The Drum That Wept Blood

The old woman’s voice cracked through the stillness like a bone snapping in the dark. Her one good eye stared into the fire, her other long since taken by the very curse she warned of. Children huddled around her, clutching at their blankets, yet unable to turn away.

She told them of Okoji, a forgotten village nestled deep in the belly of the Mukwasi Forest—a village that no longer appears on any map, nor in any elder's memory. For Okoji had been erased. Not by war. Not by plague. But by a drum.

A drum that wept blood.

Many rains ago, before the rivers curved and the birds forgot their songs, Okoji was a prosperous village. Their people were known far and wide for their carvings, their iron-smithing, and above all, their drums—drums so enchanting they could command rain, stop war, or summon a lion from the bush to lie at a child’s feet.

The most famous of these drums was Ikhuba. Carved from the heartwood of the cursed Mvule tree and bound in the skin of a white lion (an animal never killed, but gifted in death), Ikhuba was a sacred drum—played only during solstice to honor the ancestors.

But pride grew in the hearts of the Okoji elders, and soon, they summoned Ikhuba not for sacred rites, but for rain, wealth, and victory in battle. They drummed too often. Too greedily.

One night, during the red moon—the blood moon—a boy named Kamau heard the drum being played in the forest. But it was not the Solstice. And none of the elders were missing from the village.

Drawn by the rhythm, Kamau slipped past the night guards and into the thick black of the Mukwasi. The trees seemed to bend away from the path as he walked, and a sour wind clawed at his back. But he went on. He had always been curious—too curious, his mother often said.

As Kamau neared the sound, he found the source. But it was not a person. It was the drum—Ikhuba—sitting alone on a termite-eaten stool, drumming itself.

Kamau froze. The rhythms pounded through the air, but there were no hands. The drumsticks floated, dancing mid-air, striking with impossible speed and precision. The earth around it was cracked and smoking.

Then, he saw it.

A line of blood. Slow at first, then flowing freely, trickled from the seams of the drum’s lion-skin top. The blood was fresh—still warm. It hissed when it touched the ground. Kamau ran.

A line of blood. Slow at first, then flowing freely, trickled from the seams of the drum’s lion-skin top. The blood was fresh—still warm. It hissed when it touched the ground. Kamau ran.

He told the elders, but they dismissed him. “A child’s dream,” they said. “Too many stories and not enough sleep.”

But then the disappearances began.

First, it was the night guards. Found stiff as wood, their eyes wide and tongues blackened. Then, the smithy’s wife vanished—only her gold bangle left on a tree branch high above the ground. Next, the animals fled. No birds, no crickets. Even the goats broke their ropes and sprinted into the forest, bleating like madmen.

The village diviner, Mama Nyoka, was called. She read the bones. They shattered in her hands.

She collapsed into a trance and spoke only one phrase before her mouth twisted shut forever:

“The drum weeps for vengeance.”

Panic spread. But it was too late. Khuba now appeared wherever it pleased. In the fields, in cooking huts, even in dreams. It never stopped drumming. And the blood never stopped flowing. Those who heard it too long would claw out their own ears or walk silently into the forest, never to return.

Then came the night of final silence.

The villagers gathered to burn the drum, but fire refused to touch it. Axes bounced off its hide like feathers against stone. A warrior named Ndege, known for defeating a crocodile barehanded, tried to smash it with his warhammer. The hammer splintered. The drum stood.

Then it began to speak.

Not in words, but in memories. It projected the sins of the village—every secret, every betrayal, every forgotten oath—onto the sky like fire-written scrolls.

People began turning on each other, consumed by guilt and madness. Mothers wept. Children wailed. The earth itself groaned.

Kamau, now the only one with a clear mind, realized something.

The drum wasn't cursed. It was betrayed.

He remembered a hidden tale from his grandfather—a whisper about the original drummer who gave his life to bind the spirit of the white lion into the drum. That drummer had made a pact: Ikhuba shall only be used in purity, or the blood of its creation shall rise again to judge.

Kamau sought the sacred tree where the drum had been carved. At its roots, he found a hidden gourd—sealed in wax and ash. Inside was the drummer’s jawbone. With trembling hands, Kamau placed the bone on the drum. The drumming stopped. A roar split the heavens. And Ikhuba split in two.From it emerged a lion, not of flesh, but of smoke and starlight. Its eyes, filled with sorrow, scanned the ruined village. Kamau bowed low.The lion did not speak. It merely walked into the heart of the Mukwasi and disappeared into the earth.

The drum was gone. But so was Okoji.

Kamau lived—but never spoke again. He wandered from village to village, drawing in sand and dirt, warning people with one phrase:

"“Do not answer the drum after midnight.”"

Even today, it is said that if you venture too deep into certain forests during a blood moon, you might hear a drum—faint, slow, and bleeding. No one has ever returned to say what happens if you follow it.

But remember, child—

If you hear the drum, cover your ears. Turn your back. And run.

Because the drum still weeps. And it remembers.