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

"Mom, who is Zula?" I asked and I watched in shock as her face turned as white as chalk.

She started shaking visibly and I wondered if I had asked for something that was forbidden or a curse.

"Mother—" I was about to repeat my question when she raised her hand and stopped me to speak.

"Do not say another word!" She hissed. "Do you know who she is? Where did you hear that name from? Have you been snooping around with that Xena girl in the library?"

She had a tight frown on her face yet the initial fear was still there. The fact that she had just brought up Xena's name. I knew that something was up. The name Zula was somehow related to all of this. It was something they were very scared to even admit out loud.

"Answer me!" She gritted clutching my shirt.

"Mum," I started in a gentle voice as I snatched her hands away from my shirt. "What have you people done? Who is this Zula and why are you so scared of her?"

Rema : The Cursed Name