Chapter 2: The City Where Memories Were Currency

The boy, still nameless to those who never dared dream, crossed the River Obugezi on the back of a floating calabash, guided by the laughter of water spirits. His clothes were stitched from old exam papers; his sandals woven from newspaper headlines that once declared him a nobody.

After many days of silence and walking beneath moons that changed colour without warning, he reached a great gate made of bone and bronze.

Above the gate were words written in a language only dreamers could read:

“To enter, you must forget something you love.”

He had reached Omuteko, the City of Traded Memories.

Here, people did not use coins or gold. Instead, they traded in memories. A plate of food could cost your first kiss. A night in shelter might cost your grandmother's laughter. And the richer you were, the more you had forgotten.

The boy wandered the city in awe. Men walked with blank stares, having traded away their childhoods. Women danced like wind but wept when asked about love. Even children sold their birthdays for toys they couldn't remember receiving.

He was offered much. A cloak that would make him invisible, if he gave up the memory of his father's voice. A map to the mountains of Europea, if he gave up his mother's embrace.

He refused.

“You must forget something,” hissed a man with a thousand locks and no eyes. “That is the rule!”

“I have nothing to forget,” said the boy. “My memories are my journey.”

“You must pay,” the guards said, surrounding him.

Then came a low growl.

From the alley stepped a creature: half-wolf, half-smoke. Her eyes held the light of forgotten stars. The boy recognized her. Lupa Silvana. The She-Wolf of the Forgotten Temple.

She stood beside him and bared her teeth.

“The boy owes nothing,” she said. “For he remembers everything.”

The gates trembled. The city blinked. The boy and the wolf vanished in a whirlwind of feathers and ink.

Later That Night…

They camped under a baobab tree that whispered dreams from its bark.

“Why did they want my memories?” the boy asked.

“Because those in power fear those who remember,” said the wolf. “You walk with the ghosts of truth. They wish you empty.”

The boy shivered.

“But you are not empty,” Lupa Silvana said. “You are full. Of hope. Of grief. Of story.”

And as he slept, Mpaka the clever hare appeared in his dreams, sipping from a clay pot and chuckling:

“A man with memories is a man with a map. Guard them well, boy-who-rides-bees. For the road ahead… winds through shadows.”

What Happens Next?

The boy has escaped the City of Traded Memories with Lupa Silvana by his side, but the journey ahead promises even greater trials. Will he face the mysterious mountains of Europea, encounter the Citadel of Broken Clocks, or discover another realm where identity itself is at stake?

What will happen next? The choice is yours.