Short Stories

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SOPHIA WAS TAKEN ABACK when she heard the voice behind her. For all the gruesomeness of the creature, the voice was so effeminate that she was tilted off balance. She began to relax, realising that it must be a game, but it was not even Halloween yet, and this was Nigeria.
She started to turn slowly, ready to pounce on the prankster, when the voice hardened into the mind-piercing shrill again.

"Listen to this," the voice said. "Frank was taking you to his grand-aunt, a sorceress. There was to be no wedding, there was to be no introduction. Instead, there was going to be a feast, a ritual where the partakers will be bloated by the very meat and blood by which your being still exists."

Her voice shook. "Who are you?"

"Your guardian. I was assigned to watch over you, and remove all forms of danger."

"Thank you," she managed. "But what can I call you? Do you have a name?" She surprised herself with boldness.

"Call me Shadow, if you must call me something. If anything is imminent, dangerous, just relax and think of how to get out of there, because I will swoop down from on high and hack the problem away, bloodily. Just know that your well-being is my duty."

"Duty? Who sent you? Who assigned you to me?"
"That, I cannot say." Shadow was breathing. Sophia could hear it, him, her. She was confused. This was inhuman; but, if human, of what gender she should ascribe it, she does not know.

“Are you like my genie?”

“Sort of. But,” this was delivered in almost a whisper, but the temerity was not lost on her. “You cannot give me orders.”

"Is this a joke?"

"Joke?" Once again, the shrill. Sophia noted, that it happens when Shadow is upset. "Ask your late boyfriend's headless body."

“What?” she shivered with fresh fear. It felt like a bottomless spring of fear was dug inside her. Each passing moment redoubled her fright till she starting having fits, on her feet!

Shadow laughed then. It was more like a wicked cackle forced out of a snake. “That was a joke really. But, I am your guardian . You have nothing to worry about anymore. Like Mary, in the bible, you have been chosen. Not to give birth to any special child, but to marry a man who will hold a special position. In six years, you are going to be the First Lady of this country, and The Cross wants you to be there to carry out wishes which I will subsequently hand down to you.”

Sophia retched, but nothing spewed forth. Her stomach muscles tightened and strained. A rattling cough raged her body. Exhaustion set in, and she felt her mind slipping away. Before she fainted, she heard the last words the Shadow uttered.

“Your lecturers and classmates, or the bad boys in school cannot touch you now.”

She heard her name, and it got louder as she awoke from her slumber. She sat up immediately, recalling her ordeal. Frank! She was in Frank’s place. So, it was all a dream? What a dream. Her relief made her laugh. “Frank!” she called out. “Frank!” Where was that bighead? She swung out of bed and walked barefoot around the house, opening doors and slamming them as she called out his name softly. Yet, no one answered. Frank did not respond.

Her fear started returning slowly. She looked outside, and sure enough, the car was there. It was a dream, she reassured herself again. But where was Frank? She opened the front door and walked to the gate. “Musa,” she called the gateman. “Where Oga?”

“Oga no dey. Priend kwom por early morning carry am kwomot.”

That explains it. She walked back into the house, concluding that she must have had a nightmare. As she entered the bedroom again, her eyes went to the table, and her heart sank.
On it, in the midst of clean white sheets of paper, was Frank’s phone.

It was covered in the red colour of human blood.

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