Lilian_Nkunga

"Kelvin... If I leave, Zula will kill everyone," I said in a shaky voice, before breaking down into sobs. I closed my eyes and allowed the tears to flow freely. If I were to leave, then my previous experiences would come to pass.

"What are you saying? You don't have to be a hero! Someone else can do that!" His voice was already rising. "I don't need a hero... I-I need my sister," he pleaded in a small broken voice. 

Hearing his pained voice shattered my bruising heart into a thousand pieces.

"I love you all," I managed to say.

"What? NO!" he screamed but I cut the connection.



***



A ritual has governed Aromes since its existence.

Every fifty years, the first born child of a family has to face Zula and die.

This year, Xena is chosen.

The morning after her eighteenth birthday, she wakes up to meet her home island devoid of all its inhabitants; including her family. She searches everywhere for all the people but she is unable to find them anywhere. The situation is hard for her to comprehend. At first, she thinks its a joke. She hopes its a prank. She refuses to believe that she has been abandoned. Until she finds the first dead body. The dead mutilated body of her father.

Then she starts hearing and seeing things that aren't meant to be. Horrifying screams, a manic creature, a cloaked figure that only comes when she takes off her glasses.

Only then, does she realize that there is no escape and her inevitable death patiently awaits her.

ALONE: Retold

I stared hard at the skeletal man ahead of us and my heart sank even deeper. There was just no way we could both make it out of this hole alive. One of us would have to stay.

My eyes stung as tears threatened to drop. why was I always found in such hard situations? For some crazy reason, I saw the two sisters again at the beach —Harley and Tess.

Theirs must have felt like this too. They must have been pushed to the wall like this as well. But was killing the other the best thing?

"No," I whispered unconsciously.

I felt a large lump in my throat and it itched to be let out. My heart skipped a beat as fear and pain with a blend of hopelessly washed over me. How was I supposed to protect and save anyone if I couldn't even save myself?

"No, what?" She queried further.

Xena's Humanity