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 stirred awake and turned my head in the direction of the voice. I was still in the boat and it was Diane calling me. Somehow I had cried so much and slept giving up on everything.

"Xena, it's almost time for the ceremony. You need to leave! You can't just sit here and cry!"

I looked at her from head to toe and turned my head away. There was no point talking to her. She was dead already. She didn't have feelings. She didn't know what it felt like to be my heart right now. She didn't know what it was like to be me. I had lost everything. And there was absolutely no assurance that I was even going to make it to begin with. There was nothing.

"Xena!" She pulled me roughly to stare at her and I felt something tear apart deep within me.

"Don't you ever pull me like that!" I snapped pulling my hand away from her.

Diane took a step back and watched me with fear.

Xena: The Missing Page