My mother had tripped on the staircase when she had impatiently rushed out of the room after seeing my father with another woman on their matrimonial bed..

My mother had tripped on the staircase and broken her head that fateful Tuesday afternoon.

I was beside the body of my mother and watched my father cry crocodile tears on her corpse.

My father still slept with that strange woman the same day my mother died...the same day.

I was alone with my mother's corpse and I wept uncontrollably.

That same night, I heard strange footsteps in the kitchen.

My father was in the room with the strange woman.

I rushed to the kitchen and nearly fell to the floor at what I was seeing!!!

My mother!!!

I rushed back to the room my father had kept my mother's corpse, and my mother's corpse was still right there.

I rushed back to the kitchen but she was nowhere to be found again.

My heart began to beat in my mouth and when I rushed back to the room my mother's corpse was kept, it was no longer there!!!

I rushed out of the house and guess what I saw!!!

My mother was walking on, pulling her corpse from behind!!!

My mother was pulling her own corpse!!!

I rushed to her, "Mother!!!". I cried out.

When she looked up at me,her eyes was filled with pains. "Keep it a secret, Marcus. Keep it a secret that I am dead".

My heart slipped and I placed my hand on her body and I could feel her body!!!

She was not a ghost! Where had she gotten a body???

She dug into the floor right there at the backyard and threw her corpse into the thick ground and covered it.

She held my hand and we walked into the house.

My father was watching a movie with the strange woman when we walked in.

He looked up at us and nearly fell off the cushion at the sight of her. "Y...y...youuuu". He stuttered.

My mother behaved strange.

She giggled and waved excitedly at the strange woman who was trembling beside my father. "Nice meeting you again, Diana Lukas".

My father rushed into the room they had kept my mother's corpse and rushed out, looking at me. "Marcus, what happened?".

I didn't say a word, I only stood right there, looking at him.

Lukas Diana, the strange woman rushed out of the house shamefully.

My father trembled as he met my mother's eyes. "You rose up from the dead".

My mother gave my father a strange smile. A strange smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I made your favourite, yam and Egusi soup". She walked into the kitchen, brought out two flasks and arranged it on the dining table.

My father was scared of my mother. He fearfully walked to the dining table and began to eat.

My mother grabbed my hand and she took me out of the house.

She rushed to Diana Lukas who was already a distance away from the house. "Hey! Diana!!!". She grabbed her hand and folded some money into her hands and a brown powder. "I don't resent you, Diana so you don't have to be scared of me. I am about divorcing my husband so don't stop your relationship with him so that I will have enough proof to give my lawyers. Your skin is rough, use this brown powder".

Diana Lukas was shocked. "T...th...thank you ma".

She smiled. "Goodbye".

Only me could read the fake smile on my mother's face.

She grabbed my hand and we walked back into the house.

If my mother was dead, then who was the person standing next to me???

Someone knocked on the door and I rushed to open.

It was Rosa Lane, my mother's best friend.

She gasped immediately she saw my mother and hugged her dearly. "Mariana! You are alive! Oh!you are alive!!!".

That night, my mother didn't say much, she only followed me to my room and made my bed.

I noticed that my mother's mannequin was not beside my dressing table anymore. "Mum, did you see the mannequin? The one you used to wear your clothes on to see if it fits?".

She shrugged. "We can look for it tomorrow, but now, you have to sleep".

I obediently relaxed on the bed and on my mother's watch, I fell asleep.

At the middle of the night, I woke up and the light was switched off.

As I sat on the bed, I noticed that the mannequin was back on the exact spot I had kept it.

I smiled heartily. I knew my mother had found it for me and kept it for me.

But when it was morning, I opened my eyes again and discovered that the mannequin was no longer there.

I sat up impatiently and rushed to the living room.

My mother was frying plantain in the kitchen while my father was drinking tea in the dining room.

"You can't say good morning to your father?". My father asked me shamelessly but I ignored him and walked into the kitchen.

"Mum, did you see my mannequin? I saw it last night when I woke up but later,I didn't see it".

"It was just your imagination because you were so into finding it last night".

I and mum searched for it all through the day but we couldn't find it.

That night I slept and woke up again, I saw the mannequin again.

I rushed to it and tied it to my dressing table.

The next morning I woke up, the mannequin was nowhere to be found but the rope was on the floor right there on my bed.

When I got to the sitting room, mother and father were watching a movie in the sitting room.

"Mum, I can't find my mannequin!"

She smiled softly at me. "We will find it today".

We searched around the house again but couldn't find it.

That night, I woke up again at the middle of the night and found it there.

I angrily pushed it into my wardrobe and locked it.

Guess what! When I woke up, my wardrobe was broken!!!

And the mannequin was not there...

My mother was not in the sitting room this time, she was in her room.

I knocked and entered.

She was sitting in front of her dressing table.

She smiled softly at me and her eyes glittered.

I noticed an artificial lashes on her dressing table.

My mother was not the type that used artificial lashes.

As I tried to reach for it, she slapped my hand off and slipped it into her cupboard.

It felt strange. My mother was definitely hiding something and I had to find out.

I didn't see my dad that day. "Where is dad, mum?".

"He took his mistress out for Valentine's day".

I was surprised at my mother. "Why are you so unbothered?dad is cheating on you but you don't care!!!".

She chuckled. "Is it a new thing for a man to cheat?".

That night, I slept and woke up to the mannequin again.

I decided to call my mother in so she would see the mannequin for herself so I rushed into her room but she was nowhere around.

I sighted the eyelashes on her dressing table and I took it. "Mother?".

I looked around the house but it was empty.

I could smell a stench coming from my father's room.

I rushed into the room and it was nearly arranged.

My mother and cleaned it but it still stank like hell.

I rushed to the bathroom and pulled it open.

No one could bear such sight especially me in my thirteen years of age!!!.

The corpse of my father,Diana Lucas and my mother's best friend!!!

Their corpse had already expanded and were carefully arranged in the bathtub.

I rushed out of the room, gripped with fear in the dark lonely house...my mother had disappeared because she had killed them? But why???

I remained in the sitting room till the following morning and I stopped short immediately I heard my mother's voice...she was calling my name. "Marcus! Marcus!!!". She cried out and the voice was coming from her room.

I trembled.

Had she been in her room all those while?

I rushed into her room and she was in the bathroom. "Where is my eye lashes?".

Eye lashes? Why was she asking for it?

"Why do you need it mother?"

"I don't want you to see me like this! Give me my eyelashes!!!".

I took her white towel from her wardrobe and stretched to her...and a hand of a doll reached for the towel.

My heart slipped!!!

How could a hand of a doll...or mannequin??? Was it a hand of a mannequin???

I rushed to my room and the mannequin was no longer there.

I rushed back to my mother's room and she was still in the bathroom.

"Without the eye lashes, you will see my true form". She hiccuped.

I pushed the door with the little strength I had left and there was the mannequin...it was staring at me like my mother stared at me!!!

It was that moment I realized it! The mannequin had been my mother all along!!! But I couldn't see her real form because of the eyelashes.

That was the scariest moment of my life.

"M... mother?". I sobbed and squatted by her.

She reached for my cheek and smiled softly at me. "You know why you found my true form today? It is because it is right time since I have finished my job".

"Finished your job? How?"

"You saw the corpses...". She muttered and looked away.

"You killed them? Why? You even killed your best friend".

"My best friend was the one that killed me".

I gasped. "You were murdered?".

"My husband bribed Rosa Lane to keep his relationship with Lukas Diana a secret and when she saw me catch them that fateful night, she pushed me off the staircase. If you were me, what would you have done? Would you have let it go? Those two slept together the day I was killed... everyone was poison to me except you. I needed a body to possess to accomplish my mission and now my mission has ended. Leave this house this house and stay with my elder sister".

Right there before me, her soul left the mannequin and the mannequin lifelessly fell to the floor.

I sobbed heartily and packed my things out of our big bungalow.

My mother's elder sister took me in and I started a seminary school.

The CCTV in the house had captured everything that had happened in our bungalow.

It remains great mystery till this day.