Whispers by the river

They thought the myths were buried.

They thought the waters could be redirected.

They thought silence was the same as peace.

But the Archive—designed to sanitize history, regulate tradition, and curate what the nation was allowed to remember—was failing.

And the cracks had begun.

Not at the surface.

But deep within the Foundation Hall.

The Ministers Meet

In the capital city of Ìtẹ́wọ́gba, a meeting had been called. Not public. Not recorded.

The Council of Cultural Continuity sat around a long crescent table of laminated teak. Overhead, the crest of the Archive shimmered in digital relief—two hands cupped around a burning book.

Minister Olukẹ́mi adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat.

"There are drums again," she said simply.

Silence.

Then murmurs.

Minister Ajaka frowned. "There are always drums."

"Not like this," she replied. "These carry memory. They're reviving the forbidden myths. Queens, rivers, ancestors."

Someone hissed. Another crossed themselves.

Ajaka leaned forward. "Where?"

Olukẹ́mi tapped the screen.

A map lit up.

Red pulses blinked across the southern region—Obade, Iwárẹ́, Èjìgbò, Afonko.

And spreading.

"They are syncing across distances," she said. "The rhythms are awakening dormant lines."

"Lines?" asked a younger archivist.

Olukẹ́mi didn't answer.

She simply zoomed in.

The rivers glowed.

Like veins.

A Forbidden Footage

They played the footage next.

Smuggled in on an encrypted chip.

Unverified, but powerful.

It showed children—no older than ten dancing in spirals beneath a tree older than the Archive's founding.

A girl in the center lifted her arms.

The drums around her pulsed.

And the earth beneath her feet cracked open just slightly—spilling water that shimmered with glyphs.

"No wind. No rain," Olukẹ́mi said. "But the river rose anyway."

A pause.

Then:

"We believe this one is named Rerẹ́."

The Directive

Ajaka stood.

His voice was heavy with decision.

"We have tolerated the ritualists. We have documented the myth-weavers. But this is different."

"These children are not repeating tales. They're writing them."

He turned to the digital wall, where the Archive's Prime Principle flickered:

He who controls the past, commands the present.

"And if we lose control of the past…"

He didn't finish the sentence.

He didn't need to.

Whispers from Below

Unbeknownst to them, beneath the Foundation Hall, in chambers sealed before the revolution, old scrolls began to unbind themselves.

Their ink bled upward.

Words long erased rose to the surface.

Ẹ̀nítàn.

Ẹgbẹ́rẹ́.

Ìbùkún of the Deepwell.

The Archive's memory was not as clean as it claimed.

And it was remembering on its own.

Back in Obade

Iyagbẹ́kọ felt it before the gourd arrived.

Her spine stiffened. Her staff trembled in the soil.

Rerẹ́, across the village, fell to her knees mid-song.

"They're watching," she said. "But not with eyes. With fear."

Èkóyé pulled the cloth from the carved listening bowl near the platform. Inside it, ash had formed new symbols—sharp, angular.

"The Archive is cracking," he murmured. "And the ghosts inside it want out."

Ola stepped forward.

"Then we must decide," he said.

"Do we teach them to listen…"

"Or prepare them for the storm?"

Final Lines

In Ìtẹ́wọ́gba, the ministers moved to seal the rivers from the record.

In Obade, the daughters carved new verses into stone.

In the forgotten rooms beneath the Archive, an old drum began to hum.

The war for memory had begun.

And this time…

The story would not go quietly.