: The Third Name
---
The morning arrives heavy.
Thick mist clings to the village as if the sky is trying to smother it. The air doesn’t move. Birds do not sing. The river is full, but it no longer flows — it simply waits, like something holding its breath.
Mira senses it before she steps out of her hut.
> The silence is here.
Not creeping. Not looming.
Present.
It has entered the village.
---
The first to forget is Old Sefa — a weaver with a memory like iron.
She walks into the market, eyes wide, clutching her own apron like a stranger. Her voice trembles when she speaks.
“I don’t know who I am.”
Her son rushes forward. “Mama, it’s me. Boaz.”
She stares. “That name hurts my teeth.”
Kojo guides her home, whispering her life back into her ear.
But by evening, three more have forgotten their names.
By nightfall, seven.
---
Mira calls an emergency gathering at the tree altar.
She stands barefoot, cloaked in riverweed, holding the stone doll they retrieved from the abandoned village. Its r
