In my community, there's one particular occult group, a well-dignified one with wealthy men as members, not the small boys' thing like the popular occult in universities. This one, whenever a member dies, they will be the ones to coordinate the burial with many rites and sacrifices, while the family of the deceased stays put to watch them.
In every burial tomb, the epitaph goes along with the occultic symbol boldly inscribed on it, and they made it a taboo for any man born of a woman to climb such a tomb, be it a mistake or intentional.
It is said that if anyone mistakenly does that, the person would need to visit the occult house for cleansing; otherwise, a great spiritual punishment would visit the person.
There was a time when one of their members died in our street, the occult group, as usual, handled the burial with their many fire smokes and pots in the parlour of the deceased, and it lasted for three days. Maybe the dead was cooked, I don't know. Lol 😅
The tomb was positioned at the backyard of one of the compound, an unfenced compound, which is very normal in my community. The tomb has the epitaph with the occult logo boldly seen, and the epitaph reads:
"In loving memory of Dark Star IV. Chief Odudu JP, 1947-2018."
Way back, we usually had fun finding snails whenever it rained. So, on a particular day, rain fell very well, and when night came, friends in the compound suggested we go snail hunting. We agreed, got our torchlight, and embarked on the journey around 8:00 p.m. We started from our backyard, picking all the snails enjoying the cold soil and dead leaves. We moved on into deep bushes, enjoying the fun of picking snails scattered all over the place as if they were waiting for us that night.
In such moments, though we knew our territory, as the fun peaked, we ventured very far without realizing it because it's impossible to keep seeing snails without picking.
Then, we came to the Chief Odudu's tomb; snails were clustered around the cemented tomb as if it were their house.
"Should we go and pick?" I finally said after we stood still pointing the torchlight at the tomb with the utmost temptation to go and pick the snails.
"Oh boy, I feel we should go and pick, but the thought of the tomb," Emmanuel, our first in command, replied as he flashed the torchlight around every corner, touching the plantain trees around the place.
"It's just a tomb; I don't believe in the no-trespassing law. Or are you not a Christian?" Daniel, who is the youngest among us, said as he moved closely to the grave to start picking snails while I rushed to hold him on the waist, and in the process, my bucket containing the snails I had picked left my hand, hit a 6-inch block on the ground, which forced it to spring up and all the snails I had in the bucket poured out and got scattered all over the tomb.
"Ooooh! Look at what you've done," I fumed up in anger, and before I knew it, Emmanuel and Daniel had gone to the grave, picked up my bucket, and began to pick snails inside.
I was surprised at the first instance, but after like 2 minutes of watching them doing it without a single word from them, I joined them, we picked the snail, picked to the size I had in my bucket earlier, and shared the remaining ones equally.
It was as if we were infused with another heart that knows no fear. The occultic sign on the epitaph didn't scare us anymore.
We left the scene promising ourselves never to let our parents know what happened, and till today, nothing happened to us.
Thanks for reading.
This is for day 6 of #Aprilinleo prompt.
Do well to read the full details here