Chereads / The Chattering Roads / Chapter 7 - The Seventh Vision:

Chapter 7 - The Seventh Vision:

Eba-Odan Village was a quiet village of caring faces. Everyone seemed to be radiating warmth and satisfaction. But the roads and the shrubbery seemed to pulsate with unnatural life. The road kept changing and Tunde kept seeing eyes of all colours in the bush. But, he remembered his mother's words and he ignored all the unnaturalness around. Since the villagers seemed not to care, he decided not to breathe a word of what he saw. The last sister who had been quiet all this time remained caught up in her own private world of the more indiscernible.

Adigun ushered Tunde and the last sister into his house. The house was a warm house with pictures hung all around. In a corner of the sitting room, he noticed his full family portrait. Adigun showed the two of them into a room and spoke for the first time. His voice boomed and seemed to shake the walls of the house. "This will be your and Funto's room, keep it clean and take care of your sister. You and I need to talk still but rest first."

Tunde immediately ushered his sister into the bathroom, he cleaned her up as she crooned playful waving her arms. He dressed her up and she fell into the bed, falling asleep almost immediately. Tunde smiled as it seemed she was getting better; she had not had any violent episodes since she was in his keep. He realized he was hungry but he wanted to take his bath as well. As he stripped his clothes, he noticed everything was too silent. The crickets were not making any noise neither could he hear the wind. He looked around and noticed a woman looking at him through the doorway. She was extremely fair with a face that he could only term as beyond beautiful. She walked away from the door and he followed her.

Tunde expected to burst out of his room into the sitting room but he noticed that the doorway of the room only led to a clearing with a transparent set of staircases that the woman kept climbing. Everywhere was smoke-filled as the smoke seemed to emanate from the woman herself but Tunde kept following her until he finally finished climbing the stairs to a room made of mud and beads.

The woman sat on a mat that materialized out o nothing and as he approached her he noticed that something was familiarly dangerous about her. She spoke and said "Oxossi, the terror of gods and the vengeance of Olodumare*, do you slumber still?. I am bored and I am tired of *Olukoso's unending antics. Awaken and throw this world into chaos once again. Bloody the sky with the blood of the gods and extinguish the cycle of *Axexe* once again". She burst into unnatural laughter as her face clouded over and she morphed into an ogre of terrifying ugliness. Then as suddenly as she appeared, she disappeared taking the whole landscape with her. Tunde suddenly found himself in front of Adigun's house.

Tunde walked back, tracing his way back to the room. He noted that this time, he was wide awake and he remembered all that had happened. He cleaned himself up and got some food from Adigun. As he went to settle for bed, Adigun peeped in and said, "we will talk as soon as the cock crows".