Chapter 4 The one who walked away.

Victor was pacing. "I'm not sleeping here tonight. I don't care. I'll sleep on the football pitch if I have to."

Chuka sat with his hands clenched. "Bro, someone is missing. Vanished. No screams. No blood. Just... gone."

Tola stood near the doorway, holding her Bible like a shield. She hadn't looked at Zainab since the previous night.

"You said your grandmother warned you," Victor turned to Amara. "Did she know about this?"

Amara hesitated. "She told me the school had history. That people like us were drawn to it. But she never said why."

Zainab stepped in. "Because every ten years, something rises beneath Eluwon. And it always starts with a sacrifice."

Everyone went still.

Chuka finally said it: "So what, we're next?"

Amara's fingers tingled again. She looked down and saw it - her palm glowing faintly beneath the skin, like embers buried under glass.

She quickly clenched her fist.

"I think I'm changing," she whispered.

---

🌘 That Night – A Shadow in the Room

Zainab stayed awake. Her eyes on the door.

She'd drawn wards on the windows. Salt beneath the beds. Protection charms in each corner.

But still... the whispers came.

Only this time, they spoke a name.

"Amara."

Zainab turned sharply.

Amara was sitting up in bed, eyes wide open... but not awake.

Her mouth moved, chanting words in an ancient tongue.

Zainab stood. "Amara?"

Suddenly, Amara gasped - and her hand burst into flame.

Bright. Silent. Controlled.

Then it vanished.

Amara looked down at her palm.

"I didn't mean to do that," she said.

Zainab stared at her.

"You don't need to mean it," she replied. "It's already in you."

---

📖 Chapter Six: The One Who Walked Away

🕯️ 8:09 PM – The Breaking Point

The common room felt colder than usual. None of them spoke for a long time.

Victor finally stood, backpack on his shoulder.

"I'm leaving."

Amara looked up. "What?"

"I'm not staying in that room, in this hostel, with... witches and curses and vanishing students. I didn't come here to die."

Zainab rolled her eyes. "It's not like evil stops at the hostel gate."

Victor's jaw tightened. "Maybe not. But staying here feels like asking for it."

Chuka spoke next, quieter than usual. "Bro, if you leave, you're on your own. No one's got your back out there."

Victor looked around at them. "I don't need backup. I just need peace."

He turned and left.

The door clicked shut behind him.

---

🌘 10:41 PM – Zainab's Warning

"I don't like this," Zainab muttered, tracing a sigil into the window with salt.

Amara sat at her desk, flipping pages in silence. "Victor doesn't believe in any of this."

Zainab paused. "He will."

Tola was praying again, almost in a trance. Her Bible now had a feather tucked into it - she'd found it that morning, under her pillow.

"Why us?" she whispered. "Why this block?"

Amara finally answered. "Because our blood remembers things we've forgotten."

---

🌑 Meanwhile – The Football Field

Victor walked through the campus field with his hoodie up and hands deep in his pockets.

It was too quiet.

No crickets. No wind.

He stopped near the goalpost, looked back toward the hostel... and froze.

A woman stood behind him.

Black braids. Black dress. No face.

Just void.

He opened his mouth to scream - but his voice didn't come out.

The woman raised a hand. In it, she held something - a page from a diary, written in Victor's handwriting.

> "I'm not one of them. But I saw her light a candle with her bare hands. She's not normal."

She smiled - or maybe just implied one.

Then everything went dark.

---

🌒 The Next Morning – One Bed Empty

They found his bag outside the hostel gate. Torn open. Empty.

His room was undisturbed.

But the wall above his bed had a new symbol burned into it - a spiral surrounded by four dots.

Zainab stared at it and whispered, "The sigil of choosing."

Tola covered her face.

Chuka didn't say a word.

Amara stood still. A new sensation had settled in her chest - not fear.

Resolve.

"I want to know everything," she told Zainab.

Zainab nodded. "Then we need to go underground."

That evening, under cover of dusk, Zainab led Amara, Chuka, and a hesitant Tola across the back of the campus chapel to a forgotten stairwell sealed off by rusted metal doors. Faded letters above it read:

Maintenance – Restricted

"Are we even allowed in here?" Chuka asked, clutching his power bank like a weapon.

"No one's allowed," Zainab said. "That's why no one checks."

She slid her silver dagger across the lock. The sigils on its blade shimmered faintly and the chain fell to the ground like dry vines.

They stepped into darkness.

The air grew colder the deeper they went. The walls turned from concrete to red clay, and the smell of damp earth mixed with something metallic - like blood left too long in the sun.

Finally, they reached a door. Carved intBut Amara had already turned to the window.

Because outside... the woman in black was back.

Only this time, she wasn't alone.

Behind her stood four shadowed figures each holding a black feather.

Amara couldn't sleep.

Again.

She sat on the edge of her bed, watching the wall where the message had appeared the night before. It was gone now, but the words still burned in her mind:

> "One of you is lying."

Across the room, Chuka was snoring lightly. Tola pretended to be asleep, her Bible clutched to her chest.

Only Zainab was still awake, eyes fixed on the door.

Amara whispered, "Do you think it meant... one of us invited it?"

Zainab didn't look at her. "I think it's right."

A beat passed.

Then she added, "I just don't think it was me."

---

🌘 The Hidden Diary

The next morning, Tola was gone.

Her bed was made. Bible neatly folded in a cloth. Her corner... spotless.

No feather this time. No whispers. Just absence.

Chuka panicked first. "She's not picking. She left her phone."

Zainab frowned. "She wouldn't just leave."

Amara's eyes darted to the bookshelf. A small purple journal was wedged behind one of her grandmother's spellbooks - Tola's prayer diary.

She opened it.

The first pages were filled with handwritten scriptures. Notes from chapel services. Names of people she'd been praying for.

But the last three pages were different.

Words were scratched in messy, rushed ink:

> "I saw her speak with the faceless woman.

She wasn't afraid. She bowed.

She gave something in return.

I think... she made a pact.

I prayed for her soul.

I think it's too late."

Zainab's eyes widened. "She's talking about Chuka."

---

🕯️ The Reveal

They confronted him that night.

Chuka sat calmly, fingers tapping on his phone screen.

Zainab didn't waste time. "What did you give her?"

He looked up, confused. "What?"

"The faceless woman," Amara said. "Tola saw you."

Chuka's eyes darkened - but only for a second.

"I didn't give her anything," he said. "I just wanted answers."

"You made a deal," Zainab accused. "That's why the sigil showed up after you started sleeping here. You didn't get marked - you got tagged for immunity."

Amara stared at him. "She promised you safety in exchange for us."

Chuka stood now, face twisting. "You think I asked for this? You think I wasn't scared when Victor disappeared? When that scratch showed up next to Tola's bed? I begged God, begged the air - and something answered. I just wanted to survive."

"And now Tola's gone," Amara said coldly.

Chuka looked away.

"I didn't know she'd take her."

Zainab locked him in the room with a binding circle drawn in chalk.

She and Amara returned underground this time, deeper.

The passage led to an older section almost like a temple. Burned candles melted into the stone. Walls inscribed in old Igbo, twisted with Yoruba.

In the center stood a statue of Oju-Ale the Hidden One.

She had no face. Only hands - stretched wide, as if asking for something.

At her feet was an altar... with a book.

Amara approached.

The book opened on its own.

Inside: spells, histories, names of bloodlines... including her own.

"Okezie. Fire-born. Vessel of the Gate."

Zainab stared at her. "You're not just a witch," she whispered. "You're the one it wants."

The statue's hands began to move.o it was a symbol that made Amara's skin crawl: