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 now turned to the people around me.

"Today it is my sister. Tomorrow it might be yours! What's the point if we are all going to die anyway?"

They were all listening to me and my heart was pumping blood fast. Time was running out and my sister needed me. I hoped they could key into my pain and understand me. I prayed they could let me go and save my Xena.

Suddenly, Mr Olaf joined the crowd.

"We are not all going to die. Only the chosen die. If we stop the ceremony, that's when we will all die!" He said in his scrawny voice.

Everyone turned to him and I could see a sort of relief on their faces. They were happy only my sister would die and they wouldn't. How selfish!

"Do not listen to this crazy boy. His family was picked for a reason. No one is going to die as long as that girl dies!" He spat bitterly.

Kelvin: Mission Impossible