Before the Seventh Night Episode 1

Baba Adigwe let the cowries scatter across the dusty shrine floor. They clicked softly, then went silent.

When he lifted his head, his eyes were red deep, burning red, like embers that had waited too long for air.

“If you want your son to live,” he said, voice flat, “you must lie with twenty-one strong men in seven days.”

The words hit me like a slap.

“Twenty-one?” I screamed, clutching my head. “Baba, have you lost your senses? That is three men every day! I am a married woman!”

He didn’t flinch.

“Then start preparing your son’s coffin.”

I staggered back.

“My child is only six,” I cried. “Obinna is dying in the hospital please!”

Baba struck his staff on the ground.

“Your son is an Ogbanje. The spirits are already pulling him away. To anchor him, he needs an overload of life force.”

“But my husband”

“Your husband is empty!” Baba roared. “If you use him, the boy dies tonight. You need fresh, aggressive blood. Twenty one men. Seven days. Miss even one count, and your son is gone.”

He tossed a string of heavy black waist beads at my feet.

“Wear this. It will drain their strength and feed the child. But once you begin… you cannot stop.”

My hands shook as I picked up the beads. Nausea rose in my throat.

It was madness. It was a curse. It was an abomination.

But then I saw Obinna’s face in my mind his small chest struggling, machines breathing for him at the General Hospital.

“I will do it,” I whispered.

Day One The First Count

I ran from the shrine like a hunted animal. Time was already against me. The doctors said my son might not survive the night.

I needed three men before midnight.

My eyes landed on Sunday the young mechanic who had fixed our generator earlier that week. Strong. Young. Full of life.

I called him.

“The generator is bad again,” I said.

He arrived quickly. My husband, Emeka, was still at the hospital. The house was quiet.

Sunday stepped inside, wiping sweat from his arms. “Madam, where is the key?”

“Leave it,” I said, locking the door.

The beads around my waist felt hot alive.

I moved closer, my voice barely steady. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Confusion crossed his face, then curiosity.

He followed me.

What happened next was not pleasure.

It was hunger.

The beads tightened suddenly, squeezing my waist as if they had teeth. I heard a roaring sound, like wind being pulled into a deep hole.

Sunday froze.

His strength vanished in seconds.

“Madam…” he gasped, clutching his chest. “My heart”

He collapsed.

I screamed, pushing him away. He was alive but barely. His skin looked drained, his body weak, like something vital had been stolen.

Then my phone beeped.

A message from my husband:

“Nkechi! The doctors are shocked. Obinna’s heart rate just stabilized. He’s breathing on his own!”

I dropped the phone.

It worked.

I had saved my son for now.

But fear wrapped itself around my spine.

This was only one.

I still needed twenty more.

And then I heard it.

Creak.

The curtain by the window shifted.

Someone was watching.

To Be Continued…

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