THE CURSE
CHAPTER 2: THE CURSE
Mira was three months old but she looked like a five-year-old girl. And every day, her parents grew more afraid of her.
The bear incident had changed everything. The whole village was now whispering.
"Did you hear? The Johnsons' child killed a bear with one hand and drank its blood!"
"She is not a child. She is a demon. She is a vampire!"
No one came to their house anymore. No one brought food. Children were told not to pass near their compound. At night, Mr. Johnson could see torches from far away - villagers watching their house, waiting.
Mrs. Johnson tried to be a mother. She truly tried.
"Mira, my love, eat this rice, please," she begged one evening, bringing a plate of hot jollof rice.
Mira looked at the plate. Her beautiful face twisted with disgust. The smell of cooked food made her want to vomit.
"I don't want it, Mama. It has no life in it," she said in her small but clear voice.
"No life? What do you mean?" her mother asked.
Mira pointed to the raw chicken in the kitchen, still bleeding. "That one has life. I can smell its blood. This cooked one is dead."
Mrs. Johnson's hands shook. She took the plate away and cried in the kitchen.
Mira did not understand why her mother was crying. She was just hungry. So hungry that her throat burned. At night, her gums ached and her two small fangs pushed out. Her eyes would turn faint red when she was hungry.
Mr. Johnson decided to test her.
He locked all raw meat inside a metal box. "We must teach her to be human," he told his wife. "If she is hungry enough, she will eat cooked food."
It was a terrible mistake.
For one full day, Mira ate nothing. She sat in the corner of the dark room, because she hated sunlight. Her small body shook. She became pale.
By evening, her hunger turned into something else.
Her eyes turned completely blood-red, glowing in the dark. Her fangs grew longer. She sniffed the air like a wild animal.
"Mama... blood..." she whispered, her voice no longer a child's voice, but deeper, thirsty.
Mrs. Johnson screamed. Mr. Johnson grabbed a stick.
"Stay back, Mira!" he shouted, but his voice was shaking.
Mira didn't want to hurt them. She was fighting it. She bit her own hand to stop herself. Tears fell from her glowing red eyes.
"I don't want to hurt you... but it hurts, Papa... the hunger hurts so much..." she cried.
Seeing his daughter bite herself, Mr. Johnson broke down. He opened the metal box and threw a raw piece of meat to her.
Mira caught it and devoured it in seconds, drinking every drop of blood. After eating, her eyes slowly went back to normal, beautiful and brown. Her fangs went back in. She looked like a normal, beautiful little girl again.
She fell asleep on the floor, tired.
Mr. and Mrs. Johnson looked at each other. They knew now. Their daughter was not just sick. She was cursed.
That night, they talked in whispers while Mira slept.
"We prayed for ten years. God gave us a child, but the devil put something inside her," Mrs. Johnson cried.
"She is still our child," Mr. Johnson said. "But we cannot keep her here. The villagers will kill her. They are already planning to burn our house."
It was true. That afternoon, the village head had come.
"Johnson, we respect you," the old man had said. "But that thing in your house is not human. She killed a bear. Next she will kill our children to drink their blood. You have three days to take her away, or we will chase you all out of this village."
Three days.
Mira woke up the next morning and noticed something new. Her body was changing again.
She looked in the small mirror. She now looked like an eight-year-old girl. Her hair was longer, shinier. Her face was more beautiful, almost too beautiful for a child. Her legs were longer.
"Mama, look! I grew!" she said happily, thinking her mother would be happy.
But Mrs. Johnson covered her mouth in shock.
In one night, her daughter had grown three years.
"How is this possible? How?" she whispered.
Mira didn't know. She felt strange too. Her mind was also growing fast. She could now remember everything she read. She understood adult conversations. She felt emotions like a teenager, even though she was only three months old.
That afternoon, she tried again to go outside.
She forgot what happened last time. She saw butterflies outside and wanted to chase them.
She ran into the sunlight.
"AHHHHH!"
The sun burned her skin instantly. It was not like normal sunburn. Her skin smoked. Red blisters appeared in seconds. The pain was unbearable.
Mr. Johnson ran and dragged her back inside.
Her arms were burned. Mrs. Johnson put shea butter and cold water, and Mira cried for hours, not from the pain, but from sadness.
"Why can't I go outside like other children, Mama? Why does God hate me?" she asked.
Mrs. Johnson had no answer. She just hugged her and cried with her.
On the third day, the villagers came.
They did not come with stones yet, but they stood in front of the house with torches, shouting.
"Johnson! Bring out the vampire girl!"
"She drank a bear! Tomorrow she will drink our goats! Next our children!"
Mr. Johnson went out to beg them.
"Please, she is just a child! She has never hurt any human!"
But the villagers did not listen. One man threw a small stone at the house.
Inside, Mira heard everything. Her new, fast-growing mind understood. They wanted to kill her. Her own people wanted to kill her because she was different.
She did not feel angry. She felt heartbroken.
That night, her parents made the hardest decision of their lives.
They waited until Mira fell asleep. She always slept deeply after eating raw blood.
Mr. Johnson carried her in his arms. She felt light but taller now, like an eight-year-old. Mrs. Johnson carried a small bundle with a wrapper and some raw meat for her.
They walked for hours in the dark, far from the village, to the Lonely River. No one went there because people said spirits lived there. But it was the only place the villagers would not search.
They reached a big tree by the river. The river was calm, the moon was shining.
Mr. Johnson laid his daughter gently under the tree.
Mrs. Johnson knelt and kissed her forehead, tears falling on Mira's beautiful face.
"Forgive us, Mira," she whispered, her voice breaking. "We prayed for ten years for you. We love you more than our own lives. But we don't know how to protect you. We don't know how to help you. You are hungry, you burn in the sun, you grow too fast. We are just poor farmers. We cannot help you."
"Maybe someone else will find you. Someone stronger. Someone who will understand you," Mr. Johnson said, tears in his eyes too.
They left the bundle of raw meat beside her.
And then they walked away, not looking back, because if they looked back, they would not have the strength to leave.
They cried all the way home.
Mira was left alone under the big tree, by the lonely river, sleeping peacefully, unaware that she had been abandoned.
She woke up hours later. It was cold. The night wind blew.
"Mama? Papa?" she called in her small voice.
No one answered. Only the river answered.
She hugged herself. She was cold, confused, and hungry again. Her fangs started to show a little.
Then, she heard footsteps in the bush. Someone was coming. Heavy footsteps, a man.
She got scared and hid behind the tree, her red eyes glowing slightly in the dark.
