Debt

Part One Debt

My name is not important. At least, not yet. When this story begins, I do not even exist not in the flesh. I am only a whisper in the womb, an unseen witness to a chain of events that began long before I took my first breath.

It started when my father came into money. A lot of it. One day, we were just another struggling Nigerian family living in a cramped apartment, and the next, we were moving into a mansion that smelled of polished wood and fresh paint. My father said it was Gods blessing. My mother smiled and agreed. My sister, barely five years old, ran through the new corridors laughing like she finally found a place big enough to hold her joy.

But blessings do not come without shadows.

The house was large, but the air was never truly warm. At night, the walls seemed to hum faintly, like they were remembering things they could not speak. Sometimes, my sister would wake up crying, pointing at the corners of her room and saying there were people there tall, silent people with wings that didnt look right.

And then there was Mrs. Grace, the house help. She was a quiet woman, sharp-eyed, and quick to cross herself when she thought no one was watching. She avoided certain rooms, especially after sunset, and sometimes whispered prayers under her breath while working.

On the night the first scream tore through the mansion, something moved in the long corridor before any of us knew what was wrong. Three figures detached themselves from the dark like silhouettes cut from stone. They were tall enough to brush the ceiling; wings hung from their shoulders, but the feathers were not soft they looked cracked and ancient, as if chiselled from old bone. Their faces were half-hidden, and their eyes burned like coals in an empty hearth.

They did not come with footsteps. They came like cold slipping under a door. Voices followed them low and metallic, a whispering chorus that crawled along the walls. My sister swore she saw them bend over Mrs. Graces door and that they moved with an understanding too patient for human minds. Then, as sudden as a candle guttering, they were gone. They came and they went.

When the house remembered how to breathe again, Mrs. Graces scream split the silence.

I cannot tell you yet how or why she died. I can only tell you that when the police came later, they found the room undone in a way that made even hardened men look away. The memory of those winged figures hung in the air like a bad smell something we could not name but would never forget.

I was not yet born when that first scream tore through the mansion. I could only hear the chaos from the safe darkness of my mothers belly the footsteps pounding, the shouts, the crying. Even then, I could feel it something shifting in the air, something that had been waiting.

And that was how my life began in the shadow of a death that would stain everything that came after.