DEATH REINCARNATE

CHAPTER ONE

The rain came first. Heavy, steady, like it had rehearsed this morning just as much as the people gathered under the black tents. Drops slid down the glassy surface of the coffin, streaking across the polished wood until it looked like tears the earth itself refused to hold back. Roses lay on top, their red bleeding against the wet, their petals bruised from the storm.

Amara stood still, her umbrella forgotten at her side, her dress clinging to her skin. She didn’t feel the cold. She didn’t feel the rain. She only felt the word hammering inside her head, the word that had woken her in the night and stalked her through the day.

Why.

Her brother Kelechi lay inside the coffin—handsome even in death, if the whispers could be believed. People muttered that he looked like he was sleeping, like he might rise if the priest’s prayers reached the right heavens. Amara knew better. Death had a finality you could smell, a chill you couldn’t unfeel.

She stared at his face, pale under the glass. “Why?” she whispered, and the word was swallowed by the hymn.

At her side, her father, Obinna, pressed a handkerchief to his eyes. His sobs were perfectly timed—sharp intakes of breath, deep sighs, then silence. The cameras loved him. Reporters craned their necks, capturing every angle. Whenever the priest paused, Obinna let his hand drop, allowing one tear to trace down his cheek before lifting the handkerchief again.

And then, between one blink and the next, Amara saw it.

The smirk.

It was gone almost immediately, tucked behind a new sob, but it was there—quick as lightning, sharp as a knife. Her stomach turned. No one else seemed to notice.

Her mother, Ngozi, sat beside him, a pillar of silence. Her face was unreadable, her lips pressed tight, her hands folded like stone on her lap. She didn’t look at the coffin. She didn’t look at Amara. She didn’t look at anything. Just the rain, as if it alone deserved her attention.

From across the graveyard, Amara’s gaze caught on a woman in sunglasses, weeping harder than even family should. Chioma. The actress. Nigeria’s rising star. She had been Kelechi’s “friend,” or so the media said. But Amara could see it in the way her shoulders trembled, in the way her lips moved as if whispering to the coffin. This was not the grief of a casual friend. This was something deeper, rawer, more dangerous.

Next to Amara, Chika shifted uncomfortably, his hand brushing hers. Protective. Always protective. But his eyes weren’t on her. They kept sweeping the crowd, sharp and restless. Every time Obinna sobbed, Chika flinched, as if something about it grated against his skin.

Amara wanted to ask him what he saw, what he knew, but the hymn rose louder and swallowed her thoughts.

The priest’s voice carried over the rain, steady and strong, blessing Kelechi’s soul, committing him to the earth. People murmured amen in broken voices. The coffin began to lower.

Amara’s knees buckled. She wanted to scream, to claw at the ground, to demand an answer, but the word stayed stuck in her throat. Why. Why. WHY.

When the ropes tightened and the coffin disappeared into the red earth, she felt the crowd hold its breath. Roses fell one after another, thudding against the lid. Cameras clicked. Umbrellas rustled.

And that was when the silence broke.

“Ehn-ehn!” a voice boomed, cutting through the tension like a machete. “Are we burying or we are rehearsing Nollywood here?”

Heads snapped around. Some gasped, others hissed. Standing just behind the mourners, under no umbrella, his shirt already drenched, was Uncle Ikenna. Broad-shouldered, his belly slightly round, his hands forever in motion as he spoke. He waved one hand dramatically as if conducting an orchestra, his other clutching a bottle of malt he had somehow smuggled into the funeral.

“Ah! See drama! See tears on cue!” He dabbed his face with his palm, mimicking Obinna’s sobbing with exaggerated shakes. “Camera man, abeg, zoom on me too. I can cry more than them!”

Laughter sputtered at the back before someone shushed it. Others looked furious, whispering about disrespect. But Ikenna only spread his arms wider, spinning slowly in the rain as if the entire funeral were his stage.

Amara wanted to be angry. She wanted to tell him to stop. But her eyes stuck to him. Unlike everyone else, Uncle Ikenna wasn’t afraid. His jokes were daggers, careless but sharp.

“Ah, Kelechi,” Ikenna sighed, suddenly dropping his voice, eyes fixed on the lowering coffin. “You played life like a game. But see them now, crying for the script you left unfinished.”

The mourners froze. Some blinked in confusion, unsure if it was still a joke. Amara’s chest tightened. Script?

Uncle Ikenna laughed again, breaking the tension, but the line had already cut deep. He danced a little step, snapping his fingers, then bowed to the coffin like a performer closing a show.

Amara couldn’t move.

She looked at her father. The smirk hovered again at the corner of his mouth before he wiped his face. She looked at her mother. Still stone, still staring at the rain. She looked at Chioma, whose sobs had grown wilder after Ikenna’s words.

And she heard Kelechi’s voice in her head, teasing, mischievous, always hiding something.

She whispered it again, her lips trembling, her fists clenched at her side.

“Why?”

The word echoed in the pit of her chest, louder than the priest, louder than the rain, louder than Uncle Ikenna’s booming laughter.

And for the first time, Amara felt it in her bones.

This funeral was not an ending.

It was the beginning.