THE CURSE OF THE OSUN SHRINE EP 2

 

Episode 2: “The Water Remembers”

The Osun Sacred Grove, Midnight

The wind didn’t just howl—it screamed. Trees trembled. Birds scattered from their nests in a frenzy, as if fleeing a predator older than the forest itself.

Milly’s hands trembled as she filmed the shrine with her phone. The video feed was fuzzy, flickering as though the air itself rejected being captured.

Kazzy held the broken gourd. Water seeped from the crack, thick and red as blood.

“What the hell is this?” he muttered. Japhet backed away. “We need to go. Now.”

“No!” Badore barked. “If we run, someone will notice. We stash the relics and slip out during the festival. Sell them later.”

“But we just woke something up,” Milly said, voice shaking.

“Superstition,” Ranti scoffed, though her eyes darted toward the glowing shrine.

Suddenly, the carvings dimmed, the wind stopped. Silence fell—total, suffocating silence.

Then, a whisper, A woman’s voice from nowhere, From everywhere.

 “Ọmọ mi... ẹ̀sùn ti ẹ fi jẹ mi.”

Idowu froze. “Did—did anyone else hear that?” They all nodded slowly.

“Let’s move,” Japhet said. “Now.”

Back at their lodge, the seven sat in tense silence. The relics were hidden under the bed, wrapped in a white cloth that had started to stain brown for reasons no one could explain.

Kazzy, usually the loudest, was oddly quiet. “I had a dream,” he said at last.

“No one cares about your—” Badore started, but Kazzy cut him off.

“I was drowning. But the water wasn’t water. It was eyes. Hundreds of eyes. They were watching me. And then they blinked... and I woke up choking.”

Milly looked pale. “I had the same dream.” So, did Ranti, so did Idowu. They all had.

A knock sounded at the door. Three sharp raps. They froze.

Japhet crept toward the door and looked through the peephole.

Nothing. He opened it slowly. There was no one there. Only a puddle of water.

And in it—a single comb, carved of gold, just like the one they had stolen.

But they had hidden it under the bed. They rushed back inside.

The relics were gone. Instead, on the white cloth, written in some liquid ink, were three Yoruba words:

“Ẹ̀jọ́ mi yóò tọ̀ yín.”

“My judgment will find you.”

Later That Day – Festival Grounds

Drums pounded like war calls. Dancers spun in white and indigo, invoking Osun, the goddess of purity, love, and vengeance.

The stolen relics were nowhere to be found. But beneath the rhythm of the festival, the group felt eyes watching them. Every smile seemed too wide. Every dancer’s spin felt too precise. Every splash of the sacred river water on their skin burned just slightly.

Then it happened. Sunkanmi collapsed in the crowd. Foam at the mouth. Eyes rolled back. His body convulsed as the crowd screamed.

Ranti knelt beside him—but his skin was boiling. Literally blistering beneath her touch. He let out a final gasp.

“Ọsun ... mã bínú...”

And then he was still.

At Nightfall, they gathered in Milly’s room, faces pale, lips tight, terror building like a storm cloud.

“He was the first,” said Ranti. “First?” asked Japhet.

“Osun won’t stop until the debt is paid,” she said, voice cracking.

Kazzy stood in a corner, hands over his ears, rocking.

“We need a priest,” Milly whispered.

“No. We need the priestess,” Idowu said.

“Oluronbi.”

Everyone turned.

Milly swallowed hard. “I thought she was a myth.” “She’s real,” said Idowu. “And she knows how to stop this.”

Japhet’s voice was cold. “Then we find her. Before it’s too late.”

Outside, the river rippled... though no wind blew.

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