My father once told me a hunter must always eat its prey. At the dawn of a full moon, our village played a game. In an orgiastic revelry, adults transformed into beasts. Drums were beaten, and prisoners moaned their last screams in a ritualistic dance before the flame. Through the crevices of this hut, I witnessed a man turned beast, no, a lion slaying its prey. In the dark, crouched like a timid sheep, I swallowed hard; the saliva buckling down my parched throat. The hundreds of sweetening fumes vibrating around me held the madness back.

One after another, within the dance, the beasts slew prey in the revelry of deceit. Done in the forest, away from those who were just as naïve as me. Through longing cries and whispered words, I understood from my parents as they left me here why they were not like those outside the village. Those that were captured for this night.

The cold wind nipped at my skin, hissing as goosebumps appeared. It all made sense. Why my great grandmother didn't have a single strand of gray? Perhaps I always knew it but never paid attention, comforted by the lies of how another village took those that don't perform. That we, our people, are blessed under the sun. Mother had always said it with troubled eyes, and despite my father's refusal, mother told me what she could.

Every trial before the moonlight night, one child that failed their task was selected never to see the light of day. Papa Legba took them. Papa Legba took all my friends. Caked into my fingertips, the soft cold dirt resided. It lay splattered around on my calloused, dark hand. They sacrificed one of the young who failed along with the hunted men and women of opposing villages. Another wail erupted, a young woman begging in a foreign tongue, words that were akin to me. She wanted to live.

My heart ached. Recalling back on words said before the dark. My father had told me this was the greatest task I had yet to perform. The man had towered over me. He wore a kaftan with beads around his neck, a broad nose, and smooth muscular russet skin. He lowered himself to me. His copper eyes met mine. Can you do it, Mpho? Your life for that of the village. A sacrifice those older and younger than me had made. Show no fear, Mpho, as the spear strikes. Don't close your eyes and welcome it. This is the price that we must all pay. Father wanted Papa Legba to come to claim my soul. He trusted me to die.

A male body thudded lifelessly on the ground, with the howling of beasts snapping me back to reality.

"Can you do it?" I whispered. "My life."

I was silent then. When my father gripped my shoulder, no words left my lips. No one guarded me, and I knew the way home from being taken here. No one had been interested in hiding it from me. I could be there before the night ends. The thought of escaping had crossed my mind countless times, but each time I did, I thought of how my parents and the others would suffer. And would that really be for the best? A small naked boy like me failed to be good at any task assigned to him. There was no way I could survive on my own. Only the strong deserved to live for the sake of the rest. My chances were probably death by hunger or prey to some other creature. I exhaled. My father had spoken of the lack of food for the others, no leadership to carry on, and the end of everything we know. If I failed, it would be the end of our people. Papa Legba! Papa Legba! It all led back to Papa Legba!

He prettied up the words to fool me and comfort me like my mother before. While mother had cried, her eyes were puffy. She didn't make eye contact but hugged me tightly upon her slender body. Her black braids fell on my shoulders, hands around my neck. She washed me clean. The water was warm upon my body before my father forced her to leave in a snapping tone. The look in his eye was not the same father I knew. They were those of a man that lost his mind. I thought back on what I remembered throughout the years. How frequently the young were taken increased from once to twice a moon a year to every full moon. Father had said that the number of sacrifices that Papa Legba needed continued to grow. Why was that? Why would Papa Legba demand more?

My time was ticking. The bodies fell one after the other to a rhythmic beat. If I met Papa Legba, I would tell him how I truly felt. I would ask him to put an end to this senseless suffering.

I gripped my fist. "Papa Legba this madness needs to end!"

The screams had stopped, along with the drums and the dancing. I shifted my gaze away from the hole which I had peeped. Fear settled in like a knife clenched deep in my throat. My body quivered and shook as hot pee loudly ran down my legs. The still silence lingered, breaking into footsteps creeping eerily to the hut.

The drums slowly beat as the beasts entered the hut. In the streaks of moonlight, their bodies glistened with the bloodshed they had wrought. Staring at me like prey, watching me squirm on the ground. I hesitated. Don't be afraid, father's voice came to me. If one thing I would do in death, at least, it would be to show none. I tried to stand on trembling, sticky legs, but after falling, the predators took me up and carried me from the dark. Their claws dug into my arms, my back, piercing just enough not to make me bleed. Mockingly, their faces glimpsed at me.

The closer we got, the scent struck me, knocking my head back. It was rancid, heavy, and festering, funneling through my nose and landing on the tips of my tongue. I shifted my head but holding me tight, the smell did not relent.

A harrowing sight remained of their chaos in the clearing around the warm fire. Many empty wooden cages with hundreds of their previous occupants' lifeless bodies on the ground remained, some skinless, others still dripping fluids, heads removed, stacked like trophies as a feast ensued. Every head pointed out towards me. Were they watching me? Judging me? Some bodies still squirmed as if trying to escape, even in death. My feet stumbled through the puddles of their bloody corpses.

A hunter must always eat its prey, father had said. The words sank in at the sight of this disgust I puked upon those carrying me. Was this what I was protecting? Cannibals? Was my mother like this? No, mother wasn't. As they settled me down before the flames, watching on while they feast, the executioner, the lion, walked towards me, spear in hand, as he lined me up. Death was coming for me as I watched the monsters feast. Some grabbed flesh from those on the ground while others placed it on the flame. I pondered why I didn't just run away. Tears left my eyes as I sniveled.

"Mother?" I called.

The blade came towards my neck. I pulled back, begging, pleading for it to stop, and then it stopped. The body of the lion fell. Its mask unraveled as it crashed down. The face was my father. A hint of shock, a look of rage. Blood spewed from his lips as he tried to form words. A slender, sienna-skinned beast wearing a hyena mask stood over the monster that was my father and pulled the blade from his head. All the other monsters gathered around the fire, sprang to their feet, and armed themselves. The hyena's gentle hands encircled me and lifted me into its arms as the drums ceased. My hefty frame strained the hyena's ability to hold me in place. Its smell was familiar, and it cradled me.

"Don't worry Mpho, it's going to be okay. I won't let you die here."

"Mother?"

She removed her mask, revealing a smile.

Tears ran across my eyes. A spear missed inches away from us as mother unsteadily rushed through the forest. Looking over my shoulder, I saw it was my father. The others were gaining on us a foot away.

"Get back here, Kaya! We are running out of time. Have you lost your mind!?"

Voices called to her, but mother ran on as far as she could. Don't worry. She kept saying everything was going to be okay. I am sorry. I am sorry. Her legs buckled as they pulled her hair, and we both fell. Those split seconds tasted like a lifetime until the shocking realization of how far we had reached. Beasts surrounded us, and with her body, mother covered me on the tall tree, gripping it tightly spread around me like a shield. My mother gritted her teeth as the others battered her with spears and hands.

"Pull her off!"

"You fool!"

"We have to sacrifice the boy!"

"We will all die!"

All the while, mother told me sorry. Her tears dripped on my face, a mixture of blood and sweat. My arm was yanked away from underneath my mother. With his spear in hand, rage in his eyes, Father dragged me back to my mother's protest. Her hands reached out to me, cut in half by another beast.

"The boy has to die Kaya, he was never ours to begin with," father said. The drums beat as others followed behind him.

"No, Mandla!" mother shouted.

The words hit me, crumbling my soul. What did father just say?

"I'm not —"

His eyes looked back at me as he brought me back to where we were.

"Just die, boy, so we all can live."

He lowered his spear again, and with the next gust of the chilly wind where once beast stood laid bones. The drums ended. In the moonlight, in the pool of blood, there was only me, the masks of what they were and what they did.

"Mother!" I shouted, but there was no answer. Owls hooted. My legs trembled. I sat there naked and alone, afraid to even move. "Mother?"

From the shadows stepping into the moonlight, a figure approached tall, coal red eyes, a gray-white face painted in the shape of a skull, and long dreadlock hair. The figure stopped before me with yellow and long nails. "Your mother has long been dead, child, killed upon a moonlight and fed to you and the orphan of children."

My eyes lingered on his and lowered to the spear below me.

"But that's not the answer you want. You want to know about the mother driven to cannibalism for immortality and desperate to save the child that isn't hers? One word, insanity."

My hand gripped the spear on the ground and turned the blade to the thing standing before me. I slowly eased my way back. What are you?

"Didn't you wish to speak with me, child? Mpho, I am Papa Legba. You want your mother Kaya back, don't you?" Papa Legba lowered himself down to my level. "Now tell me, what do you have to offer?"