The Midday Curse-score808

In the hushed heat of a Kenyan noonday, when shadows were at their shortest and silence lay heavily across the village of Kilungu, an eerie emptiness clung to the cracked earth. The winds had paused, and even the trees—tall, ancient acacias—stood unnaturally still, like sentinels holding their breath. Not even a bird dared to chirp.

It was the kind of stillness that whispered of something unnatural.

Timo, the village mechanic’s only son, stood near the main path leading out of the village, a half-eaten mango forgotten in his trembling hand. His dark eyes, usually curious and bright, were wide with terror. His face—bathed in sweat and a streak of dust—stared at what only a few of the elders dared to speak about, and even fewer believed.

A man walked toward him, but not in any normal fashion. No footsteps accompanied his advance. His feet hovered inches above the dry road, gliding with unsettling grace, as though the world itself was too repulsed to let him touch it.

The figure wore no shoes. His ankles and calves, caked in grime, bore long, jagged scars that crisscrossed like a forgotten roadmap. He was shirtless, revealing a bony torso marked with burns and bruises. His eyes—those terrible eyes—looked as if they had swallowed the night, glinting black with a hollow sheen.

No one walked in Kilungu at midday. That rule wasn’t written down anywhere. It didn’t need to be. Every child in the village grew up knowing it. You could play in the fields all morning, or wander in the late afternoon, but come the hour when the sun stood highest, you stayed inside—doors bolted, curtains drawn, prayers whispered.

Because the midday man walked then.

And now he was here.

Timo didn’t scream. Couldn’t. His legs had forgotten how to run. His mind spun uselessly, grasping for any explanation, but nothing human emerged from the fog of fear.

The man floated past him without a glance. No dust rose beneath him. No insects chirped in his wake. He smelled not of sweat or soil, but of metal and scorched bone—of something wrong.

Then, as suddenly as he had come, the man turned off the main path and disappeared into the brush that led toward the forest bordering the village. Timo dropped the mango. His feet remembered how to move. He sprinted.

Elder Mzee Wekesa sat in his usual spot beneath the old fig tree by the chief’s hut, his ancient cane resting across his lap. He was one of the oldest surviving sons of Kilungu and bore the weight of its tales like a mantle.

When Timo burst into the circle of men seated around him, wild-eyed and breathless, the group fell silent. The boy dropped to his knees, words pouring out in stammers and stutters, but one phrase caught every ear like a gunshot:

“He was floating…”

The murmurs began. Mzee Wekesa raised a gnarled hand. Silence.

“Where did he go?” the elder asked calmly.

“To the forest. Past the wells. Toward the old chapel ruins,” Timo said, panting.

Wekesa’s face tightened. That place had been abandoned for nearly forty years, after a fire had gutted its roof and left only a charred skeleton of beams and prayer benches. The chapel had once served as Kilungu’s spiritual anchor. Now, it was home to bats, and rumor.

“This is not the first sighting,” said Wekesa slowly, as though tasting each word. “But it may be the first time he walked so close to the village center.”

That night, Wekesa gathered a few elders in his hut. The air inside was thick with the scent of herbs and old parchment. On the far wall hung a framed black-and-white photo of a much younger Wekesa standing beside a man in a white priest's collar—Father Emmanuel.

“He was a good man,” Wekesa said, nodding toward the photo. “But some say he made a pact.”

They all knew the tale, in fragments.

In 1984, the village had been plagued by a drought unlike any before. Crops withered before their time. Livestock fell ill. The nearby river dried to a trickle. Children starved. Mothers wept.

Father Emmanuel had prayed and fasted for days in the chapel. Then, one day, the rain came. Not slowly or mercifully—but violently. It crashed upon the earth with rage, uprooting trees and flooding homes. It was no ordinary storm. It was as if something had been traded.

Two days later, Father Emmanuel was found inside the chapel, his body crucified on the rafters by his own hands—though no tool was ever found, and no blood spilled. His eyes were open, weeping tears of salt. Scrawled across the walls in charcoal were the words:

“HE COMES WHEN THE SUN IS MOST HONEST.”

Since then, villagers avoided the chapel. And slowly, the unwritten rule was born: at midday, you stay inside. You don’t watch the roads. You don’t call out if you hear footsteps. And you certainly do not follow them.

Three days after Timo’s encounter, the village lost power at exactly noon. Radios went dead. Phones wouldn’t turn on. Clocks froze. Outside, the sun shone brighter than usual, casting long spears of light through any open window like golden knives.

And then, a child disappeared.

Little Amani, just five years old, was playing near the granary. Her mother had stepped away for a moment—no more than a breath—and when she returned, Amani was gone. Not a footprint, not a cry. Just gone.

The village plunged into panic. A search was mounted. Dogs sniffed the ground. Men marched with sticks and machetes. But by nightfall, all they had found were small patches of soot near the old chapel.

That night, Wekesa stood before the community once more.

“He is not a spirit,” he said. “He is not a ghost. He is a punishment.”

People begged him to explain.

“In times of great despair,” he said, “some bargain with forces older than time. But debts must be paid. The midday man comes to collect.”

Wekesa’s plan was simple. Suicidal, some thought. But desperate hearts cling to desperate hopes.

At exactly 11:50 the next day, he stood alone on the path leading to the chapel, armed with nothing but a wooden crucifix and a pouch of soil blessed by a healer from a distant land. Around his neck hung a small locket—Father Emmanuel’s old rosary, scorched but intact.

As noon approached, a hush swept over the trees. Not even the wind stirred.

And then he appeared.

Gliding as before. Shirtless. Barefoot. Eyes hollow. Only this time, he stopped.

Wekesa raised the crucifix. “You have taken enough.”

The figure tilted his head slowly, like a curious child.

“I know your name,” Wekesa said. “I know the blood you drank and the soul you bargained for. I know the price.”

The midday man raised one bony hand—and for the first time, spoke.

“You know nothing.”

The voice was not a whisper. Nor a shout. It was a chorus of voices, of screams layered over whispers, of rivers crying and mothers wailing. It shook the earth.

But Wekesa held firm. “Return what you took.”

The figure paused, then raised the other hand. A cloud passed over the sun. The light dimmed.

And then, from behind the trees, came the softest cry.

Amani.

The child stumbled forward, eyes glazed but alive. The villagers gasped, rushing to her.

Wekesa fell to his knees.

The figure began to retreat.

But before he vanished into the shadows, he whispered again.

“Next time, there will be no trade.”

The chapel was torn down the next week, its remnants burned and the ashes scattered in the river.

Wekesa died three days later, peacefully in his sleep. Some said he had paid the final debt. Others believed the midday man had merely let him go, for reasons unknown.

Timo grew quiet after that. Not afraid. But different. Older, somehow, than his years. He would often sit under the same fig tree Wekesa once did, gazing silently at the midday sky.

And to this day, in Kilungu, the rule remains unchanged:

When the sun is most honest, stay inside.

Because the midday man remembers.

And he walks still.