The days in Itakom stretched long and heavy, each one weighed down by silence. Utomobong tried to busy himself with small tasks—fetching water, gathering firewood, tending to his grandmother's hut—but everywhere he went, he felt the eyes of the villagers upon him.
They did not speak to him directly. Instead, they whispered. At the stream, women drew their buckets closer, their voices dropping when he approached. In the yam fields, men turned their backs, muttering under their breath. Even the children, once curious, now scattered at the sight of him, their laughter fading into uneasy silence.
The Oyokmo family's influence was everywhere. Their words had spread like smoke, curling into every corner of the village. "He brought the rattling," they said. "He carries the curse." Utomobong could feel the distance growing, a wall of suspicion rising between him and the people of Itakom.
At night, the rattling returned. Louder. Closer. The hut trembled, the bamboo mat shivered beneath him. His grandmother lay awake, her eyes hollow, her voice silent. Utomobong pressed his hands against his ears, but the sound was inside him, crawling through his bones. He wanted to cry out, to demand answers, but fear held him still.
Sleep became a stranger. He wandered the village in the early hours, when the mist clung to the ground and the forest loomed like a shadow. The villagers avoided him even then, their doors bolted, their fires extinguished. Itakom was alive, but it was not living.
One evening, Utomobong tried to speak to a boy near the stream. "Do you hear it too?" he asked, his voice trembling. The boy's eyes widened, and without a word, he fled, leaving his bucket behind.
The rejection cut deep. Utomobong felt the weight of exile pressing harder against his chest. His siblings had abandoned him, his parents had cast him out, and now even the villagers treated him as an outcast. Only his grandmother remained, her frail presence a fragile anchor in the storm.
But even she was slipping. Her strength waned, her voice grew weaker. She spoke less each day, her eyes drifting toward the forest as though listening to something only she could hear. Utomobong feared that soon, he would be truly alone.
The rattling grew bolder. It no longer waited for nightfall. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, Utomobong would hear it faintly—beneath the ground, behind the huts, in the rustling of the trees. The villagers pretended not to notice, but their eyes betrayed them. They knew. And they blamed him.
Isolation wrapped around Utomobong like a shroud. He was not just a boy in exile. He was a marked one, a bearer of fear. The rattling had chosen him, and the village had already decided his fate.
And as the sun set over Itakom, painting the huts in long shadows, Utomobong realized something chilling: survival was no longer about enduring the rattling. It was about enduring the silence of those who had already abandoned him.