"What the hell happened to me, and how did I come to find myself in this?...".
This was a question in need of a desperate answer, one that I started to think deeply about as I rested my back against the bark of the tree behind me.
My breathing was heavy from all that running, and my sight was half distorted from the sand gathered around me after the fall.
The last I remembered was the voice that rang in my head when I was home.
I thought I had gone crazy but that does not appear to be the case.
It's a different thing to assume craziness about myself because of a voice I heard in my head and another thing for that voice to materialize in a way that affected my life physically.
That isn't craziness. It's an absurdity, and I need to find the origin of the absurdity if I want to survive my predicament.
"Calm down. No need to rush myself!!!".
Though time was of the essence for me, hastily glossing through the information I had at hand would do me no good.
Again, I retracted my thoughts back to when I first entered the cottage, and from there, I carefully trailed down the series of events that happened.
I believe doing that would get me to the answer I am desperate for.
"The voice!!!!!".
It dawned on me. Everything all began with that voice that made me assume craziness in myself.
"No!!!!".
Again, I remembered.
"The splinter".
My memory was jogged a little backwards before I heard the sound of the voice. That was when I came to know what brought about the voice in my head.
It started with the voice saying; blood pact initiated.
Whose blood?... For one I can tell that it was mine. I was the only one living in the cottage and also happened to have gotten hurt from the splinter that shook my leg and took out a pinch of my blood.
So yes. It started with the blood. I am getting somewhere.
The splinter took my blood and that in turn brought about the surgence of the voice in my head.
"But why?...".
This is a good question for me who is clueless about basically anything, and only picking up scraps from the little knowledge I had.
I returned my memory to that time when the voice was saying something.
I had thought of it as meaningless words, but that appears to not be the case.
"It said something about a direct descendant of the great Oduduwa and another important note about being eligible for inheritance!".
I could feel it. Slowly but surely I was getting closer to solving the mystery behind how I came to be here.
Wait! Where was I?...
Due to the pain-stricken fear state I was stuck in, I never had the time to observe my surroundings.
Looking at it now, there is not much to tell other than how absence of light it was, and the tall trees flailing their branches back and forth.
I was stranded in a forest. A thick ominous-looking forest with trees that hides even the sight of the sky from my eyes.
Back to the matter at hand.
I was called a direct descendant of the great Oduduwa!...
Who?...
No, no, no. The who shouldn't matter. What does is that I was called the descendant of the great Oduduwa?
Given the situation of things, I have no choice but to believe that as true.
Now on to the next point.
After the voice verified my connection to the great Oduduwa, it said something about the inheritance handed over to me?...
The deeper I delve into the contents of the voice, the faster I feel myself drown in an infinite abyss filled with knowledge that cannot be sorted out with a mind as minuscule as mine.
Still, I had to try.
Wait, wait, wait. I remember now, the most crucial point that might be able to get me out of the knowledge loop I am trapped in.
Before I lost my last ounce of consciousness, I remembered the voice saying something about awakening my Oduduwa bloodline.
I don't remember the specifics of how the words were phrased, but it said the awakening was going to be done in a way exclusive to the Oduduwa bloodline.
Again! What does that mean?...
I have never heard of the term Oduduwa much less know anything about this so-called great individual.
So how in the hell am I supposed to know what way an Oduduwa descendant awakens and what I was supposed to do?
What I do know for a fact is that the Oduduwa awakening process is related to how I got to be in this environment.
How?...
Because those were the last statements I heard before I felt my heart gripped by a firm hand.
"Not good!!!". I pondered.
I have done the necessary by retracing my steps, and my memories to the past so I could find answers and possible solutions to my problems.
The result?...
I ended up being drowned in more questions than I had initially started with.
It all feels like one giant puzzle, and I get this bugging in me that if I could just get one piece right, the other piece would naturally come together and form a clue, an answer to my desperate question.
The problem is, I have no idea what piece I should start from, or which one will lead me to solve the mystery.
"Sigh!!!".
I heaved out a breath as I turned my head upward in resignation.
Is there no way out for me?...
Am I to succumb to death at such an early age?...
Despite my attempts to not make my mother's sacrifice for me go to waste!!!
I... I... I was devastated as my mind leaned toward the comfort of despair.
"It's not over until it's truly over".
Exactly. I will continue to run for as long as it takes. Useless as it might sound, it's my only way out.
Surely if I kept at it long enough, there would come a time when the light would be within sight!!!
I hope!!.