SHORT STORY: THE SACRIFICE

By Sharon Adisa

Year 1899

At a village in Igamoru…

“Baba I plead with you, whatever it costs, I would pay just… just don’t let my family perish like this!”

A woman in her late fifties lay on the ground, wailing in distress, as a group of men tried to drag her out of the hut. “Would you leave me alone?” The woman screamed. “Leave me alone!” she cried louder to the guys holding her down as they tried to drag her towards the exit.

“Baba, if you would give me another chance, I would do it better.” The woman pleaded again. Her eyes had become blood red and swollen from the torrent of tears she had shed in the past hour.

“Quiet woman! Don’t test my patience! I warned you not to make a mistake when I gave you the charm, but you took my warning carelessly. Now that you are here crying, you better go and greet your family goodbye because in the next three hours they will all die.”

“Ha, Baba, please don’t do this to me; there has to be a way out. There has to be!”

Sighing deeply, the Baba turned to her and said, “You know what you have to do.”

2 weeks ago

Dressed in a pitch black iro and buba, Iyabo did her best to blend into the shadows. Having only the moon as her source of light, she moved quietly through the huts in the village square as she made her way to the forbidden forest.

Previously, she had visited an elderly man living in the heart of Igamoru Forest. She was tired, but it was pure desperation that pushed her to embrace evil powers; she had no other choice. She had heard different stories about the Baba who held the powers of the gods in his hands and knew that only he could save her family from the grip of poverty.

He gave her a charm that would make her husband’s farming business prosper and a sacrifice to bury at the entrance of Igamoru and warned her, “If you’re caught while burying the sacrifice, your family would become the sacrifice.”.

As she rushed to quickly pile the last heap of sand on the sacrifice, she heard a loud cry behind her: “Ebo! Ebo! Ebo!” It didn’t take long until every able-bodied man in the village gathered at the sound of the commotion.

Gathering all the strength within her, Iyabo fled as fast as she could into the thick forest, with the last words of the Baba replaying like drums in her ears: “If you fail and get caught, there is only one way out. Are you willing to pay the price?”

“I’ll do anything, Baba, anything to save my family.” She replied.

Year 2024

“Goodbye, mom and dad; see you in the next few days!” Simi told her parents as she dropped the video call with them.

As I stood in the queue waiting to enter the school bus, I felt a cold chill on my skin. In the past two nights, I’ve had strange dreams that made no sense but managed to fill me with dread once I woke up. Shaking off the eerie, foreboding thought, I forced myself to think of all the fun I would have on the field trip.

It soon became my turn to enter the bus, but as I stepped in, it felt as though I had been watched. I looked back and saw someone staring at me a few feet away from the bus. This person was dressed in all black with a hood that covered his face. The moment our eyes met, he muttered a word I couldn’t hear and walked away. A shocking sensation went quickly through me, and instead of entering the bus, I found myself in a village.

Standing in an open space in the middle of a village surrounded by mud huts and thatched roofs, everywhere was littered with domesticated animals. Their feces filled the air with a toxic stench, making it almost impossible to breathe. Out of nowhere, a group of men started chanting repeatedly as they passed by where I was standing. Before I knew it, people began to surround me from every corner of the village. With every second that passed, the crowd increased.

Did I just get kidnapped? Where is everyone? I thought to myself as I frantically tried to look for someone familiar. Their chanting became louder: “Igbesan ti awon orisa bi o ti wa, Igbesan ti awon orisa bi o ti wa, Igbesan ti awon orisa bi o ti wa.”

I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulders, and I turned around to see a woman dressed in scarlet red with a white scarf. She made a sign on my forehead, spat on the ground, and walked away.

The whole village disappeared again, and I found myself in a shrine. I stood in front of what seemed to be an altar stained with dried blood, dirt, and bird feathers and marked with strange inscriptions. Placed in the center of the altar was a great statue. The statue had the head of a dog, a goat, and a snake curling around it with wings around the shoulders.

For a minute, I was transfixed by the ghastly-looking statue before my senses kicked in and panic started to rise. I need to get out of here, but how do I get out of here? I could hardly manage to think logically, as fear itself had wrapped its arms around me.

A man stepped in front of me dressed in traditional attire and a staff in his hands wrapped in red clothes. His face was painted black, and he wore a crown of animal bones—or were they human bones? This must be the priest of whatever god this is.

“Jesus Christ!”

As he came closer, he started chanting incantations. Looking around for an escape, I then realized that I had nowhere to turn as I was surrounded by a group of people dressed in red and white who formed a wall behind me.

The priest let out a loud cry and said something in a grave voice. In response, two muscled men, armed with spears in their hands and eyes full of determination, approached me. I took a step back and fought with all my might as they tried to bind me, but all I heard in response were shrieks and menacing laughter. As they placed me on the altar with the statue above me, I knew this would be my end.

The priest, after grinding powder in a calabash, poured the content on my head. As he poured it, I began to convulse and shake violently. The men who placed me on the altar beside me held my arms and legs tight as the shaking nearly threw me off the altar.

“It is done, O ti pari,” the priest bellowed. “You’ve been chosen to bear the sins of your ancestral mothers, and you shall die in their place!” He then took a knife that somehow glinted in the darkness and brought it close to my chest.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the priest to plunge the knife into my chest, when suddenly, a bright, blinding light came out of nowhere, turning everything into disarray. When I managed to pry my eyes open, I found myself sprawled at the entrance of the bus, drenched in water. No village, no altar, no statute, no priest—just my classmates staring at me with worry etched on their faces.

“What happened?

Where am I?

Where are they?

They want to kill me.

I was about to die. I was about to die!” Panic and fear ran through me, threatening to choke the little life I was holding on to.

“Be still; you’re safe now.” A man whispered, and just before I blacked out, I noticed I was wearing a cross necklace.