THE MIDNIGHT SACRIFICE Episode 1

THE MIDNIGHT SACRIFICE

Episode One: The Night the House Locked Itself

“Junior, come and serve me. Your father is too old to satisfy the spirits tonight.”

The words didn’t sound human.

They slid out of my stepmother’s mouth as she loosened her wrapper, slow and deliberate, like she had rehearsed it in front of a mirror.

My scream hit the wall before my body did.

“Jesus Christ!”

I staggered backward, my heels scraping the floor until my back slammed into the concrete. My chest rose and fell like I had been running for my life.

“Dad!” I shouted. “Talk to her! Why are you just sitting there?”

I turned to my father, Chief Okon.

He was seated on a red chair at the far end of the room, completely still, holding a black candle that burned without smoke. His lips moved in a low chant I couldn’t understand. His eyes were not on me.

They were on her.

Beside him stood my stepsister, Clara.

She held a wide basin filled with dark liquid. Blood. Fresh. Thick. She watched me with a smile that didn’t belong on a human face.

“Do it, Junior!” my father suddenly thundered.

The sound shook the room.

“If you don’t sleep with her tonight, we will lose everything! All the money will disappear, and I will die!”

My legs went numb.

I tried to run.

The door would not open.

A strange padlock hung on it, decorated with red threads and tiny charms that looked like dried tongues. I pulled. I banged. Nothing.

Madam Nkechi began walking toward me.

She was sweating. Her eyes were wild, shining like an animal’s in the dark.

“Don’t be scared, my son,” she whispered, grabbing my waist. “It’s only for a short time. Just give me what the spirits want.”

My mind screamed no.

But my body felt heavy. Weak. Like something was pulling strength out of my bones.

And that was when I knew.

This night had been planned long before I ever entered that room.

HOW IT STARTED

Three months earlier, my mother died quietly in her sleep.

No sickness. No warning.

She kissed me goodnight, told me not to forget my morning devotion, and never woke up.

The house changed after that.

Two weeks after her burial, my father brought a woman home.

“This is Madam Nkechi,” he said calmly. “She’s a business partner. She’ll be staying with us.”

I noticed he didn’t call her a wife.

Not yet.

She moved into my mother’s room the same day.

Within a month, everything changed.

We moved out of our old house into a massive mansion in the GRA. Cars appeared. Guards appeared. Money flowed like water.

But so did rules.

“Never come out of your room after midnight,” Madam Nkechi warned me on my first night.

Her voice was soft, but her eyes were hard.

I laughed it off.

Until midnight came.

That was the night my door flew open.

Four huge men I had never seen before dragged me out of bed. I screamed. I fought. They were stronger.

They threw me into the master bedroom.

That was when I saw it.

The shrine.

Red symbols on the wall. Animal skins. Bones. Candles burning without smoke.

And my father.

Naked.

Holding the same black candle.

“Tonight,” Madam Nkechi said, her voice echoing unnaturally, “we begin.”

Back in the present, she pushed me onto the bed.

The mattress felt cold.

She climbed on top of me, and her skin burned like fire.

I tried to push her away, but my hands trembled uselessly. Every touch made my head spin.

“Dad! Please!” I cried.

My father laughed.

“You are doing this for the family,” he said. “Your seed is the sacrifice.”

Clara stepped closer, dipping her finger into the basin and sprinkling the blood onto the bed, onto us.

“The spirits are feeding,” she whispered. “Feed them, Junior.”

Something inside me broke.

I felt my strength draining with every second, like my life was being poured out slowly.

This wasn’t intimacy.

This wasn’t desire.

This was consumption.

I wasn’t giving love.

I was being harvested.

And as my vision blurred and the chanting grew louder, one terrifying truth settled into my chest:

If I survived this night, it would not be the last.

TBC... Episode 2