Lagos was underwater. The skies were black and bleak, not a single star in sight. It was unnatural. All this meant we had lost and I couldn't stop it because, somehow, I had lost my abilities. I was afloat, hanging on to debris on the surface of the water. It was so cold...so damn cold. With my eyes, I searched frantically for my sister, for Obeten...for John. All I could see around me was still water and blackness. I started to panic. I screamed for my sister, for John, for Voltage...for anybody. No one answered. I'd started to sob when a voice came from above me.
"Hello", It was a girl's voice, but it wasn't my sister's. I looked up. It was a young girl in a flowing white dress with a split that stopped just above her knees - her skin and her dress emitted a glow. She looked so enchanting as she hovered above the water above me. I looked closely but I couldn't make out her facial features, but I could tell she had long dark hair and a beautiful face and...she was smiling warmly. I swallowed hard. She was joined by five other figures, all dressed in white overflowing robes, suspended in the air behind her. They didn't emit any glow, but their eyes shone with different colors and I could feel the familiar power oozing from all of them - Sigma Ones. They all looked straight at me. I gripped the debris that I held on to tighter till my knuckles went pale.
"Who are you?", I asked, my voice shaking. "What did you do to my friends? Where are they?", my voice raised to a feverish pitch.
She gave an even warmer smile. When I looked at her, I saw pity and condescension in her eyes and when she spoke, her voice was like a gentle breeze, "I'm about to remake this flawed world in the image of the stars. A new begining sounds exciting, doesn't it?"
"Where's my sister? Where are my friends? What did you do with them?", I screamed at the top of my lungs.
In response, she inhaled and with a booming voice said, "Let There Be Light".
Immediately, not too far behind me, a yellow bright light began to shine. It was warm and suddenly I wasn't cold any longer. It should have comforted me but I recognized the static energy that came with the radiant glow and the feel of this Sigma power. I knew who it was before I turned around to look. He wasn't wearing the black T-shirt, the joggers and the black sneakers, but he had the golden helmet on.
John.
I woke up with a start. I found myself sweating despite the air conditioning in my room and how much it was raining outside. I patted my upper body all over to make sure I wasn't still dreaming then I looked beside me. My sister was still there. She was sweating too. I guessed the heat I was emitting was the cause. My heat! I held my breath in anticipation as I snapped my fingers and a flame danced above my index finger. I breathed, relieved, then I turned it off. I walked into the bathroom and washed my face. I came back in the room to check my mobile and found out the alarm had gone off thirty minutes earlier. My sister and I had slept through it. Just then, my sister woke up with a start too, gasping for air.
It wasn't my heat, she'd had a nightmare too. She looked frantically around the room And when her eyes finally fell on me, she sighed, relieved. Something wasn't right.
"Nene, you wouldn't believe the dream I had", she said rubbing her eyes and picking up her mobile phone. "What's the time? Oh shit. Wake the others, we need to get ready. We leave in an hour. We'll take one of cars on the estate street. Come on, Nene, we have to go", she said as she jumped out of bed.
I walked to the living room and found Obeten and John awake. I remembered my dream and I hesitated. I shook the image away from my mind.
"Hey, you sleep alright?", John walked up to me and gently grabbed me by the shoulders. I nodded slowly. He looked into my eyes, concern written all over his face. I nodded again this time with vigor.
"Yeah, kinda. I just had a weird dream, that's all", I replied. He frowned. "What?", I asked.
"I had a vivid dream too", Obeten said, smoothing his hair. "...about someone from a time in my life I don't particularly like to remember", he said as he looked at his biker helmet lying on the chair beside him.
"I dreamt about one night when me and sister had a slumber party when we were kids, that's all...", John replied. "...except that in the dream, I already had abilities and I was glowing and my sis wasn't freaked out by it". I visibly shivered when he said 'glowing'. He cocked his eyebrow at me. "You okay? Wanna tell us what your dream was about?", he asked.
"How about we all get set and I'll tell you in the car? My sister says we'll take one of the cars on the estate street. Obeten, you can set the charge underneath it before we leave", I said heading back into my room.
It wasn't an omen, it was just a dream, nothing more. We were going to defeat the Sigma Ones and everything would be okay. By the time I was in the room, I heard my sister in the shower. I picked up my phone, wanting to send mom a text message, telling her we would soon be on our way to the sigma showdown. But I thought about it again and decided it was best not to get her worried.
In an hour, we were all set to leave. All of us converged in the living room fully decked in our supersuits except for John, again. This time he wore an unzipped black leather jacket. I was going to ask where he got it from, but I was momentarily distracted by his muscular torso - his chest and his rock hard abs. I caught myself staring and I shook myself back to reality. "Don't you have something else to wear?", I asked pointedly. I caught my sister staring absent mindedly too and I narrowed my eyes at her and John.
"Well, unlike Obeten, I didn't think of bringing extra clothes when I came looking for you girls - my bad", he apologized. "But it's not like I stink. We don't smell bad even if we don't bathe, you know". He raised the jacket flap and sniffed his underarms playfully.
I decided not to push further or overthink things. It was just a dream, I reminded myself. He was on our side and he wasn't going to betray us.
"Fine. It's okay. Doesn't really matter what we wear into battle anyway...", I conceded.
"...as long as we win! Right, let's bust-a-move", John said and made a clicking voice with his mouth, while snapping his fingers and pointing in our general direction. It got a short laugh out of me, in spite of myself. Oyiza rolled her eyes at him as she made for the door while Obeten made a mock disappointed face.
"Bro, never do that again", Obeten said, patting John on the back before he went out through the door.
"Come on. You gotta admit, that was smooth", John offered, snapping his fingers and making quiet pew-pew sounds with his mouth this time as he made pistol signs with his hands.
"Even worse", I said as I nudged him outside the door. I guess he was trying to lighten the mood, which made me smile again in spite of myself.
It was dark and still raining when we got outside. Oyiza and Obeten walked down the street to 'obtain' a car we'd use for transport, just like we'd planned while John supersped to the estate gates and pulled it open. My hoodie helped protect me from the shower and having to notice the lightning flash across the sky every now and then. Right on cue, a bolt of lightning flashed in the sky. I flinched a little. John suddenly appeared beside me, took my hand in his and squeezed softly, as if reassuring me. I looked up at him and smiled. He reciprocated with a warm smile of his own. He was getting drenched by the rain but he didn't seem to mind. He looked even more handsome in the rain. We had locked eyes for some seconds when I caught myself and looked away, jerking my hand away from his.
"You know, I hate to admit it, but that helmet thing you have going on is kinda cool", I said, mostly to make an awkward situation less awkward. He grinned at me.
"Really? I'm glad you like it!", he said and on cue the helmet made out of his energy formed around his head.
Just then, a black Jeep with it's windows wound down pulled up in front of us, Obeten at the wheel without his biker helmet on and my sister in the back seat.
"You're riding shotgun, Nene", my sister said. I grinned and did a fist pump in the air. "That means you're in the back with me, tallie", she said, referring to John. He chuckled as he retracted his energy helmet and got in the car. We made last minute checks and drove out of the estate.
As we left the estate behind, we shared the gadgets Obeten had provided amongst ourselves and tested them again to be doubly sure they functioned perfectly.
The roads were empty, save for the occasional vehicle speeding past and the abandoned vehicles in the middle of the road which Obeten easily evaded.
We soon arrived at a part of of the highway overlooking the turbulent ocean. Fires had somehow started in pockets here and there in some of the buildings and the rain was slowly but surely putting them out. There was a grid lock not too far in front of us where multiple cars had either broken down or been incinerated. Apart from all this, it was a ghost town. Obeten diverted, using another route and we continued on our journey in silence until...
"So...about the dreams we all had last night?", John said, breaking the silence, making me twist my body in my seat so i could see him properly. "I personally don't think it's a coincidence we all had dreams last night. And don't think I didn't see the way you girls looked at me this morning when you first saw me. You both saw me in your dreams and under different circumstances, I'd be flattered...but you know. I'd have blamed the dreams on stress or anxiety, but nah...I don't think it was stress related".
"What do you think it was, then?", Oyiza asked, genuinely curious.
"I think someone was trying to get into our heads and I'm willing to put my money on the telepath that is working with The Inevitables", John answered.
"That makes sense...", I thought out loud, then settling back in my seat, proceeded to tell them what my dream was about.
When I was done, I heard John sigh and my sister swear under her breath.
I turned back again to see my sister staring at me, wide-eyed. "What?", I asked.
"I had the exact same dream, Nene", Oyiza said. "The only difference is I was the one hanging on to the debris, calling out for you all. I saw the girl in white with five Sigma Ones behind her. But I couldn't make out their facial features though..."
"Well, damn", Obeten swore.
"There...were five other kids apart from myself and my sister at the slumber party in my dream...", John said. I turned back to look at him, surprised as he quickly pulled out his mobile and sent a text to his sister. He tentatively waited. His phone got a message alert - a reply from his sister. He breathed a sigh of relief and sent her another text, a longer one this time. He got a reply, smiled and put his phone back in his joggers pocket.
"She's okay. Everyone is okay", he said, looking from me to Oyiza. We were both relieved to hear that...but...
"Five... five... five...", Obeten repeatedly muttered then he spoke up as if he had just figured something out. "Guys, I think whoever tried to get in our heads with the dreams just gave us a clue of what we're going up against. The Inevitables are five in number and they work for someone. The girl in white might not really be a young girl - that might just be an illusion. But guys, in the GLS, there were rumors about a Sigma Zero. They codenamed him/her/it 'Harbinger'. The theory is, the arrival of this entity is what triggered 'The Transformation'. And this person or thing was also responsible for Ones converging in groups around the world like how The Inevitables are doing here in this city. The GLS had stayed away and turned a blind eye to their convergence hoping if we didn't bother them, they wouldn't be a threat to the rest of the world. But here we are. If the rumors are true - and I'm starting to believe they are - stopping The Inevitables means we're putting ourselves in the Sigma Zero's crosshairs, whoever they may be", Obeten said calmly.
"Yeah, because if Lagos is ground zero, then whatever started this must also be here waiting to finish it", John said, nodding slowly.
"Okay. So the stakes are higher now. We're the first and probably last line of defense between this world and a demiurge. No pressure", Oyiza said, trying to sound hopeful.
"Stop the Inevitables, find out who Sigma Zero is stop them too, save the city from a demiurge and probably the world. No pressure", Obeten recounted.
"No pressure", John repeated in the back seat.
Shit. I started to text all of this to Kaycee's secured line. If we were right, Lagos was going to be ground zero for Sigma Armageddon. We were getting closer to Oniru by the minute. We were going to need all the help we could get - and he needed to get here as soon as possible...and quickly.