inhumanity

The rain had not stopped for three days in the small village of Kianje. Muddy roads turned into rivers, and the villagers whispered that the storm carried bad luck. In a tiny hut at the edge of the village, a young woman named Miriam screamed in pain as she gave birth to her first child.

The baby arrived just before midnight.

But instead of crying, the child lay silent.

The old midwife pressed trembling fingers against the baby’s chest. She waited. Nothing.

“He is gone,” she whispered sadly.

Miriam burst into tears. Her husband, Kamau, stared at the child with hollow eyes. The villagers believed that a baby who died before sunrise must be buried immediately, or evil spirits would wander the village.

Before dawn, the tiny body was wrapped in a white cloth and placed inside a small wooden box. Miriam begged to hold him one last time, but the elders refused. Tradition was tradition.

At sunrise, under the cold rain, the baby was buried beneath the giant fig tree near the cemetery hill.

Miriam never stopped crying.

That night, the storm became violent. Thunder cracked across the sky like angry drums. Most villagers stayed indoors, praying for morning.

But old Mzee Barasa, the gravekeeper, heard something strange while walking home.

A sound.

Soft.

Weak.

Like a kitten crying.

He froze.

Again.

A cry.

Coming from the cemetery.

His lantern shook in his hands as he followed the sound toward the fig tree. The closer he came, the...