Chapter 5: A LONE DANCE
Owuye had been home that night, the warmth of his wife's laughter mingling with the innocent chatter of their children. The fireplace crackled, casting long, wavering shadows on the walls. Outside, the winter winds whispered through the trees, but inside, there was only the comfort of family.
Then, without warning, the air was shattered by a distant, unearthly howl. It came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The windows rattled. Owuye's children froze, their smiles faltering. His wife, Adaora, looked at him with a sudden, primal fear in her eyes. Before Owuye could move, before he could reach for the rifle hidden under the bed, they came—wolves, dozens of them, emerging from the shadows like living nightmares.
They tore through the door as if it were paper, a frenzied storm of fur and fangs. Owuye fought, his fists striking wildly, but they overwhelmed him. He saw Adaora fall first, the light dying in her eyes. Then his children, their terrified screams cut short. The room became a slaughterhouse, the air thick with the coppery tang of blood.
And then, as if to mock the carnage, the wolves changed. Owuye, bruised and half-blinded by tears, watched in horror as their snarling muzzles stretched and contorted. Fur melted into skin, claws retracted, and the creatures became something worse—half-man, half-beast, neither and both. They stood there, a cruel pack of werewolves, and then the transformation continued. The last remnants of the beast faded, leaving only men: gaunt, wild-eyed, and utterly human. One, with a scar slashing across his face, leaned close and spoke with a voice like crushed glass.
"We aren't finished, Owuye," he whispered, his breath hot with the stench of death. "Your brothers, your sisters... anyone you've ever smiled at, anyone you've ever loved—they're next. We will hunt them all. This is a promise."
With that, they vanished as suddenly as they had come, leaving Owuye kneeling in the blood of his family. He did not cry. His tears, he realized, had no place in a world so brutal. He sat in silence until dawn, eyes vacant, hands bloodied, knowing that there are griefs too vast for tears.
When the authorities arrived, drawn by the scent of death and the silence that followed, Owuye said nothing. He buried his wife and children with his own hands, refusing all offers of help. He dug an extra grave, slightly apart from the others, a hollow space for himself, for when the time came.
In the days that followed, Owuye was quietly forced into early retirement from the police force—a man broken beyond recognition, no longer fit to serve. They spoke of him in whispers, said the drink had taken him, that madness had finally claimed him. But none knew what he had seen. None could know.
Owuye moved to a ramshackle cabin by the river, turning to the solitude of the waters. He became a fisherman, a drunk, a man who haunted the shore like a ghost. His eyes, once sharp and keen, had become the hollow gaze of a man who saw little and remembered too much. The bottle became his only comfort, a silent companion in his grief, drowning the nightmares that stalked his sleep.
But he waited. And he watched. And he drank. He knew that one day, the beasts in human skin would come for him. One day, they would emerge from the darkness once more to finish what they had started. Until then, Owuye would be ready, his knife sharpened, his eyes turned toward the forest that hid all manner of evil.
He had buried his tears with his family. Now, all he had left was vengeance, and the slow, maddening burn of whiskey in his veins.