The River Ethiope flowed quietly through Delta State, its waters clear enough to see the sand and stones beneath. By day, children swam in its shallows, fishermen cast their nets, and women washed cassava. But when the sun sank and the forest pressed close, no one lingered.
For the river was said to have eyes.
Efetobor, a young man from Abraka, had always laughed at such tales. His friends feared swimming too far after dusk, but he thought them cowards. He was tall, broad-shouldered, proud of his courage.
“Water is water,” he boasted one evening at the palm wine bar. “Does a river have teeth? Does it have hands?”
An elder at the next table leaned over, his face lined like dry bark.
“The Ethiope has both,” he said. “And more. Do not mock what has lived longer than your ancestors.”
Efetobor chuckled. “Old men love stories. I will swim the river at midnight and prove you wrong.”
The bar went silent.
“Swim if you wish,” the elder murmured. “But when the river looks back at you, do not say you were not warned.”
At midnight, Efetobor crept to the riverbank. The moonlight silvered the water, casting ripples of light across the trees. He stripped to his wrapper and dove in.
The water was cold, pulling at him. He swam strongly, strokes slicing the glassy surface. Halfway across, he stopped to float, staring at the sky.
Then he felt it.
A gaze.
He dipped his head. Beneath him, the riverbed gleamed pale. Not sand—eyes. Dozens, hundreds, all wide and unblinking, staring upward.
Efetobor’s chest seized. He kicked hard, desperate to reach the far bank. But the water dragged at his limbs, heavy as stone.
From the depths, something rose. A pale face, smooth and eyeless, except for a gaping mouth that stretched impossibly wide. From that mouth spilled whispers—wet, gurgling, pulling at his mind.
Join us. Become us.
Efetobor screamed, but water filled his throat. The eyes swirled closer, a storm of unblinking gazes. He thrashed until darkness took him.
At dawn, villagers found him on the bank, coughing and shivering, his skin cold as river stone. They wrapped him in cloth and carried him home.
But Efetobor was not the same.
That evening, as his mother lit the cooking fire, she noticed his pupils—cloudy, unfocused.
“My son,” she whispered, “what has happened to your eyes?”
“I see,” Efetobor murmured. His voice was not his own. “I see everything.”
Days passed. Efetobor no longer joined his friends. He wandered the banks, murmuring to the water. Children avoided him. He no longer blinked.
At night, he dreamed of the river. Not as water, but as flesh—veins flowing like currents, bones as rocks, mouths whispering beneath the surface.
The whispers grew louder.
“Bring them. Feed us. Join us.”
Efetobor resisted at first. But hunger gnawed at him, a hunger no yam, no goat meat, no palm wine could satisfy. Only the river’s call.
One evening, he lured his friend Okiemute to the water’s edge.
“Come,” he urged. “Let us swim as we did when we were boys.”
Okiemute hesitated. “Not at night. You know the tales.”
Efetobor smiled, teeth gleaming strangely in the moonlight. “There is nothing to fear.”
They dove in. The current seemed calm—until Okiemute gasped.
“Efe! Something’s pulling me!”
Efetobor did not answer. His eyes glowed faintly, reflecting countless others. He held his friend beneath the surface.
Bubbles rose, then stilled.
When Efetobor emerged, he was alone. His friend was gone. The river rippled as though swallowing laughter.
Disappearing youths soon troubled Abraka. First Okiemute, then two brothers, then a girl fetching water. Always near the river. Always after sunset.
Whispers spread—Efetobor was cursed. His mother wept, begging him to stop going near the water.
But Efetobor could not.
At night, his reflection in the river no longer matched him. The water showed a pale, eyeless face with a mouth that grinned wider each day.
The elders summoned a dibia, a healer from across the Niger. He was called Akpobome, known for binding spirits.
Akpobome came with cowries, chalk, and charms. He stood at the riverbank as Efetobor approached, eyes unblinking, lips murmuring the river’s whispers.
“You carry them inside you,” Akpobome said. “You are no longer just a man. The river walks in your flesh.”
Efetobor laughed, the sound bubbling like water. “Then try to cast it out.”
The dibia drew circles of chalk, chanting. The river churned. Eyes opened across the surface, hundreds, thousands, staring at once.
Efetobor screamed as his skin rippled, bulging with shapes beneath—eyes pressing outward from inside his flesh.
Akpobome threw cowries into the water, shouting incantations. For a moment, the river recoiled. Efetobor fell to his knees, weeping blood.
“End it,” he begged. “Before they take me fully.”
But the river surged, dragging him under.
For three days, the water ran red. Fishermen swore they saw faces staring from beneath, eyes rolling, mouths gaping.
When the river cleared, Efetobor was gone.
But sometimes, when the moon is full, villagers whisper they see him standing in the shallows, eyes glowing like lanterns. Calling.
And those who answer are never seen again.
