THE FEMALE HUNTERS OF THE WHIZZING FOREST

The Female Hunters of the Whizzing Forest

The Whizzing Forest earned its name long before any living soul dared to map it. By day, the wind moved strangely through its ancient trees, not in straight paths but in spirals, making a constant whizz… whizz… whizz—like arrows flying past invisible ears. By night, the sound deepened into whispers, sighs, and sometimes laughter. Elders said the forest breathed. Others said it remembered.
No man hunted there anymore.But on the seventh night after the Harmattan moon rose red, five women stepped into the forest with spears on their backs and silence in their throats.They were known as the Female Hunters, though their true name was spoken only in shrines. Each woman carried a past sharpened by loss.Aderonke, tall and scarred, whose husband vanished in the forest years ago, leaving behind only his blood-stained sandals.Sewa, swift as a duiker, raised by her grandmother who taught her how to hear spirits in tree bark.Morẹmi, broad-shouldered and calm, once a palace guard before choosing the lonely path of the hunt.Kanyin, the youngest, whose dreams were plagued by a whistling voice calling her name.Iyalode Ifunanya, the leader, her eyes pale like dawn mist—said to have once died and returned.They did not enter the Whizzing Forest for glory.They entered because something had begun hunting the villages.Goats were found skinned but untouched. Children woke screaming of a woman made of leaves. Hunters returned mad, muttering about trees that moved when you blinked. And always, at night, the whizzing grew louder, closer—as if the forest was creeping outward.
At the forest’s edge, Iyalode knelt and pressed her palm to the soil.
“The ground is warm,” she said. “The forest is awake.”
They stepped in.
Immediately, the air thickened. The whizzing sound cut sharper, like blades slicing wind. Trees leaned inward, their trunks twisted, roots clawing above ground like fingers begging—or warning. Shadows shifted even when the moon stood still.Sewa stopped suddenly. “We are being counted,” she whispered.A low chuckle rolled through the leaves.
They pressed deeper.Hours passed, or maybe moments—time folded strangely in the Whizzing Forest. Kanyin began to hear the voice again, clearer now.
Come back to me… little arrow…She turned—and vanished.No scream. No struggle.Just gone.
Morẹmi cursed and spun, spear raised. “The forest takes without noise,” she said. “Just like the stories.”
Iyalode closed her eyes. “Kanyin is not dead yet. She has crossed into the inner breath.”
Before anyone could ask what that meant, the forest shifted.
The trees rearranged themselves with a sound like cracking bones. A clearing opened where none had been before. In its center stood a figure—a woman tall as a palm tree, her body woven from vines, bark, and bone. Her face was beautiful and rotten at the same time, eyes glowing green like foxfire.
The Mother of the Whizzing Forest.
“You send daughters where sons have failed,” the spirit hissed, her voice layered with wind. “Bold… or foolish.”
Aderonke stepped forward, trembling with rage. “You took my husband.”The spirit smiled. “He offered himself. Men always do.”The wind screamed.Roots burst from the ground, wrapping around Sewa’s legs, lifting her upside down. Morẹmi hurled her spear—it passed straight through the spirit like smoke.iyalode finally spoke the forbidden words taught only to women who had faced death.
“Forest that eats its children,” she said calmly, “remember who first bled into your soil.”The ground shook.
From beneath the leaves rose old spirits—female hunters long forgotten, their bodies half-tree, half-shadow. They circled the Mother Spirit, howling with the same whizzing sound.The forest was not just alive.It was ruled by stolen women.The Mother screamed as the spirits tore into her, reclaiming voices, names, memories. The whizzing rose to a deafening storm—then suddenly stopped.
Silence fell like a held breath.Kanyin staggered out of the trees, eyes changed, deeper. Sewa dropped free. The forest began to straighten, the trees relaxing as if released from a curse.Iyalode turned to the others. “We were never meant to conquer this place,” she said. “Only to remind it who it belonged to.”At dawn, the Female Hunters emerged.
The Whizzing Forest still whispered—but now, it warned instead of lured.And in the villages, elders say that if you listen closely at night, you can hear women laughing within the trees—free at last, guarding the forest that once devoured them.