That night Mundu dreamt of darkness. Of an absence of light that swallowed entire suns. That raped women, devoured souls and feasted on the wandering feet of the young. A darkness that stopped the heart, froze the bone and snapped it like a twig. And it was up out of this impenetrable darkness that a face appeared; dark and smeared with some sort of white paste. Eyes castrated of sight twitched and danced within their sockets. Fat black lips moved, rapidly, spittle forming at the points where they met.
And then, a voice. At once high pitched, at the same time a rumble of torrential proportions. Muttering, screaming, whispering, chanting words in a language that Mundu could not comprehend but still somehow understood. They were a command. One that Mundu knew he would have to obey because as far fetched as it seemed, his very existence and that of everyone that he knew and loved depended on it. And so fuelled by the question of existence, Mundu pulled himself out of the darkness even as its hands tried to hold him down and pried open his eyes.
***
One foot in front of the other, shadows of Mundu’s dream followed him into the night. Nipping at his heels, pulling at his hair, running hard calloused fingers across his naked chest, arms and back. He wore nothing but a cloth that covered his midsection and carried nothing but a small sharpened blade that served as his only defense against glowing eyes, hungry howls and imagined foot falls.
Leaving the village behind him Mundu found himself at the edge of a wood. One full of large, old trees that did not stand tall and straight but were hunched over as if in pain and were believed to have been there for so long that they had even born witness to Masaba’s nativity.
Mundu had heard stories of this wood. Of the creatures that inhabited it. Of the terrible things that happened to men who entered it and had no respect for it or the spirits that it harbored. Stories that were told to him and his friends when they were children to scare them into obedience.
Now, with heavy breath and rivulets of sweat trickling slowly down the small of his back, the ghosts of these tales tread the thick forest of his mind with knives drawn and spears poised for action. Every muscle taught, Mundu’s breath came and went in heavy tides; every sound, every sign of movement a potential death.
One foot in front of the other.
Mundu on kept repeating to himself.
One foot in front of the other and you will soon be there.
Like the forest, Mundu had only ever heard stories of the Umulosi. The man who lived alone in the woods and communed with the spirits. For many the Umulosi was no more than a myth, a mother’s tale, like the menacing woods, to keep the children in line. If you did something wrong, “The Umolosi will come for you.” was the common phrase. And now, Mundu was looking for him. No, more than that, Mundu had been summoned by him. And because Mundu had been summoned he was not looking, he knew exactly where to find the sorcerer.
Mundu arrived at a clearing in the wood and in this clearing sat a hut. A round, mud plastered, thatch roofed hut. Outside of the hut sat a stool and on the stool sat a man. The man was naked but for a white paste that covered continents of skin. He was not just thin but a skeleton shrink wrapped in this skin. As Mundu approached the hut and the man on the stool outside the hut he heard from behind him,
“I have been waiting for you.”
Before Mundu could turn and see where the voice had come from, he felt a sting on the back of his neck, his body go numb and his world went black.
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