In the bustling heart of an ancient village, amidst the vibrant chaos of the market and the enduring rhythm of everyday life, there lived seven girls whose friendship was legendary. Their names whispered through the community like a cherished melody: Amara, the thoughtful elder, her wisdom far beyond her years; Bimpe, whose laughter was a bright, infectious cascade; Chioma, the fierce protector, her loyalty as unyielding as granite; Dara, the dreamer, whose eyes held the quiet depths of unspoken tales; Efe, the vibrant dancer, whose feet seemed to possess their own joyous magic; Funke, the keen observer, missing nothing with her perceptive gaze; and Grace, the youngest, whose innocent joy was a pure, unfiltered light.

They were inseparable; a single, flowing entity woven tighter than the finest aṣọ-oke cloth.

Their sacred haven, their whispered secret, was nestled beneath the sprawling branches of an ancient pepper fruit tree. Every full moon, bathed in the benevolent glow of the celestial orb, they would gather there, they danced in a circle, their voices raised in chants of unity, their spirits soaring as they reaffirmed a pact forged in the carefree fires of childhood: to always be there for one another, come what may, a bond as unbreakable as the ancient tree itself.

One moonlit night, as they spun and clapped, their faces radiant with unadulterated joy, they were utterly oblivious to a presence that drifted from the deepest shadows of the tree. A figure, neither distinctly young nor old, its face veiled by the deepening night, moved with an unsettling, ethereal silence. It glided towards each girl in turn, a faint, disquieting smile playing on its lips, as it reached each one, it gently touched their forehead, whispering a guttural, ancient chant that seemed to hum with the very pulse of the earth. Amara, Bimpe, Chioma, Dara, Efe, Funke, and Grace – one by one, they received the strange benediction, lost in the pure, unburdened ecstasy of their dance, their senses dulled to the bizarre ritual unfolding around them.

When the mysterious being had touched the last forehead, a chilling, raw laugh ripped through the stillness of the night. It was a laugh that seemed to peel back the layers of reality, devoid of mirth, echoing ominously through the branches.

“Your lives are now intertwined!” the being rasped, its voice like dry leaves skittering across barren ground. “Each heartbeat tied to the next; One’s sorrow shall be another’s crushing burden. One’s joy, a fleeting shared light. A single thread binds you, a cord of destiny that must never be broken!”
With a final, deranged cackle, the being dissolved into the inky blackness, leaving behind only the damp scent of petrichor and an unsettling quiet.

The girls, breathless from their dance, slowly quieted, feeling a strange, subtle shift in the air, a peculiar weight in their chests. They looked at each other, a flicker of confusion in their eyes, still unaware of the monumental, terrifying shift that had just occurred in their lives.

The coming days were a dizzying spiral into unimaginable chaos. The first to truly feel it was Bimpe, a sudden, searing fever, a cough that wracked her small frame, sent agonizing ripples of nausea through Amara, a dull, insistent ache blooming behind Chioma’s eyes, and a baffling, debilitating weakness in Funke’s limbs, It wasn’t just empathy; it was as though Bimpe’s illness was physically manifesting in each of them.

Then came Dara’s heartbreak. A seemingly minor squabble with a playmate, but the pang of rejection she felt resonated as a deep, inexplicable sadness that settled over Grace and Efe, clouding their usual brightness with an uncharacteristic melancholy. It was as if their emotions had become a shared, turbulent pool, their physical well-being a single, delicate tapestry.

Fear, cold and sharp as a Harmattan wind, began to prick at the edges of their innocent lives. They tried desperately to understand, to rationalize the strange, horrific phenomenon, but the more they tried, the more terrifyingly evident it became: their beautiful, unbreakable bond had been twisted, corrupted, and twisted into a dark chain; A minor scrape on Chioma’s knee would manifest as a throbbing headache for Amara. A lost toy for Grace would bring a wave of despair to Funke. The slightest discord between any two of them would send tremors of unease and physical pain through the entire group, a collective agony that mocked their once-unbreakable unity.

The unburdened joy of their shared existence was now shadowed by the constant dread of mutual suffering. The pact they had sworn under the pepper fruit tree, once a vibrant symbol of unwavering loyalty, had been tragically transformed into a curse by the malevolent being.

Troubled by this turn of events, the girls gathered under the sacred oak tree to find a way out, Dara proposed they go to the dark forest to meet the ‘eye of the land’ for solutions, though they were scared as they had never met anyone go into the dark forest, and their parents had always told them fables about the strange mystical creatures living in the dark forest, they resolutely made up their minds to go into the dark forest to find the answers they need.