Free excerpts

My name is Ike. I am thirty-four years old, and a few days ago my life turned upside down in a way I could never have imagined. The doctors delivered a verdict with no appeal: terminal cancer. By their reckoning I have a week left on this earth, perhaps two. Faced with such a sentence, most people would drown in terror, crushed by the shadow of the unknown that stretches beyond the last breath. Yet against all expectations, a strange serenity lives in me. It is not indifference to how serious my situation is, far from it. It is something else, something deeper and older. A peace born of acceptance, fed by the conviction that I have lived every moment with an intensity few souls ever know.

In this fleeting life I have explored every facet of human existence. I have plunged into the darkest depths of the soul and faced raw cruelty, the untameable darkness that sleeps in every being. I have witnessed horror and despair, that dull pain that drives people to lose themselves. But I have also known pure happiness, the burst of joy that comes from unconditional love, from true friendship, and from faith in something greater than ourselves. Through my trials and my triumphs I discovered that life is nothing but a tireless search for meaning, a pilgrimage toward a truth hidden behind the veil of our everyday reality.

I found that meaning by recognising the presence of a higher power, an invisible hand that guides our steps even when we believe we are alone. Call it God, Allah, Yahweh or the Great Spirit of our ancestors; what matters is not the name we give it, but the awareness that we are not alone in this universe. That there is a benevolent intelligence, a source of eternal light, which transcends our limited existence and watches over each of us, even in our darkest hours.

Today, as the shadow of the end spreads over me, I feel my faith grow stronger instead of faltering. It is as if every trial I went through, every pain I felt, was only a preparation for this final moment. Because this faith was not born of comfort or an easy life. It was born of a fierce struggle to understand, to accept, to believe in spite of everything. I have seen things that defy reason, events that broke me and rebuilt me in a way I can only explain as the work of a divine force.

I studied the mysteries of the universe with passion, from the origins of the world to the explosion of the Big Bang. I pored over the most complex scientific theories and looked for answers in equations and tangible proof. And yet, for all that knowledge, one certainty imposes itself on me: the Big Bang is not the beginning. There is something older and vaster, a mystery beyond time and space, a primordial consciousness that escapes us and yet holds us all.

I have never told anyone about the strange events that marked my life, those moments when I felt the hand of fate weigh heavily on my shoulder, when I brushed against the inexplicable and felt the breath of the divine. But now, as I stand on the threshold of eternity, an urgency drives me to reveal everything. Not for myself, since my journey is ending, but for those who will come after me. May my story be a lighthouse for those crossing similar storms, a light in the darkness of uncertainty, a guide for those still searching for their way.

What I am giving you here is not a fable or a fairy tale, nor a desperate attempt to leave a mark. It is the naked truth, as I lived it, raw and unadorned. Do not expect elegant metaphors or lyrical flights; I have no time left for artifice. What you will read is unpolished. Every word is carved into the flesh of my experience, every sentence an echo of my battles, my pain and my discoveries.

As the last grains of sand slip through my hourglass, I watch my life play out like a film on the screen of my mind. Every moment, every choice, every trial has woven the fabric of my existence. Only a few heartbeats remain, a few breaths to close this journey. But before I go, I leave these words as a testament, an indelible mark of my passage on this earth.

Let those who read these lines remember: even in the deepest darkness a light still shines, a force beyond all understanding, an eternal love that wraps every soul. It is a truth I discovered late, but I share it with you so that you never have to walk alone in the dark.

One morning, as the heat was already settling in, I was the only one up in the house. My sisters were glued to the television, and Jack was enjoying a well-deserved lie-in. I had only one thing on my mind: football. The day promised to be one of the best. The sun, already high in the sky, cast its piercing rays through the leaves, while the packed earth of the pitch glittered, ready to welcome the players. That day, my team won a mini-tournament organised by former professional players. I came home elated, the medal still hanging around my neck. But once I was inside the house, the atmosphere changed completely.

I walked into the living room, hoping to share my joy with my sisters. To my great surprise, they weren’t there, which was unusual. Silence reigned, a strange, almost heavy silence. As I went further into the house, a feeling of unease began to creep over me, as if the walls themselves were whispering a hidden dread. The sun, which had seemed so dazzling only moments before, now seemed to cast unsettling shadows through the windows. As I neared the end of the corridor leading to the outside bedroom, I heard murmurs, muffled voices. My sisters were reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over, their voices trembling. At first I thought it was a joke, a scene for some play they might be rehearsing. But the closer I came, the more my unease turned to terror.

One Saturday evening, after a day when the electricity had been cut off, night fell over our neighbourhood, wrapping every house in a thick, palpable darkness. The streets, usually brought to life by the flickering glow of the streetlamps, were plunged into total blackness, as if the world had been swallowed by a sea of shadows. Coming home after a long day of football, I found my family gathered in the living room, lit by the trembling glow of candles. Their light danced on the walls, casting strange shadows that seemed to come alive, stretched out by the dark corners of the room. We spent the evening talking, listening for the umpteenth time as my father told his “incredible” story, from the school in his village lost in the mountains of West Cameroon to one of the most prestigious universities in Brussels. These moments of sharing, routine as they were, carried a comforting warmth, a simplicity that hid the invisible threat prowling in the shadows, ready to strike.

It was past midnight when I slipped into bed, my cousin Jack asleep beside me. The night was strangely silent, disturbed only by the rare shafts of moonlight that pierced the curtains, tracing ghostly patterns on the floor. The calm was almost unsettling, like the calm before a storm. But the silence did not last long. I had barely closed my eyes, trying as best I could to empty my mind and drift into the arms of Morpheus, when the trucks from the depot resumed their infernal procession. Their roaring engines echoed like funeral drums, each rumble seeping into the silence of the night, making the walls tremble, and my already frayed nerves with them.

He never drank for show. He was not a man you could call a drunkard. No, his relationship with alcohol was subtler, almost meticulous. At nightfall, when silence wrapped the house and the outside world finally seemed to drift away, I would sometimes hear him, with disarming discretion, open the bottle hidden behind a cupboard. The sound of the cork slipping free of its narrow neck echoed through the corridors like a stifled confession. It was the signal that the day was over, an end marked by a heavy, crushing loneliness.

He drank slowly, each sip carefully measured, as if he were seeking in alcohol not oblivion but a kind of comfort, an escape from reality. The amber liquid slid into his glass and, with it, a flood of unspoken thoughts, broken dreams and gathered regrets seemed to pour. In those moments, I could almost see my father’s mask begin to crack, revealing the traces of a silent battle he was waging against his own demons. His face grew darker, his eyes lost themselves in some distant contemplation, and an imperceptible shadow seemed to spread over his soul.

Even so, he never let this inner struggle show. Outwardly, he always kept his imposing bearing, his firm voice, but inside I could sense that tremor, that tension ready to burst at any moment. His movements grew a little slower, his laugh a little more forced, and his words, usually so measured, sometimes became more hesitant, betraying a weariness that only alcohol seemed to ease, if only for a while. All this being said, you will understand my dismay when, one night, I caught my father crawling on all fours, like an animal, through the corridors of our house. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

My name is Jeannette, and I am the eldest of three children. With my parents, my little sister Régine and my younger brother Ike, we live in a lovely house in the Odza neighbourhood. This house, once nicknamed the “House of Happiness”, was our haven of peace, a place where we always felt safe, surrounded by love and laughter. It rang with bursts of joy, games and family moments, under the kindly watch of our loving parents. But for some years now, that light had gone out, replaced by an oppressive shadow. Our home, once synonymous with happiness, had become the epicentre of strange and disturbing phenomena. My siblings and I, young as we were, felt these changes deeply, this heavy atmosphere that had insidiously settled in.

I had a fairly happy childhood, cradled by carefree days and games. But overnight, everything changed. I found myself becoming more rebellious, less tolerant, and above all more anxious. It wasn’t just the turbulence of adolescence. No, it was something else, something deeper. I could clearly see that my parents’ relationship had deteriorated, wearing away until it was a pale imitation of what it had once been. The looks they exchanged, once full of tenderness and complicity, were now heavy with mistrust and pain. A constant tension hung in the air, a heavy silence that spoke of unspoken resentments and invisible wounds.

When they came home, they were warmly welcomed by Uncle Paul, a childhood friend of my father’s. The two men shared an unbreakable bond, forged by memories of the early years they had spent in the same village. While my father had chosen an academic path in Germany, Uncle Paul had opted for India, where he had studied finance, dreaming of launching a chain of clothing stores in Cameroon. Their friendship had survived the years and the distance, as strong as on the very first day, every reunion a joyful return to the carefree days of their youth.

But behind this homecoming lay a more complicated story, in which the dreams and realities of two once-inseparable men would soon run up against unexpected challenges. Why, then, was my father so frightened of this old friend, to the point that their precious friendship now seemed under threat? It is a story of loyalty and betrayal, of the way life’s paths can change even the strongest friendships.

In the unfathomable depths of Africa, where ancient forests whisper forgotten secrets and ancestral spirits keep watch in the shadows, a tragic story was beginning to take shape, marked by my father’s return to his homeland. That return, which should have meant a new beginning for our family, instead marked the start of a series of sinister events, haunted by invisible forces that would plunge us into an abyss of terror.

When we had finished talking, he took a worn leather wallet from his pocket and handed me my pocket money for the week. Looking at the notes, I noticed there were a few extra, far more than usual. Surprised, I pointed out this unusual generosity, and he replied that I knew why. With the carefree confidence of youth, I tried to guess the reason, joking that it was surely because I was a good child, well-behaved and obedient, along with all the other slightly conceited ideas that crossed my mind at that moment.

He turned towards me then, a faint smile on his lips, but his eyes shone with a deeper emotion. He laid his hand on my shoulder, a hand heavy with experience, sacrifice and love, and looked me straight in the eye. “Above all, it's because I love you and I'm proud of you,” he told me with disarming sincerity.

Those words, simple yet so full of meaning, touched me to the very core of my being. For the first time, I understood that behind his expectations and his lessons lay an immense love, a pride that needed no words or grand gestures to be expressed. That moment, sitting there with him on that balcony, has remained engraved in my memory. It was a moment of deep connection, a moment of truth when everything seemed clear, when a father's love revealed itself in all its silent splendour.

His voice trembled with anger and despair, a heartbreaking blend of fear and defiance. A brief silence followed, stretching the moment into unbearable tension, then his voice rose again, louder, filled with desperate fury:

“Leave Régine alone, I will never sacrifice her!”

Those words, spoken with desperate determination, echoed through the stifling silence of the house, slipping through the door and seeping into my mind. Who was he talking to? Or rather, what was he talking to? My heart was pounding in my chest; an irrational fear was taking hold of me, but it was nothing compared to the visceral terror of what those words might mean. The image of my sister, innocent and carefree, merged with that of the invisible forces that seemed to haunt this house.

I felt trapped. An icy shiver ran through me as I laid my hand on the door handle, its surface cold as stone beneath my trembling fingers. I was about to go in, to face whatever lay behind that door, but something held me back — as usual, you'll say. It was as if the house itself were whispering to me not to enter, not to defy whatever was inside, as if it knew that crossing that threshold would change the course of my life forever.

Suddenly she leaned towards me, her eyes all at once darker, almost piercing, as if what she had to confide weighed heavily on her heart. She came so close that I could feel her uneven breath against my cheek. The atmosphere around us shifted subtly; the hubbub of the room grew distant, almost muffled, as if the outside world were fading away to leave room only for this precise moment, this intimate confession. She whispered in a faint, quavering voice, tinged with a gravity I had never heard in her before:

“Do you believe in God, my daughter?”

I was struck dumb, the words catching in my throat. Why this question, and why now, in such an ordinary place? Time seemed to stretch; with every second, I felt a new weight on my shoulders. Without understanding, I nodded, my thoughts in a tangle, desperately searching for meaning, for logic, while my lips stayed sealed, unable to put my questions into words.

“Good,” she went on, and her voice, though low, rang like an ominous echo in the sudden silence of my mind. “Because I have to tell you a secret. Something that has been tormenting me for more than a year now. Your sister Jeannette will soon be leaving to finish her studies in Europe, and you will be the eldest in the house. You will have to watch over your little brother. Know that if I were ever to leave our home, your brother and you would probably become the target of occult forces that your father has invited into our home without even realising it. For now, your faith in our Lord is your only shield against these spirits, but remember that I will always be by your side.”

I walked up to him quietly, without a word. Without thinking any further, I picked up the second controller and sat down beside him, silently joining his game. I wasn't particularly good at communicating, let alone at finding the right words at such delicate moments. In fact, I'm still not, to this day. But I knew I was a good friend, someone who knew how to listen and simply be there. So yes, I started playing with him, without even trying to meet his eyes, for fear of making him uncomfortable.

We played in silence, the noise of the arcade creating a strange bubble around us. After our third game, I put my hand on his shoulder. The gesture was simple, almost instinctive, but it carried the full weight of what I wanted to tell him. “My condolences, brother,” I murmured at last, my voice barely louder than a breath. Antoine slowly turned his head towards me, his red, swollen eyes meeting mine. He looked me straight in the eye and, in a muffled but sincere voice, simply answered: “Thank you.” In that brief exchange, so full of emotion, there was more understanding and support than a thousand words could have conveyed. We went back to our game, and out of the corner of my eye I saw silent tears rolling down his cheeks, mingling with the blue light of the screen.

At that very moment, on the train carrying her back to a merciless reality, Jeannette felt more alone than ever. Every tear that rolled down her face was a release, but also a cruel reminder of everything she had to face. And yet, despite the pain, despite feeling overwhelmed, a small voice deep inside her urged her to keep going, not to give up. She knew that, for now, she had to be at once the daughter, the sister and the pillar of this fragile family.

And as she sobbed softly, my mother, with a slow and tender gesture, wrapped her thin arms around her. She held her close, as if to absorb a little of that pain, a little of the suffering that showed in every fibre of her being. In a soft but confident murmur, she whispered in her ear: “Everything will be all right, my daughter. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find a solution. The Lord will provide.” Those words, simple yet so comforting, had a special resonance. For Jeannette, it was like a light in the darkness. She realised that, despite everything they were going through, our mother had not lost her faith. And perhaps, in those darkest moments, it was this faith that allowed them to keep moving forward, even when the path seemed completely blocked.