It wasn’t the bride.
It was Uzoma again.
Smiling. Pointing.
And this time…
his eyes were slowly growing back.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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