Chapter 11 One: Welcome To The Land Of The Dead

The stormy weather didn't stop the people from making individual efforts to find the chronicle, neither did it stop Hannah from looking for Horaeti. She had been standing on the spot she saw her during the initiation ceremony, and had managed to walk a little further or backwards from the position. Her heart would beat loudly, and her hands would freeze if she saw Horaeti, but she did not mind. She walked briskly along the muddy floor, owing to the intense rain of the previous night. Horaeti's words from the initiation ceremony kept ringing in Hannah's mind. She comes with things untold… you must find her. Hannah wondered what things her sister would be coming with; she hoped they would be good. Maybe that was the reason her mother had been keeping her away from her all this while, telling her that her people were not as good as the people here. Maybe her mother had been protecting her.

But the protection was supposed to be over. She was supposed to have known at least, even though she might never see them. However, her mother's diplomacy had aroused her curiosity. She was more determined to see her sister than before. On her way to find Horaeti, she saw Sarusa and Galaazhi walking side by side and laughing at each other's jokes. She felt a sense of loss overwhelm her – she would never be that excited until she found her sister. The both of them soon approached her with their faces still valiantly expressed. Sarusa was dutifully narrating the joke Galaazhi had told her. She said with a mixed sense of humor, probably was not the exact way Galaazhi had said it.

"Looks like you want to receive Kadi's gift," Galaazhi said to Hannah.

"No, no, just looking for someone." Sarusa narrowed her face a little on hearing what Hannah said.

"We know that you're looking for Horaeti," Sarusa said excitedly, with the tone of the Kyxhitu language coming out of her mouth lighter than normal. "We might have a few clues of where she might be."

"I haven't checked out Gishi Kadi yet," Hannah broke in.

"Horaeti is never there," Galaazhi said, "I heard she's never been there for a long time and Gaga set out a group of spies to look for Horaeti," he added furtively.

Hannah and Sarusa frowned at what he had just said in a little confusion. "Gaga had never liked Horaeti. He thinks she's the one that stole the chronicle, and now he's on a mission to find her," Galaazhi said, expressing himself as well as he could. "They've held up a suspect though," he added.

"Who?" questioned Hannah in acquisition.

"You haven't heard?" Sarusa asked with a mixture of contempt and surprise in her tone, "Dahali and Saditu have been taken to Gashi. Their parents are awaiting Gaga's trial," Sarusa said, rolling her eyes and letting out a light sigh. "I'm surprised, I thought rumors did spread faster than diseases on the Island."

"Well, I wouldn't catch a disease easily if they were one on the Island," Hannah said in that friendly but attacking manner used in a spontaneous conversation. She was unstruck at first, after hearing what Sarusa said, then she thought over it again and realized that Dahali and Saditu were Zidudi's children.

"You meant Tata Zidudi's children, didn't you?" Hannah asked. Sarusa and Galaazhi nodded to the positive. They both looked surprised by the way Hannah addressed Zidudi as Tata. 'Tata' is a word that refers to mothers, or a person who had well taken care of another in the Kyxhitu language. Perhaps Zidudi had been Hannah's babysitter. Hannah knew what Zidudi was capable of, and what she knew nothing about. Of course, that was something she knew nothing about.

Hannah's thought filtration had always considered Zidudi's opinion as authentic and genuine, but Kyla had, in most cases, treated Zidudi's opinion with disdain. Her choice of fashion, hair, and opinion, were all thrown into the fire by Kyla. Hannah had tried to persuade Kyla to accept Zidudi's ideas severely.

"Tata Zidudi didn't do this," Hannah said, persuasively, "I know her well. She's a woman of honour and dignity. She didn't do that."

"Well, the records said she did," Sarusa said, indifferently.

"You don't know her like I do, Sarusa. She must have been framed. This doesn't have an atom of her in it. She would never steal a chronicle, not to talk of the Kadi chronicles," Hannah said, unhindered and energetically.

"That was the same way Jarimad defended Castifaas until it was made crystal clear that he truly stole the food in the barn reserved for the guards," Sarusa said.

Hannah continued to defend Zidudi regardless, while Sarusa and Galaazhi threw questions at her to challenge her trust in Zidudi. They walked to the graveyard (the place where Sarusa supposed Horaeti to be), while they still discussed Zidudi. They walked side by side with each other, Hannah on the right, Sarusa in the middle, while Galaazhi was on the left. Sarusa stopped walking, making the other two walk a little ahead of her. They had a visible perspective of the graveyard from the point they stood.

"What? Why did you stop? You said Horaeti might be here," Hannah questioned puzzledly.

"Can you guys see that figure over there?" Sarusa asked.

"What figure?" Hannah asked. Galaazhi looked in the direction Sarusa was talking about.

"We have to go back. I have never seen an image like this in my entire life," Sarusa whispered as she took some steps backwards.

"What are you talking about? I don't see anything…" said Hannah.

"I can see it now," Galaazhi said, trembling and taking steps back as well.

"Okay, enough. You guys should quit the dirty trick. I'm not falling for this," Hannah said incredulously. Sarusa and Galaazhi's eyes gave lingering looks at the direction of the figure. Their eyes burned in anguish.

"It's coming. It's coming!" Sarusa yelled loudly. Sarusa and Galaazhi start running back, leaving Hannah no choice but to join them. They ran to a point where there were very few people around, only to behold the figure before them again. Hannah saw it this time: its skin was shriveled. It looked like a zombie, but it was not. Mud covered half of its body while the other half was stiff like a dead person's body. They were terrified as the creature looked them dead in the eyes. In no time, the people they could see were no longer around, the sun had been covered by thick, dark clouds like the sky would cry for days. Nobody was around any longer. The whole place was dark like midnight, and other creatures that looked like the one before them began popping out from different angles. They held each other tightly, feeling their pounding heartbeats and sweaty skins. The creatures that popped out all came towards them. They thought they were sacrifices of the gods.

"What do you find here?" the figure asked in a hoarse voice. It was a female. Hannah had never visualized a female to be this monstrous and terrifying. "Did you come to look for me? Sarusa?" the figure added. Sarusa almost shouted. She wondered how the person knew her name; she wondered if it was Horaeti in another world: the world of the dead and spirits.

"How do you know my name?" Sarusa asked innocently in Kyxhitu, because the creatures spoke Kyxhitu. All the creatures around started cackling very loudly. The cackle was incessant. "We know everybody's name in this village, Oma," the figure said, "We are the protectors, Kijha." Sarusa was struck by hearing the woman call her 'Kijha'. It translated to daughter in Kyxhitu. She started crying as a result of finding that which was long-lost and the grievance she faced at the moment. The grief lessened a little because that was placating yet ominous news.

"Are you my mother?" Sarusa asked with tear-filled eyes. The figure nodded in affirmation.

"Why did you leave?"

"I had to join them. They called me," the figure said quietly. "They have an assignment," Sarusa's mother said, looking at Hannah.

"You didn't have to go," Sarusa blew her nose, "I really miss you." The figure stood expressionlessly at Sarusa and her friends. Perhaps creatures of that kind don't have sympathetic emotions.

"We need to be quick," a hoarse masculine voice shouted from behind. It seemed like the creature didn't hear what he said as they did not make any physical expression. "You must come with me, Omasira," Sarusa's mother said, looking at Hannah. "I'll talk to you every night, Kijha," Sarusa's mother said before the transition back to normal.

…

They both fell into the graveyard, the first place they spotted the figure. They were frightened; they didn't find where they came from. Maybe they fell from the sky or had been transported through a black hole. But that wasn't the worst. Hannah was nowhere to be seen. Sarusa and Galaazhi searched around for Hannah, shouting, "Omasira! Omasira!" They were very scared. They did not know whether she had remained there or had missed her way to another world. Looking at each other in fright, they ran to the spot where they were taken, hoping that Hannah had landed there. But they did not find Hannah. The people that were there at the moment of their transition were still there. They expected people to ask them questions like, 'where they went?' and 'where Hannah was?' but they didn't. Sarusa and Galaazhi were in a state of dilemma: they couldn't decide whether to inform the people of Kyxhitu or keep it to themselves.

…

"Where are my friends? My friends!" Hannah yelled.

"Omasira, you belong here," the hoarse male voice said.

"I don't belong here, I'm not from here."

"You don't have to be here to belong here. Come, we have something you would love to see," He stretched out his muddy arms and touched her back. Sarusa's mother followed them behind.

"I was looking for Horaeti," Hannah said after a short silence.

"We are aware. But you can't go back to find her," the man said. This time he was looking her deep in the eye. "It's unsafe. She'd lead you wrongly," he added.

"She'd killed a lot of people," Sarusa's mother said from behind.

"But the gods and the people say she's a good fortune-teller. She tells the truth," Hannah said lightly.

"You had a brother," the masculine hoarse voice said, "Did you know that?"

"No."

"He traveled back in time fifteen years ago. He ripped a hole in the fabric of time," the man said. "Horaeti tells the future and not the past, in the way it's meant to happen. What is coming is not meant to happen. It will strike Horaeti, but it will strike you first. We must keep you safe. You are the key." Hannah's face was red and chubby. She cried silently at what he was saying.

"I'm the key to what exactly?"

"Horaeti wants you to find your sister, but your sister will aggravate the whole situation," the man said as he walked around. "She comes with things untold." Hannah's eyes dilated in surprise in the darkness. Everywhere was dark but she saw everyone clearly. The creatures walked around tirelessly; there were no trees or livelihood. But she could breathe. All she cared. She would die if she continued to be there.

"I'm human, flesh and blood. I don't belong here!" Hannah cried out. The whole place was in pin-drop silence as if there had been, a lot of noise before. "I will die and will not be able to save my people," she added.

"We are saving nobody. Everybody is well alive in here. We can hold a feast with everyone in the village," the man said.

"Then, you don't want anyone alive in my world?"

"Where is your world? I was Kadi in my time in your world. We are the ancestors of Fizima and Edasoti."

"If you wanted people here, why did you send my friends back?" The man cackled and told Sarusa's mother that Hannah was a tough nut to crack.

"They will eventually die. You were the only person capable of stopping the apocalypse but here you are, with us."

"You are evil. You want to end the existence of humanity," Hannah said courageously, almost spitting on him.

"We are not ending humanity. We are controlling humanity," the man said. Hannah sat in the darkness weeping.

"Welcome to the land of the dead, Omasira."