The Forgotten God — Movement 5
Reckoning
The river itself gave the first signs that they were approaching the city: widening as it neared the coast, its water shifting from tea-black to murky brown.
When the city came into view—heavy smog overshadowing its towers and streets so that it seemed to emerge like a phantom, shrouded in a dark cloak—Nayela gasped. She had never seen it like this: immense, rising above the water, yet somehow embedded, as if it had dug a nest for itself out of land, sea and sky.
The trip to her apartment only reinforced what the river had shown her. The city was alive!
Its crowded, dusty streets and tall buildings had always made her claustrophobic—as if the weight of human existence and endeavour, concentrated in one place, was pressing in on her.
Today, though, it felt like a sprawling, breathing organism. She could feel its pulse—frenetic and humming with possibility—as her cycle rickshaw weaved through cars, ramshackle stalls and people.
Her apartment was another revelation. Small and wedged between similar rooms, from which emanated all kinds of sounds and smells, it had always been nothing more than a place to rest her head.
Now, though, as she lugged her bags across the threshold and shut the door behind her, the room seemed to exhale around her—cosy, safe, hers.
She closed her eyes, ignoring the pressure building behind them.
She was home.
…
Nayela jumped up with a shriek and almost rolled straight off her cot. Not that she would have fallen far—the bed was nothing more than a thin mattress resting on some wooden pallets that she had scavenged from outside the supermarket where she worked.
It was the same nightmare. The same skeletal creature that seemed to be her mother at first. The same red light trickling through the window like thick syrup.
Only this time, the creature pointed its bony finger at her—a laugh rattling up from its cadaverous chest—and rasped:
“See? He come fuh yuh, girl!”
Even a cold shower couldn’t help Nayela shake the terror that perched on her shoulder, whispering the creature’s words into her ear, again and again.
She had thought she’d left the nightmare, the strange incident at the ceremony—all of it—back at the village. But as she sipped her coffee, gagging at the acrid taste, she wondered if, maybe, she had brought it to the city with her.
As the day wore on, a creeping dread rooted itself in her consciousness so that everything around her seemed to take on an ominous, malevolent quality.
The sky was a bilious yellow, through which sunlight oozed, barely reaching the ground. The buildings loomed overhead while she passed, as if they wanted to step on her, crush her like an ant. And beneath the city’s hum, she could hear a guttural moan, as if some gigantic creature had been mortally wounded.
The bright fluorescent lights reflecting off tiled floors and the cold air of the supermarket gave her some reprieve at first. But soon, the glare and the sharp bite of disinfectant made her head ache and her lungs constrict with every breath.
She wanted to go home, to cocoon herself in the darkness of her room, but she had used up the last of her vacation days to visit the village. And something inside her head whispered that the apartment would not be the refuge she hoped it would be.
So she restocked shelves and told customers where to find the pita bread and the garlic-infused coconut oil while pain gnawed at the insides of her skull.
By the time they were about to close, she was on auto-pilot—just one last sweep through the aisles and she could pack up and go home.
As she walked through aisle 7, a sickly-sweet smell tainted the air, getting stronger towards the back of the supermarket.
“The meat couldn’ ah get so bad,” she thought to herself. “Not at the temperature dey does keep it.”
She didn’t notice that the fluorescent lights had taken on a reddish tinge—not until she turned the corner at the end of the aisle.
By then, it was too late.
There, in front of the meat section, stood the figure from her nightmares—watching her.
“What yuh doing here?” Nayela screamed at it, oblivious to whoever might be in earshot.
“Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
The creature raised a hand, mottled flesh swinging from its arm, and pointed to a small brown heap on the ground just off to Nayela’s right.
She gasped.
His long tail, black at the tip, was curled protectively around his body, so that he almost seemed to be asleep. But when she stepped closer, she could see the matted fur, the swollen tongue protruding from his mouth, and the flies …
It was Dayo. He was dead.
Nayela screamed, backing away from the horror before her.
She ran through the aisles and out into the night.
Cars screeched as she stumbled through the intersection, their horns blaring. But she could not hear them. There was no escape from the buzzing that filled her ears, as if the flies circling Dayo’s corpse had taken up residence in her head—laying their eggs, infesting her brain.
The buzzing took on the distinct quality of a voice—discordant, legion. Like rocks scraping the river bed, leaves blowing in a hot, dry wind, a crackling wildfire consuming a field.
“Return.
Tell them death stalks the land.
Tell them exodus is here.
Tell them I will walk with them.
It is time.”
. . .
An Invitation to Ponder
What have you tried to leave behind—only to find it waiting for you in familiar places, changed, yet still speaking your name?
What part of your world, once neutral or mundane, has suddenly shifted—taken on new weight, meaning, or menace? How do you meet it?
When fear enters your space—not as panic, but as prophecy carrying the weight of new possibilities—what helps you stay present long enough to hear what it’s trying to reveal?
A Note on Cultural Context
This story draws inspiration from various Afro-diasporic spiritual systems and ancestral traditions. It presents a fictional, syncretic world—not a direct representation of any single belief or community. The Forgotten God was created with deep respect for the cultural and spiritual heritages that continue to shape and inspire Black diasporic storytelling.