Iyanipa woke stiff and aching from having slept on the floor all night. The egg was becoming a familiar presence now, its smooth warmth resting against his hand, and he smiled sleepily, patting the egg before hoisting himself to his feet and running his hands over his close-cropped hair. The hut was silent, which was unusual at any time of the day, and he wondered if perhaps his family had simply spent overlong at the celebration.

Wandering out into the centre of the hut, though, he found that his family was nowhere to be found. He checked the other room, found it empty also, and blinked in confusion.

"Maybe they are just by the centre," he said out loud, heading for the door. As he reached it, though, he heard the egg rattling furiously against the wall, and made a face. It had become more lively over the past day or so, and it was all he could do to get it to be still. It didn't seem to like when he went anywhere without it, so he'd begun hauling it everywhere with him. It seemed this time would be no exception.

He headed back into the room and scooped up the egg. "You're a little troublemaker," he told it, giving it an affectionate pat. At that, he wondered where Abrafo was, as he hadn't seen him in quite a long time. "Maybe he finally got tired of all the meat-eating and left," he mused as he passed through the door and out into the village.

Everything was still, deserted, like nobody lived there, and Iyanipa felt suddenly very cold. He clutched the egg tighter, not even cracking a smile at the reassuring wobble it gave, and padded through the path between huts, looking for...someone. Anyone. The ashes of the fire were still and cold, the altar untouched, the meat on it starting to moulder and attract flies (though that wasn't unusual), and even the air was still, as if the gods had ceased to breathe. It felt like existing within a single stuck moment, and Iyanipa was scared. Perhaps they had left while he was sleeping, for some unknown reason - maybe they were just in the next village, and had forgotten he was there? It wouldn't be the first time. Maybe they had gorged themselves and were simply sleeping in a pile somewhere. Or maybe...maybe he was dreaming.

He reached out and pinched himself, hard, and cried out sharply at the very real pain. Not dreaming then, as he wasn't sleeping. He'd heard tell of hallucinations - vision quests - brought about by particularly strong Ifà, but he'd never experienced one of those before, though his understanding was that they were more like dreams than waking.

There was no seeming explanation for any of this, and he was starting to panic when he caught the whiff of rotting meat.

He gagged, moving to clap a hand over his mouth and only just stopping from dropping the egg at the last moment. Instead, he pressed his face against it, taking comfort and solace in the warmth and fresh smell of life, and pressed forward. Obviously he'd found the place of celebration, and...

He stopped dead, clutching the egg so tightly it creaked as he finally found where his family had gone.

Swollen-stomached bodies lay strewn in broken spirals amidst piles of darkly bloody meat buzzing with flies and maggots. The vultures had not come yet, but they would, judging by the sheer stench of it all, and the amount of death. He stared in horror, breaths coming shallowly, as he took in the sight of every man, woman, and child of his village and the next curled together, faces contorted in pain and skin darkened with blood and raw sores. As he watched, he felt his heart twist sharply in his chest as one of the bodies moved, a tiny child's hand coming up like a broken-veined leaf to brush a drizzle of blood from his eye. They hadn't gorged themselves, that much he could tell by the quantity of meat remaining, but something had done this to them, and he was fairly well certain it was the feast.

He felt his stomach clench, and he twisted his body quickly, throwing up acid bile from his empty stomach to pool alongside the putrefaction in the soil. This was a place of illness, and death, and bad spirits, and if he stayed here for long, they would claim him too, and then he would not be able to help his family. He didn't know how he could anyway, or even if he could, but that didn't matter - cradling the egg tightly against his body, he turned and ran, small feet kicking up clouds of dust as he darted back to his hut and slammed the door. He slumped against it, panting, drawing in huge lungfuls of clean, fresh air, as his fingers stroked idly over the shell.

When he came into himself again, he realised he was humming under his breath, a tune he did not recognise; looking down at the egg, he saw it swaying in time to the music, and he wondered if it was the egg's doing.

A noise caught his attention, and his head snapped up, the strange music forgotten as he scanned the room. He hadn't seen Grandmother or his parents amidst the heap of bodies, but he knew they were there as surely as he knew his own name, and that left...

"Abrafo?"

His friend stepped out from Iyanipa's bedroom, eyes glinting dark and teeth flashing slightly in the dim light of the room. "Iyanipa?" he replied mockingly, eyebrows raised.

Iyanipa took a step back, flattening himself against the door. "What's going on?"

Abrafo smiled, a twist of lips and show of teeth that was nothing like pleasant. "You don't have to take innocent lives anymore," he said, his voice as still as the village.