20/12/2025
👑 THE QUEEN’S NIGHTMARE
Written by Nengi Anita Obed for Nengi's TV
The nightmare always began the same way.
Queen Amaka stood barefoot in the middle of the palace courtyard, her crown heavy on her head, the gold biting into her temples. The night air smelled of smoke and blood. Around her, the ancient walls of Obodo Kingdom wept dark stains sliding down the clay like tears that refused to dry.
Then the drums began.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
They were not the drums of celebration. They were the drums of death.
Amaka turned slowly, her heart pounding, and saw them.
Her people.
They stood in silence, their eyes hollow, mouths sewn shut with red thread. Children she had blessed. Women she had protected. Warriors she had sent to battle. All staring at her with accusation burning in their gaze.
A single voice broke through the silence.
“You failed us.”
Amaka screamed and woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, her hands clawing at silk sheets.
The palace was quiet. Too quiet.
She sat up, touching her crown resting on the stool beside her bed. Real. Solid. Yet her heart still raced as though the nightmare had followed her into the waking world.
This was the seventh night.
And the dreams were getting worse.
By day, Queen Amaka was everything a ruler should be.
Wise. Graceful. Untouchable.
She sat on the ancestral throne carved from iroko wood, settling disputes between farmers and hunters, widows and chiefs. Her voice was calm, her judgments fair. The people bowed low when she passed, whispering praises.
“Long live the Queen.”
“Mother of the Kingdom.”
“The Lioness of Obodo.”
But when night fell, the palace became her prison.
Each dream revealed more.
In one, the sacred river dried up and cracked, fish rotting under the sun while elders wailed. In another, her own reflection stepped out of a mirror, eyes black as charcoal, whispering:
“You know what you did.”
Amaka began to fear sleep.
She summoned the royal diviner, Baba D**e, an old man whose eyes had seen three reigns and two wars. He listened in silence as she spoke, his fingers tracing ancient symbols in white chalk.
“These are not ordinary dreams, my Queen,” he finally said. “They are memories demanding to be remembered.”
Amaka’s breath caught. “Memories of what?”
Baba D**e looked up at her, his gaze heavy.
“Of a sin buried beneath your crown.”
The truth came like a blade to the chest.
Years before she became queen, Obodo Kingdom had been ruled by her elder sister, Queen Nkiru strong, beloved, and fearless. Amaka had lived in her shadow, praised less, seen less, loved less.
When famine threatened the land, the oracle had spoken clearly:
A sacrifice must be made.
Royal blood.
Nkiru had refused.
But Amaka had listened.
In secret, she had met with desperate chiefs, men hungry for survival and power. One night, under the excuse of prayer, Queen Nkiru disappeared into the sacred forest and never returned.
By morning, Amaka wore black.
By the next moon, she wore the crown.
The famine ended. The land prospered.
And the kingdom called it destiny.
Now destiny was knocking back.
The nightmares were not punishments they were warnings.
Strange things began to happen in Obodo. Crops spoiled overnight. Children fell ill without cause. The sacred drums cracked during festivals. At night, villagers claimed to see a woman walking near the palace walls, her head crowned in fire, her voice crying Amaka’s name.
The people began to whisper.
“The ancestors are angry.”
“The throne is cursed.”
Queen Amaka stood alone one night on the palace balcony, staring into the darkness. For the first time since she took the crown, tears rolled freely down her face.
“I wanted to save the kingdom,” she whispered. “I wanted to matter.”
The wind answered her with a familiar voice.
“You wanted my life.”
At dawn, Queen Amaka made a decision no ruler had ever made.
She gathered her people in the courtyard and stood before them without her crown.
Her voice shook, but it did not break.
“I am the reason the ancestors are restless,” she confessed. “I sit on a throne built with blood. I offer myself to restore what I destroyed.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Before anyone could stop her, Amaka walked toward the sacred forest the same path her sister had taken years before.
They never saw her again.
But that night, rain fell for the first time in months. The sick recovered. The river flowed strong and clear.
And in the palace, the nightmares ended.
Yet even now, elders say that on quiet nights, when the moon is full, two queens walk together near the forest one crowned in gold, the other in peace.
Because some crowns come with glory.
And others come with nightmares that must be paid for.