Every night, I sneaked out of my husband’s room to go and meet Alhaji Mentus, the famous madman in our street.

Part 3: The Mark of Death

The moment Alhaji Mentus appeared outside our window, my heart stopped completely. His usual raucous laughter was gone, replaced by a silence that felt heavier than the night itself. The faint light of the streetlamp caught the red thread wound tightly around his wrist, identical to the one the old woman had worn inside the shrine. My breath hitched, and an icy dread crawled over my spine.

“Baby… what is that man talking about?” Ebuka asked, his tone suspicious, his hand gripping my waist.

I froze. The cold fear that had been gnawing at me all evening erupted into panic. “I—I don’t know who he means,” I stammered, my voice barely audible. “Alhaji Mentus is… he’s unstable.”

He sighed softly and drew me closer. “Yeah, I know. Just come back to bed,” he murmured. His touch was meant to comfort me, but instead it intensified the terror in my chest. Something about Mentus’s stare—the pain in his eyes—made me shiver uncontrollably.

I wanted to tell Ebuka everything, to reveal the truth, but the old woman’s warning echoed relentlessly in my mind: “If you choose faithfulness to your marriage, your husband will die in your arms. But if you continue to stain your vows with another man, Ebuka will continue to live.”

The words had been burned into my consciousness for weeks. I had tried to ignore them, tried to ignore Mentus, tried to ignore the mounting sense of doom. But now, standing there with Ebuka’s body pressed against mine, I realized ignoring them had consequences far beyond fear—it was deadly.

We sank back into bed, trying to reclaim some semblance of normalcy. I clung to him, resting my head against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, trying to convince myself that everything was fine. For a few fleeting moments, the world seemed to exist only between us, the flickering light of the kerosene lamp casting soft shadows across the room.

And then it started.

Ebuka stiffened violently. His body suddenly burned with an unnatural heat. His breathing became labored, shallow, uneven. He clutched at his chest as though invisible hands were squeezing him, and his face contorted in sudden agony.

“Ebuka? What’s happening?” I whispered, panic breaking through my forced calm.

“I… I don’t know,” he gasped. His voice was weak, almost strangled. He tried to rise, but his legs failed him. He slumped against the wall, trembling violently, sweat pouring down his face. His normally steady blue eyes were glassy, darting around the room as if they could see some invisible terror hovering above him.

A cold shiver ran through me. The old woman’s prophecy thundered in my head again, louder than ever: “The day your body belongs to Ebuka alone… is the day death will remember his name.”

A loud pounding on the door made both of us jump. KPO! KPO! KPO!

I rushed to open it, heart hammering in my chest. There, standing silently under the dim light of the porch, was Alhaji Mentus. His face was unreadable, but his presence was no longer the harmless eccentricity of the neighborhood madman. This was someone who carried death in his gaze. He raised his hand slowly, revealing the red thread again, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.

“You broke the rule last night,” he said softly, almost mournfully. The words sent icy fingers crawling down my spine.

Before I could respond, a shrill scream cut through the air: “Amakaaa!” Ebuka’s voice, filled with unimaginable pain, echoed from the bedroom. I turned to see him clutching his chest, blood streaming from his nose, his entire body trembling violently. The fear that gripped me turned into raw panic.

I ran to him, but my hands passed through him, as though some sinister force had rendered his body intangible. The blood wasn’t just blood anymore—it moved, thickening unnaturally, crawling across his skin, leaving dark, twisting patterns on his chest. He gasped, a sound that tore through my soul, and I realized in that horrifying moment that this was no ordinary sickness.

Alhaji Mentus stepped closer, and the red thread glowed brighter, casting eerie shadows across the room. “You cannot undo what has begun,” he said, his voice low and chilling. “Every choice has consequences.”

I screamed, pressing my hands against Ebuka’s chest, willing him to breathe, willing the nightmare to stop. But the weight in the air was unbearable. The room felt smaller, every shadow stretching unnaturally, wrapping around me, suffocating me with fear.

Ebuka’s voice became weaker. “It’s… it’s inside me,” he muttered, gasping, his eyes wild with panic. The blood continued to pulse across his skin, as though alive, and I realized with a sickening certainty that some curse, some dark intent had followed us into the room.

I looked at Mentus, pleading with my eyes. “What… what is this? What have you done?”

“I did not do this,” he said calmly, almost detached. “You have broken the balance. You invited forces that cannot be ignored. He is marked now. Only you can decide what happens next.”

My mind spun. My hands shook violently as I tried to reconcile the prophecy, Mentus’s warning, and Ebuka’s suffering. The weight of responsibility crashed down on me. If I failed, he could die in my arms. If I acted wrongly, the curse could spread.

I bent closer to him, whispering through tears, “Stay with me, Ebuka… please, stay alive.” The red thread pulsed again, and I felt a chill sweep through the room, like death itself brushing against my skin.

Mentus’s presence shifted. He remained silent, yet his eyes held an impossible intensity. He was watching, measuring, waiting. Every instinct screamed at me that the next moments would define life or death—not just for Ebuka, but for everything connected to the broken rules we had ignored.

Hours passed in agonizing limbo. Ebuka lay gasping, sweat and blood glistening on his skin, while I clutched him desperately, torn between fear, love, and the prophecy’s cruel truth. Outside, the night deepened. Shadows moved as if alive. Every sound—the creak of the floorboards, the flicker of the lamp, the distant call of a night bird—echoed in my mind like a warning.

Finally, as dawn crept through the curtains, Ebuka’s breathing stabilized slightly, though his eyes remained wild with lingering fear. Mentus stepped back, the red thread dimming, his expression unreadable. He whispered, almost to himself, “This is only the beginning. Balance must be restored, or death will not wait.”

I clutched Ebuka closer, my body shaking. I understood now—the curse, the prophecy, the old woman’s words—they were all real. And the next choice I made would either save him… or destroy him.