Zamfara State,

  Someone asked for a thousand words of impending doom and poor decision making. Fantastic. Humans digging up ancient coffins is the intellectual equivalent of licking a glowing wire to "see what happens." Still, here we go.

  Yantoto Hills

  Dust rolled through the cavern like fog.

  Back then I thought it looked dramatic. Ancient. Cinematic. The sort of place where history wakes up, stretches its bones, and politely shakes your hand.

  Turns out it was more like the place history sharpens a knife and waits for you to get closer.

  Two massive trucks strained against chains buried deep in the rock wall. Engines groaned like dying animals. The chains creaked, metal begging the mountain for mercy.

  The mountain, being a mountain, didn't care.

  Miners shouted across the cavern. Pickaxes rang against stone in sharp metallic bursts. Somewhere deeper inside, a payloader roared like a mechanical beast that had lost its patience with existence.

  The cave sounded exactly like what it was.

  A group of men trying to bully the earth into surrender.

  And the earth, as usual, was pretending to cooperate while quietly planning everyone's funeral.

  I stood in the middle of it all, yelling over the chaos.

  "GET THE DYNAMITE! Blow the whole thing!"

  Six months.

  Six long, miserable months of rock, dust, broken drills, useless scanners, and men who complained like goats being dragged toward a butcher's knife.

  When you dig that long, patience stops being a virtue.

  It becomes an extinct species.

  A massive hand suddenly slammed into my back.

  I choked.

  "Ck—!"

  Before I could even recover, a thick arm wrapped around my neck like a steel cable.

  "Relax," Chukwu said, laughing behind me. "I can't hear alerts with all this noise."

  I clawed uselessly at his arm.

  "Free me," I rasped. "I'm close to something."

  Chukwu released me and leaned casually on his shovel like a man who hadn't just tried to remove my spine.

  He looked exactly like he always did.

  Like someone had taken a refrigerator and taught it how to walk.

  Calm. Solid. Unbothered.

  The kind of man riots politely walk around.

  My eyes drifted to the wooden whistle hanging around his neck.

  The little halo carving on it glowed faintly purple beneath the dust.

  I scowled.

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  "Six months of my work," I muttered, "and it's hanging on your chest."

  Chukwu grinned, completely shameless.

  "But you've been paid."

  Fair point.

  Still annoying.

  My relationship with Chukwu was difficult to categorize.

  Somewhere between father and son.

  Guardian and reckless child.

  Occasionally husband and wife.

  Which meant, in practical terms, that he spent a shocking amount of time cleaning up disasters I personally created.

  "Why are you even here?" I asked, dusting off my shirt. "It's your day off."

  Chukwu shrugged.

  "You're excited. Means I'm excited."

  Then his expression shifted slightly.

  Just a little.

  "You also said there might be a god in there."

  I blinked.

  Then I stared at him.

  "Sorry," I said flatly. "I'm straight, taken, and not excited for pain."

  Chukwu froze for half a second.

  Then he exploded with laughter so loud it echoed through the cavern.

  He grabbed a shovel and flung a pile of dirt at me.

  "You want to wake a god with dynamite?"

  I waved lazily toward the workers setting the charge.

  "Relax. It's boxed. It won't do anything."

  Those, by the way, are what scholars refer to as famous last words.

  The fuse hissed.

  Sparks sprinted down the thin wire like they were late for an appointment with disaster.

  One of the miners suddenly ran toward us, eyes wide.

  "Oga!"

  Too late.

  The explosion hit.

  BOOF.

  Not the dramatic, heroic kind of explosion movies love to exaggerate.

  More like the mountain coughing.

  The cavern shuddered.

  Dust poured from the ceiling in thick waves.

  Pebbles rained down and scattered across the ground like insects that had suddenly remembered they could die.

  For a moment everything went silent.

  Then I brushed dirt from my hair.

  Chukwu stood beside me, completely unbothered, like explosions were just another weather condition.

  The miner pointed frantically into the smoke.

  "Apótí dúdú ré!"

  I frowned.

  "What?"

  "The black casket!"

  The dust slowly cleared.

  Workers began gathering in a wide circle, keeping their distance like animals around a strange fire.

  And there it was.

  A black coffin.

  Half-buried in the rock wall.

  Gold patterns laced along its edges, thin lines twisting into ancient symbols that hurt my eyes if I stared too long.

  Scales carved across the surface shimmered faintly beneath the dust.

  Not reflecting light.

  Creating it.

  Like something underneath them was breathing.

  Slow.

  Very slow.

  The miners began whispering.

  "Nawa…"

  "Wetin be this?"

  "Na which kind thing be this?"

  "Oga don finish us."

  Superstition spreads through miners faster than malaria.

  You dig long enough, the earth starts whispering stories into your head.

  And stories about coffins buried inside mountains rarely end with happy music.

  I stepped forward anyway.

  Slowly.

  My heart pounded in my chest.

  Fear existed, obviously.

  I'm not completely stupid.

  Just professionally curious.

  And curiosity has always been the louder voice inside stupid men.

  "Chuk…"

  Chukwu's voice dropped behind me.

  "Lanre."

  That tone again.

  The responsible adult tone.

  "Did you tell your family about this?"

  "No."

  "And the client?"

  "Knows."

  I glanced back at him.

  "Isn't his problem."

  Chukwu stared at the coffin for a long moment.

  Then he nodded.

  "Smart."

  I crouched in front of it.

  The stone floor felt cold even through my boots.

  My eyes glittered like a child who had finally found the toy he lost under the bed years ago.

  Because after years of chasing myths through libraries filled with moldy books…

  After digging through temples buried under sand that smelled like old bones…

  After chasing rumors whispered by drunk historians and terrified priests…

  I had finally found it.

  Proof.

  Something ancient.

  Something impossible.

  Which, historically speaking, is the exact moment everything begins to go very wrong.

  The cavern grew quiet.

  Even the machines stopped.

  Even the wind outside the tunnels seemed to pause.

  It felt like the mountain itself was holding its breath.

  Inside that black coffin something waited.

  Patient.

  Ancient.

  And very, very awake.

  I placed my hand against the surface.

  Cold.

  Too cold for stone that had just been blasted with explosives.

  The scales carved into the coffin shifted beneath my fingers.

  Not physically.

  But… spiritually.

  Like touching the skin of something dreaming.

  Behind me, one of the miners whispered a prayer.

  Another quietly started backing away.

  Smart men.

  Meanwhile I leaned closer, fascinated.

  The gold patterns along the coffin began to glow faintly.

  A pulse.

  Slow.

  Like a heartbeat.

  Thum.

  Thum.

  Thum.

  The ground trembled beneath my feet.

  Very lightly.

  Almost politely.

  Chukwu stepped forward behind me.

  "Lanre…"

  I ignored him.

  Because inside my chest something else had started beating.

  Excitement.

  Obsession.

  The kind that makes men dig holes into the past and fall into them.

  My fingers tightened.

  Then I did the exact thing every intelligent person in history has warned against.

  I pushed.

  The coffin didn't move.

  Instead, something inside it moved.