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

"A dead body?" Rema repeated staring at me with shock in his eyes.

What he didn't realize was that it was his dead body I had seen. I still couldn't understand the phenomenon. Was Zula showing me what would happen to him? Or was it just my imagination.

But then again he had mentioned that there was a barrier preventing him from reaching me. He even had to cut himself to be able to step out of the place.

Rema was still staring at me. He expected an answer from me. But do I lie to him about what I had seen or just tell him the truth about what it was?

I took in a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. "Yes. Your dead body..."

"Me?" He asked pointing at himself. "You saw me dead on that floor?"

Xena: The First Kiss