2023
3 YEARS SINCE THE DAWN OF THE PURGE
LOCATION: HAVEN'S GATE
Every night was the same, the same reoccurring nightmare haunting my sleep every other night. More of a memory than a nightmare, but that didn't make it any less horrific. The day of the purge. The day I lost everything. The beginning of the end. It was too clear as if it was yesterday.
The day started off just like any other day. Ten year old me playing in the school yard unbothered, the end of humanity being the last thing that crosses my mind.
"Obe pass it now! Pass the ball here" Obi shouted through the school yard.
I was upfront leveling my classmates with the squished empty water bottle we were improvising as the ball.
I shot the bottle through the two stones we placed, at most, two meters wide. I scream running round the yard celebrating my goal. But my celebration was cut short by the loud and angry horns of parents and guardians coming to take their children away.
The cars burst through the open gate into the school like a swarm of bees protecting their queen. I was confused by the suddenness of everything. But I was equally excited. Naively excited that I would be going home early today.
As we ran back to our class rooms to carry our bags as some parents mindlessly called out for their children, frantically searching classrooms, pushing teachers and pupils aside like obstructions in their way, I couldn't help but think that maybe it had something to do with the news my father was so worried about earlier this morning as he drove me to school. Something about something bad and scary coming from below us. But what did I know. I was only a fourth grader.
Grabbing my bag and desperately searching for my father's blue Honda car, I see him running straight to me. His distinguished build up on normal days would've have given him leverage, making people make way without him saying a word. It was something I was always proud of when it came to my father. Something I could boast about to my friends.
"My father will beat your father ehn!" I would say "I'll soon become big like him"
But today wasn't any other day. Everyone was on edge making everybody unpredictable. My large grin slowly turned to a frown as my father drew closer.
"You've carried your bag ba?" he asked paying no attention to me but looking at the frenzy everyone was in, worry embracing his dark skinned face features.
"Yes"
"Good, let's go." Taking my hand, he lifts me up and runs for his car, faster than I had ever seen him run.
He opens the back door and tosses me in slamming the door behind me. He starts the car and screeches out of the yard he had parked in like a maniac the second he sat down.
My mother who was seated in the front passenger seat turns to me with tears falling down her cheeks, eyes red and soggy from prolonged sobbing. Her beautiful features usually brought me joy every day. Her black luxurious locks with full lips that lways held enough smiles for me to depend was turned upside down in a sad frown. Even days when I would get mad at her, she would find ways to make me smile.
But today they were covered with dark array of sadness and terror. Her eyes held something that made every form of excitement or whatever childish feelings I had before disappear in an instance. It was enough to break me and I hated it.
"Obe, Obe, Jesus, thank God you're safe. Don't worry ehn, mummy's here now, you hear, mummy's — just... put your seat belt on and don't make noise. You'll be fine… We'll be fine." She rambles and mutters from a high to a low tone, trying to sound calm and collected. And failing woefully at it too.
I nod as she gives me a wryly smile. A smile that was meant to make me feel better. To make me feel at peace. A smile telling me everything was going to be okay. It failed to do so.
"MOVE! LEAVE ROAD! ODE!" My father kept yelling and punching his car horn as we drove through the Benin streets.
"Pump, slow down! You will hit somebody!" My mother keeps reprimanding my father using her nick name for him. Pump. Something they had derived from pumpkin, something sweet in an ungodly sour hour. She held the door handle firmly as if depending solely on it. She was just as scared as he was, but hadn't come to terms with what was going on as he did. But being a religious woman she always has been she didn't stop praying.
He was angry. His chest kept heaving with heavy breathes like a raging bull ready to strike. But even he did not know who or what he was angry with. Maybe it was the fact that his whole life was about to collapse before him and he could do nothing about it. He was supposed to be the leader and protector of this family and he was damn sure he would do that no matter what came, just like any good father would. He clenched his jaw and his fist on the steering maneuvering through the chaotic streets.
I looked out the window and was terrified with what I saw. That sight would have been enough to scar me for life. But life was too dramatic to let it end there.
Outside was chaos. The survival of the fittest. Everybody was on his/her own. Women raised their children on their backs as they just ran hopelessly, looking for where to hide from the impending danger. Men fought themselves, fighting for food and clothing that had been abandoned by the shop owners also running for their lives. Those were the final stages of desperation and it did not look pretty.
Everybody seemed to have no clue of what was going on, only feeding on the looming impending doom that was inevitable. A doom impossible to hide from. Then I wondered if my father knew what he was doing or he was just like the people out there. I wondered if he would be able to protect us from the vicious people who once were shoe traders, fruit and vegetable vendors, shoe makers and shoe shiners, normal everyday city folks, now turned folks driven and yet imprisoned by fear.
"Daddy what is happening? Why's everybody acting like this? Where are we going?" my voice kept shaking with my eyes welling up with tears.
He didn't respond. His eyes strained on the road maneuvering the broken down vehicles on the road and people crossing the roads.
"We're going somewhere safe okay? Relax and close your eyes." My mother said while struggling with her phone. She must have been trying to call home or friends, but it didn't matter anyways. Closing my eyes didn't stop me from hearing the shouts and the cry of confusion and for help. It did not stop the tears from rolling down.
As if seeing my distress, I hear the radio turn on much to my relief.
"- creatures the United Nations are calling the Dominants have now completely taken over, occupied and destroyed the republic of Ghana and Congo. –"
"Jesus! Why God?..." I could hear my father utter under his breath with a shaky voice. I squeezed my eyes tighter, every piece of me shaking with what I couldn't explain. Hearing my father, rock and my solitude, break did something to me.
"- scientists say satellite imagery shows more of these creatures will surface soon in more countries in Africa. Angola, Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Cameroon, South Africa are said to be the countries on top of this list with the highest rate of expectancy of invasion. Government urges citizens to stay at home and not panic as-"
The earth shook shifting our attention from the radio announcer, halting everyone in their place. The roads cracked and slowly but terrifyingly gave way like an earth quake. My parents face went white as they saw what was coming out of it. Its head poking out first desperate to climb to the surface. The cry of fear and pain jumbled into one miserable sound ripped the air as people ran for their lives. It had begun.
As if snapping from a trance, my father jumps into action.
"Get out of the car! Now! Now! Hurry!"
We all jump out of the car hearts beating uncontrollably. My father grabs my hand and flings me unto his back effortlessly, running faster than I had seen him run earlier. My mother held his hand struggling to maintain the same pace.
"Pump, enter my front.'' My father pushes my mother to his front. We were running but I didn't think even my father knew were we were headed. We were just running with the large crowd in front of us.
"Hey God, oh God, oh God, help us oo" my mother kept crying out in front of us making me cry even more.
My father turns his head to his side acutely like a dog ears perking up at the smallest sound. He stretches his arm forward and draws my mother backwards almost instinctively.
"Stop… Do you hear that?"
The rumbling from the ground had all of a sudden tripled. The ground opened wider and they started flooding out in numbers, of all colors and sizes. The most terrifying thing I had seen. At least to that point.
Before we could process what we were seeing before our eyes, something pounced like a predator catching its prey. Its reptile body stretched as it dived mouth wide and teeth sharp into a man's head right in front of my mother.
It raised its head up as he swallowed the man whole crushing his bones with his monstrous teeth. Its five tentacles struck into the heart of everybody around it, penetrating even two people at the same time. Its large claws dug into the ground, forcing it to stop right in the middle of the crowd. It lifted its tail like tentacles high in the sky with people stuck in it like meat on a stick. The blood dripped down its tentacles slowly reaching its scaly, rigid and firm hard back. Its blue reptile eyes with oval eye ball narrows before it shrieks loud enough to make my ears bleed.
"RUN!!" Like a sound of alarm for the end of the world, we all begin to run with my father still carrying me behind his back and dragging my petrified mother behind him by her hand.
They came like swarm of locusts. Some twice the size of bull, some less but not too far from that, with varying number of tentacles, they came for blood. They were too quick to outrun with their lizard shaped body making their legs propel them faster. They were made for total destruction. It let its long blood red stained tongue let out, striking terror in everyone, making our joints knock in fear and our bones dry. Its eyes only showed one thing in it, clear enough for anyone to see. Death. An end.
No one was escaping their long tendrils but my father was determined.
He ran in the opposite direction of the swarm of death. Breathing and heaving he just kept running, praying an intervention would come. Something to save us.
And his answer came with a loud explosion!
The jets above swooshed passed the horror dropping bombs on the swarm of Dominants. I could hear loud helicopter blades approaching us with ferocious speeds. With a loud racket, it released fire on the Dominants, making them drop like flies with every shot. Every shot gave us hope. With every sound ripping the sky of the city one sound stood out. My father letting out a breathe of relief. Thinking yes, we are finally safe, his family will live through this and we will overcome.
Large army trucks sped down to us, screeching to a stop. The soldiers jump out the back, ushering survivors to get inside quickly. We were winning. We would get out un-top. We would regroup and fight back. We were wrong.
They were being pushed back but not for long. The explosions only held them back for so long. They emerged from the fire like beasts from the fiery depths of hell. Their scales now turned ashy and solid like metals. Not withholding anything, the army did not stop firing with everything they had. But to the very adaptive Dominants, it did little to nothing. Every bullet just ricochets of their hard steely body.
"GO!! Get them out of here!" They officers shouted to the trucks. They needed a win. Their sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. At least saving the hostages would be compensation.
Then something happened. The heavy thud from its every step revealed its coming not so subtly.
"Holy Mary Mother of God!" My father couldn't believe his eyes but neither could anybody there. It was a Dominant but very different from the others. For one thing it was incredibly massive in size. Its massive claws crushed the vehicles in its way like mere obstacles in its path. Its seven tentacles rose high in the air forming a spiral, as if revealing its beauty like a Peacock. Its large mouth made a T-Rex loo less intimidating. Its mere figure made us tremble. It made our knees loose with fear.
It opened its jaws wide and let out a scream. A sound to start the end. The shrieking, ear bleeding sound cut through each and every ones heads. But some more than others. Pilots held their head phones closer to their ears trying to get the sound out of their heads. Helicopters came crashing down like dead birds from the sky. Some landed on Dominants and humans while some had landed into the still standing buildings. People who weren't screaming from the ripping sound ringing and echoing in their heads causing them to spas out in insanity, ran out on fire trying to put it out.
I felt it. I felt the ringing in my head but I could feel my mind fighting back. It was almost as if it was an automatic response to the invasive sound, like white blood cells of my mental health. But I couldn't say the same for everyone else though. The truck we were in, speeding to safety, immediately derailed off track, bashing head first into a building.
I fall out of the truck with my mother holding me in a tight embrace, afraid to let me go , her "mama bear" instincts kicking in I guess. She gets up, bleeding from the side of her head from the fall. Minding the wound no mind, she searches my body for any wounds unsatisfied by her quick search she asks me "Are you hurt? Did you hit your head or anything?" I shake my head and she lets out a breath of brief relieve. I would live another day.
"Where's your daddy?" she asks making a quick scan around, but the scene in front of us changed something in her eyes. My mother at that moment wasn't the same. If she wasn't broken before, she was now.
Men scratched their face, tore their skins from their faces trying to rip that loud reoccurring sound from their heads. They stop and leaped into the air, hungry for death and blood. With insanity, they proceeded to act out the Dominants will. Killing and destroying everything and everyone in their paths with their finger nails, teeth regardless of who it was, even if it was family.
"Find your father." My mother beckons at me turning frantically, hoping his face would surface somewhere. And much to her solace, she finds him on the ground.
We rush to his aid, but before I reach him, I feel my mother's hand on my chest.
"wait… he's… he's… Pump?... Pump are.." she keeps struggling to let out in between sobs.
He turned to look at my mother and I. Drooling with saliva from his lips, death in his eyes; he wasn't my father any more. He still looked like my father. But his mind was no longer there. His body might have been what was facing us with lust for blood and death, but his mind was no longer there.
"Agho… God no!" My mother shouts crying. I remember what it felt like. But I couldn't ever describe it with words.
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Waking up by three a.m. every day to that same nightmare for the last three years wasn't something I was personally fond of. Sweat trickling down my chest and face always made it the more infuriating. But by now I had gotten used to it. A good night sleep was too much for me to ask for.
Ahmed would soon come barging through the dorm doors yelling for everyone to get up for the morning drills as he had done for the last two years. It has been nothing short of tough and frustrating.
The day's routine had been simple for a while now. Drills, intense training, breakfast, labor, lunch, meditation, art of mind manipulation, art of telepathy, dinner, prepare for bed. It left little to no space for social interaction. Probably what they wanted, keeping us divided was keeping things simple and easy I would think. But they did give us free time. As little as it was, it was better than not having any.
My first few months were a lot easier with me recuperating in the infirmary on her orders. With time, I had grown closer to nurse Grace than anyone in the entire Haven. Not because I was much of a talkative, but just the vibe she let off. She was kind and filled with so much warmth I was just happy to be able to leach of some of it. It was a while since any one had made me feel like that.
She reminded me so much of my mother. Her always caring nature stood out like a bright light in the dark.
Her slender body and good looking features made the men at the haven want more than just drugs when they came to the infirmary. She knew most of the time but didn't even care. Every day Ahmed would come into the infirmary to see the doctor, maybe to give full reports for the day, I never figured it out, but sometimes I would see him sneak a glance Nurse Grace's way. And honestly I couldn't blame him. I always wondered what brought her here. She didn't look like she was she was recruit or ever was. It was hard for me to tell but I had never gotten the courage to ask.
I saw myself grow. I wasn't the little boy that was dropped off at the camp like an abandoned unwanted package, I was much more. I was now an unwanted package that could carry a back pack almost twice my size for several hours, could kill anything in seven different ways, and could reload an m-16 faster than your mind could process it. Ahmed had trained us to be more than any of us thought we could be when we first got to the camp. But at the expense of breaking us.
A night had come when I was sent to retrieve some extra bread for everyone. I was sent to go and bring the bread from the main store to the dining hall, unknown to me that some under fed Haven occupants like me who thought it would be an easy steal from the little boy. I wasn't so little anymore.
I fought so hard to stand my ground. I wasn't going to be run over ever again like Eni and Aku did every day at camp. I wasn't that scared scarred little boy any more. I even got a couple hits here and there but it wasn't nearly enough. I might've grown tougher but they were already tough and I was no match for them. Then my came intervention.
The deviant lady who was ready to take Jerome head on my first night here, made a quiet but grand entrance from the shadows. She hadn't grown any softer since that night, if she had done anything its grown worse. As soon as they boys had set their eyes on her, they were off into the wind never looking back. I hadn't seen anybody seem so afraid of anyone since Ahmed.
But one thing I couldn't figure out was what she wanted with me until she laid down her proposal. Taking the bread she had saved from the greedy band boys for herself she made it make sense with a sentence.
"I'm escaping this dump and I need your help… This bread is stale… God damn Haven"