I Became Rich, But My Parents Turned Into Tikoloshis

I Became Rich, But My Parents Turned Into Tikoloshis

Sometimes I sit in my mansion and ask myself, was it worth it?
Yes, I am rich today, but every night I live with guilt that no amount of money can wash away.

I was once a poor man, hopeless and tired. Life had turned its back on me. I couldn’t even afford food for my parents. That’s when someone I trusted told me about a sangoma who could help me get rich — but I had to be ready to give up something close to me.

At first, I thought it was a joke. But poverty makes you desperate. I went to see the sangoma. He lived deep in the mountains. The smell of burning herbs filled the hut, and the walls were covered with animal skins and old bones. He looked at me and said, “Your wealth will come from your own blood.”

I didn’t understand what he meant until he gave me strange instructions.
He told me to bring both my parents’ underwears — clean ones that they had worn. That was the first test. I remember how my hands shook when I took them from the washing line. It felt wrong, but the hunger in my home was stronger than my fear.

When I returned to the sangoma, he took the underwears, tied them with a red string, and placed them in a clay pot. He poured black powder on them and whispered words I didn’t understand. Then he gave me a small bottle of something that looked like oil mixed with blood. He told me to anoint my forehead at midnight and say my parents’ names three times.

The ritual continued for seven nights. I had to slaughter a black chicken and sleep without talking to anyone. On the last night, he told me to build a one-room house with no windows. That room, he said, would be “where the spirits deliver your wealth.”

After that, my parents started changing. They would talk to themselves, laugh alone, and sometimes crawl on the floor like lost souls. The sangoma told me not to worry — that the spirits were “connecting” them.

Then one night, I saw it — a huge mountain snake entering the room. My parents followed it like they were in a trance. The snake hissed loudly, and when it was satisfied, it vomited money — real money, wet and dirty, but real.

That was the beginning of my riches… and the end of my peace.

People see me driving big cars and think I’m lucky. They call me blessed. But what they don’t know is that my parents are not the same anymore. They became tikoloshis, serving the snake spirit that brought me wealth. Their eyes are empty. They are alive, but not human.

Sometimes I wish I could undo everything — return the money, free my parents, and sleep peacefully again. But it’s too late. The money came with a curse, and I am the prisoner of my own success.