" what is wrong with you ?for the past few days you have been indoors , doing nothing worthwhile other than sitting around with your laptop .
what about work? don't tell me you took a leave without any tangible reason" bella stood arms akimbo in aleksis's room , she felt something was off with aleksis ,she has been behaving strange lately ,locking herself in room ,skipping meals and most of all not going to work . she tried to talking to her but the girl would just stare blankly to the wall in lost thoughts , this is definitely not the aleksis she have come to know , like aleksis would never joke with her work nor food especially when her company is in deep shit ,all over the Internet the netizen are wagging fire at Gold mire group accusing them of conspiracy,plotting against the Blacks inc but one of their staff is chilling at home unconcerned ,who the fuck does that when his source of income is going down the drain , i mean nobody in their right senses ,no , she needs to knock sense into this stubborn mutt
"i am talking to you !! " shouted bella as she grabbed aleksis roughly by the shoulders ,the girl just glared at her without saying a word
" what is wrong with you?!? huh ? we have come a long way than to keep secrets , i am your friend for Christ sake-" aleksis looked uncomfortable ,her eyes kept dancing around afraid to look at bella
"you can tell me anything ,let me be the shoulder you would lean on when you are down;please don't take all the pain alone " bella said in a soft voice, she could see the pains aleksis was bottling up , the tears she is trying so hard to hide, the confusion making her heart to beat faster but why couldn't she confide in her ? they have been together for a very long time yet all she does is to hide things from her she acted like it was fine at least not every one likes others to intrude in their private life but it is getting to much to feel comfortable with but as a good friend she understand how aleksis feels
the girl had suffered enough to be going through hardship alone she just wanted to be a talking buddy there is nothing much she can do if aleksis keeping critical things from her, her heart soften as she watched the person infront of her blink repeatedly she pulled aleksis into a tight hug and whispered into her ears " i don't know what is bothering you but i assure you everything will be fine , i will wait for you to come around and share your pains with me "
aleksis stood rooted to the spot her hands fisted by the side ,she shut her eyes to stop the tears brewing under her eye lid , she really wanted to pour all her worries to bella but what would she say? where would she start from? she had thought for a thousand and one things to say but it all sounded ridiculous ,it sounded insane even to own ears not to talk of a second ear
for days now she has refused to check the internet afraid of what she might see or hear
last night she gathered all the courage left in her and decided to check the news but was shocked with what she saw , the blacks inc shut down? just days ago they launched their big blast necklace all of a sudden they are shut down without any explanation ,something's definitely fishy , she spent the night trying to think of reasons for their suspension but came up with none ,all fingers are pointing at the Gold mire groups , the people of the country are busy lambasting the company with baseless insinuations,there were no news about Skylar's death and that was another shocker to her , yes , The company have the power to suppress the news but what about the people in the club ,they can suppress the Internet from going further but can't shut the mouth of the people who witnessed the incident like how is it possible that no single person mentioned anything about the death she searched for the club website since it is the most popular club in town but found nothing it was just like the incident that fateful day was a mirage , how is that possible? is Mr dean responsible ?? anyways this is a creature who have the ability to move faster than lightening ,what can't he do to clear his name from smearing in dust maybe he hypnotise those people or something but if he indeed wiped that particular memory from their head then why didn't he do the same thing to her ? another question bugging her soul that needs immediate answer ,thankfully she will get all her answers today , today!!
" ERM.. thanks for checking up on me ,i.. we would talk later -" she withdraw herself from the hug "- okay ??bye "bella eyes followed her out of the room in shock,she blinked severally before sighing well she can't force her to share her problems if she does not want to.now she can be rest assured that aleksis would be able to take care of herself .
*****
aleksis stood in front of a tall three storey building which looked like a ghetto at first sight , painted with different colours suspected to be done by taggers the smell of cigarettes mixed with alcohol could be perceived all over the place she didn't expect the Maa tricia to be in this kind of place considering how her billboards was placed in the most costly part of the city ,she checked the sign post to be sure she didn't miss the address ,yep, it's the same address . she have heard of city Q having some razz places ,ghettos that are dangerous ,a place where bad boys dwells in and true to the fact she could see some boys with over done tattoos lurking around the building there is no turning back now she must achieve what she came here to do , moving her feet she made her way to the top floor apartment 15 , she didn't expect to be led to this place ,what if something bad happens to her? what if Maa tricia is nothing but a chronic fraud? how would she escape? she would find out later but now is not the time to cry over spilled milk , yeah , there were people watching her every step ,she could feel their eyes on her what did she except from them? a decent looking girl roaming freely in their jungle 'as she saw in one of the writing inscribed on the wall ' surely they will want to know their prey, gosh ! what is she thinking ? 'at least be optimistic about your condition ' she mentally slapped herself
having climb the flight of stairs,she reached the said apartment 15 there was nothing different about the apartment , it looked like the rest in fact it would be hard to believe that the address led her to this place taking in a deep breath she knocked on the door as though expecting her presence a short man in a weird outfit and a funny kind of bald head opened the door aleksis lifted a brow at this new discovery , he sized her up with a disgusted face aleksis almost burst into laughter ,imagine a man not up to her waist still giving her a daring look , how rude! she cleared her throat and proceeded to make her appearance known
" i have an appointment with a woman call-"
"follow me" the dwarf interrupted her and gestured for her to come with him , aleksis gulped down her words and gently walked into the room
the house was more like a shrine with different things tied with red clothes hanging on the wall
aleksis shivered she was expecting to be in an office not a fetish home ,she was led through the scary hallway with skulls of animals placed on a square shaped table ,at the center of the hall was an enclosed room the short man opened the door
" you can go meet her" his voice bland but he was no longer grumpy ,she glanced at the man looking up at her with a look that says ' i dare you to go alone' she sighed softly this man sure has no manners , asking her to meet who?she lifted her eyes from the dwarf who was giving her a cold shoulder and cautiously stepped into the dimly lit room
there was nothing much in the room except the weird drawings on the wall and the red clothed thing hanging loosely , everything in the room have strange things on them ,she moved further into the room at the other side was a transparent curtain the inner room was more bigger in comparison with old candelabra hanged on the mud wall they held red candles each ,she was dumbstruck , she made her way into the room a set of Persian rugs laid carelessly on the floor with red brightly lit candles forming a big star in the middle of the room and a big bowl placed at the center of the star, a chair like rug was at the sides of the star ,strange drawings and writing was on the four corners of the wall aleksis was astonished as to what she saw , who could have thought that the all so famous Maa Tricia is a magician
" welcome to my humble abode " a woman who looked not less than fifty and was sitting on the chair like rug with her legs crossed on each other said , aleksis creased her brows she was sure she didn't see the woman sitting in that position a while ago ,is this some kind of foul play? she took a step closer to the strange woman , all she wanted to do is to run out of this haunted room but her body moved on it own accord as if trusting this woman " do not be afraid" Maa tricia spoke reassuringly, really ? with all this crazy things she is seeing in her so -called haunted house , room to be precise, did she expect her to stay calm or feel at home ?if so then she must be high on drugs coz she is insanely freaking out
well , she must see the end of all these unnecessary drama ,taking a deep breath for the tenth times today she bravely moved towards the woman and sat across her on the rug , she accessed the woman's feature she looked exactly as the Maa tricia on the billboard but more beautiful with more artistic markings on her face and neck even her tone sounded weird,if this is one of their ways to scam her then they better be ready coz she aren't dropping a dime in this place
" i won't trick you neither am i a fraud if indeed you have no trust for me you won't be here and yes , i am indeed a beauty " she said with a wide smile revealing her white teeths
aleksis eyes widened in awe,how did she read her thought? and for a woman as old and weird as she is ,she sure is narcissistic , not that its her business but she gotta admit ; the magician is beautiful but bragging about it to her face ?is a not cool kinda thing , she shifted on her seat nervously , should she say it ? " i need answers " aleksis voiced out after weighing the pros and cons of revealing anything to this woman
" you don't need answers -" Tricia's said after a brief silence ,her eyes concentrated on the bowl with a confused face which made aleksis conclude that whatever she is seeing is not so pleasant for the ears and she braced up herself for bad news
"- you are the answer " she stared at aleksis but not with confusion but with a more admirable look ,aleksis was taken aback by the 'you are the answer ' stuff , she was expecting something more mystic , like bring a pig for the sacrifice or drop your bank pin but that was totally unexpected ,tilting her head to the side in thoughts her eyes met with the fire , she noticed the fire from the candles shine more brightly and fiercer than she had ever saw and she made a mental note to ask the strange woman about it later
" what do you mean by i am the answer ? " aleksis questioned unamused by the trash the woman is spouting out , she risked everything to sit in a weird room with no form of security only for her to hear a dark joke ? no way , she won't allow that .
"allow me to take you on a memory lane "maa tricia calmly said ,aleksis rolled her eyes almost into her socket pft ! memory lane her ass,frauds!!!
"close your eyes and do not open them no matter what you hear and feel , okay?" tricia instructed with a whisper ,aleksis hesitated for a second and finally she nodded resignedly ,whatever all this shit was she would like to see it to the end
" now close your eyes "aleksis did as she was instructed ,then she suddenly thought ,what if she struck me with a rod? memory lane? i don't even believe in all these things , what if i am murdered in cold blood and my body dumped ? all the negative what ifs assembled in order kept poking at her
" i would advice you to shut your mind to such thought" she heard tricia's voice , who the fuck gave her the permission to intrude in her privacy ? i she wanted to retort back when she suddenly heard a whirling sound , what in the god name is happening? it was like everything around was twirling on air she could feel her hair ruffling against the wind, just as she was about to open her eyes she remembered the instructions given to her and she tightened her eye lid in horror and began praying inwardly, she prayed like never before even more than a pregnant nun .she halted when she heard Tricia's voice ,her raging heart calmed down at least the weird woman didn't leave her alone but something was off with tricia ,the woman was speaking in a strange language ,yes, the woman intonation is weird like when pronouncing a word she would drag the end of the syllable and her pronunciation of a word is quite funny just like when a village Indian girl is trying to speak English for the first time and several times during the discussion she almost blew up her cover by laughing out loud but the tone of the strange language is very much clear and sounded more like a chant, could it be that she is chanting an incantation on her? aleksis heart thumped loudly almost jumping out of her chest if she ever wished for death then she lied ,in fact she lied horribly cause death is the last thing she ever wanted for herself just as she was rebuking death a sharp pain coursed through her ,she felt something crawled from her legs and moved to her head shutting her eyes tightly she gritted her teeth and swore mentally to kill the so called magician and her troll if anything happens to her ,another round of unbearable pain struck her ,if this is what the woman meant by "no matter what you hear or feel" then she purely underrated the word 'feel' as if in sync with third round of pain she heard a loud scream and felt something ripping out of her body
forcibly she opened her eyes but was shocked to discover she was not in the weird room but was in a forest
" fuck this shit" she shouted and slumped on the floor , why can't they take her to a more beautiful place? why always in a forest? from a strange room to a forest more like from frying pan to fire
the last time she saw herself in a forest she encountered two weird ladies and only god knows what or who she will meet again , she looked upwards , though there were tall trees and obstacles sunlight managed to seep into the forest ,she sighed and stood up resignedly , but the woman said memory lane , for what she knows she have no memory of this place? so what is this place and if this is her memory why did she not remember anything about being here ? it made no sense to her, not that it made sense to anybody in her position but Still it made no sense suddenly she picked up movements not just a single person but people ,maybe ten or twenty or more she concentrated with all her senses ,the movement was getting nearer to where she was and she felt the ground shook beneath her, this is more than the movement of people it was more like something bigger with more than two legs maybe four with two feet off the ground and two feet on the ground like the gallop of a horse , gallop? horse? aleksis eyes widened as realization slapped her hard almost at the last hour she twired her body to where the sound was coming from and saw thousand of horses with men on armours racing toward her with full speed without thinking twice she turned and moved as far as her feet could carry her, it seems when they said tips on how to be killed by wild animals her life took it personal coz she is freaking about to be killed by not one but herds of horse,even if she dies her ghost won't let the stupid woman who led her into this mess live in peace in fact her ghost would hunt her for the rest of her life,when she halfway through the path that led to another part of the forest something pricked the sole of her foot she screamed and fell flat on the ground , she tried crawling away but the team of horses were just five feet from her, where would she crawl to ?even if she kept running she can never outrun a horse ,with her survival instinct exhausted she curved herself into a ball on the ground waiting for the expected death ,she thought of bella ,what would she think ? she didn't even get the chance to say a proper goodbye ,damn she is soo taking tricia with her to the netherworld
two seconds...two minutes...thirty minutes.....
" what's happening? " she opened her eyes and peeped from her lashes , there was no sign of horses anywhere ,the forest was without any form of life only the sound of birds singing and the gushing wind seeping fresh air into the quiet forest could be heard,how is that possible? she was sure of what she saw, she stood up quickly and looked around ,was it all a dream? no! , she screamed inwardly she saw herds of horses with strange looking men carrying swords and shield , she was sure she didn't imagine something as dangerous as that so how is she still alive ? she noticed there was a single path in the forest which could only mean either the horses passed through the path or they disappeared into thin air , eager to know where does horses were coming from and going to she rushed to the direction of the one way path ,she ran along the dark path of forest she heard voices but was too scared to stop and find out ,the moment she reached the end of the path she covered her mouth with both hands in surprise
the place which looked like a village was burning in fierce flame , countless heaps of dead bodies covered the ground , dismembered in the most ruthless way that made her double over on all fours and threw up , it was like a gory horror film to her
"oh my saviour, w..who caused this gruesome murder" she said while clutching her stomach ,in all her entire life she'd never witness a scene as horrifying as this, it brought questions to her mind ,how is this connected to her memory? from what she knows scenes like this can only be seen on screen and she is not a fan of scary movies
just then a loud rumbling sound shook the earth as puddles began plinking as the rain became heavier , the angry rain patter down as though lamenting the death of its inhabitant. lightning flashed across the dark sky as the loud noise of thunder input fear into the hearer
aleksis flinched as she heard another rumbling sound of thunder ,she looked up at the dark sky and she caught she saw a bolt of white twirling on air, what could that be? thanks to her sharp eye sight she could see things far away from her no matter the distance she concentrated on watching the white thing . despite how fast the white thing moved she recognized another shade of black , it was just as if light and darkness are having a competition up there , just then a loud rumbling sound shook the earth which threw aleksis toward a tree ,her body slammed painfully on the tree she arched her back upward and grunted in pain ,she could swear she heard her back bone snapped she tried standing up but slumped on the ground,what the hell was that ? she pushed up her body in a sitting position ,at the other end a deep hole has been made in the ground having see the destruction made was a huge shock to aleksis and totally unbelievable after the earthquake everything went still ,aleksis held her breath with her eyes on the hole there was a perfect decorum such that only the sound of the angry thunder and the pit patter of the rain could be heard, aleksis was concentrated on the deep hole that she didn't notice her body fading when she couldn't feel the rain pour on her anymore she looked down at her legs and gaped in surprise, how is she turning transparent all of a sudden? just then another mighty sound shook the forest the two forces shut out right from the ground in a swift movement, thanks to the fact that they were not high up on the sky she was able to discover that the two forces were humans not just humans but women for fuck sake her pupils dilated as she watched the two women exchange swift blows at each other on midair ,with each blow came loud thunder and lightning so that the two women were invisible only their garment could be seen.
the woman on white struck the other woman hard that sent her flying down with a terrifying speed she fell with a loud thud on the ground aleksis watched the woman on black garment stood up from the ground she looked up at the white woman standing on air with her right hands lifted upwards to the dark sky she gasped as heavy wind mixed with rain spiraled up from the sky throwing away everything within its reach to the point of uprooting trees and flinging them to different directions ,aleksis kneeled on the bare ground her eyes still on the white garmented woman the woman muttered some strange words, aleksis zoomed in on her mouth but couldn't decipher anything from what she muttered cause it sounded gibberish just as she closed her mouth the dark sky divided and a shiny golden sword torn down from it moving straight into the woman's hand it had an inscription on it with a strange language which she didn't have the time to read because her body had turned entirely transparent , no! , how could this be ? she wanted to see the end of the war, and that sword looked familiar and distinct as well, she gritted her teeth in annoyance she lifted her face to have the last glance at the horrific destruction but somehow her eyes met with the woman on white she was entrapped in her silver eyes, those eyes ! at the last moment the woman mouth moved aleksis wanted to know what she said but her body felt light like she was floating on air , she kicked ,pushed and shouted to be release it all felt like she was doing nothing with a loud scream she flung her eyes open
" welcome back" she shot her head to the direction of the sound and saw Tricia standing beside the door with a plate
" where am i ?" she stood up from the bed and looked around the small but well furnished room
"my house " tricia walked toward her and placed the plate on the table beside the bed
" how many hours have i been out " aleksis asked rubbing her forehead
"three hours" the room was in total silence , Tricia was now sitting across aleksis while aleksis was thinking about what she saw
"i saw things,strange thing that were not my memories" aleksis blurted out after a long period of silence
" that is left for you to decide " aleksis looked at tricia , left for her to choose ? she went silent for a brief moment her eyes moved to the fireplace
"everything was familiar ,b...b..but i don't remember being there or seeing such scenes " she sighed , this is the first time she is being vulnerable in front of any body ,she didn't even notice she was being more polite to the woman
" no amount of regrets that change the past,no amount of worrying can change the future , believe in yourself. you are braver than you think , more talented than you know and capable of more than you imagine. i have been practicing this for years and my walking through memory has never failed " she placed her hand on aleksis hands "- you need to know your root , a man root is the beginning of his life " she concluded
"my root" she repeated "- you mean it might be from my root like my ancestors that means i need to know more about my family background ?" she questioned looking at tricia
"yes " Tricia nodded in affirmation , aleksis gaze filtered to the fireplace again ,why didn't she think of this?
"take this "tricia brought out a silver necklace with a diamond stone as the pendant "- wear it always " she instructed as she placed it in aleksis open palm , aleksis looked at the old but beautiful chain
"what does it do" she asked after accessing the necklace
"it wade off evil spirits and protect it bearer from harms way " aleksis nodded , she stood up from the bed and looked at tricia who was also standing beside her "thank you " she muttered , yes, she was a bit rude today yet the woman still assured and helped her , was there still good people ? she doesn't know but will ensure to cherish the few good people around her
" prepare yourself , i can't assure you everlasting peace of mind.make hay while the sun shines " aleksis was almost at the door when she heard Tricia's warning ,urgency laced with worry echoed in her voice , aleksis was confused by what she said but she nodded ,maybe she was talking about tracing her root she thought , the short man was waiting for her outside the door he peeped into the door and asked " are you through with the weird girl?" aleksis frowned and glared at him, it funny how he called her weird with his ancient clothes, bald head and ugly face, did he even bother to look at the mirror
" follow me , weird girl" he said and walked ahead , aleksis eyes saw red ,why the hell is he insisting on calling her a weird girl?
she followed after him but still glared at him from sideways ,if he noticed her stares he sure did a good job in ignoring her after a long stare she voiced out " it's rude to call someone names like weird " the man simply ignored her , they passed the hall way and finally she was outside the apartment she narrowed her eyes at the man and shook her head just as she was about to walk away the man said " you are weird with your funny looks and hair and it's not my problem " aleksis paused and marched back with an angry face she pointed at the short man "y..y..you-" she couldn't complete her words when he banged the door at her face
" you insolent rude man go look at yourself in the mirror " she screamed and hit the door with her fist
realising she was creating a scene she calmed down and marched away with a visible pout