AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

"I can explain." Yuki started as soon as they got to Feturi's chamber.

"I didn't know I had to monitor a grown up too." Feturi ignored her.

"Feturi."

Feturi scoffed. "Don't say my name from that mouth of yours." She turned to her. "You're no different from those irrelevant creatures."

She drew something on the air, clicked her fingers and a white background appeared with a flashback of Yuki from three days ago playing on the surface.

"I see you now have a friend." She continued. "A human friend." She added, stressing on the 'human'.

"It's not what it looks like." Yuki defended herself.

"You see, your brother didn't just fall in love with that woman. They started as friends. It was not what it looked like until they became lovers. You know, that statement, "it's not what it looks like", I'm tired of hearing it. I'm not just tired of hearing it, I hate it!" She roared.

Yuki winced nervously and cleared her throat.

"Feturi." It came out as a whisper. No matter how hard she tried to speak clearly, she could not control her voice. That was how terrifying Feturi was at that moment.

"You have something to say?" Feturi asked with one eyebrow up.

Yuki shook her head instead as she was still unable to look Feturi in the eye.

"Good. I will no longer tolerate any form of misconduct from you before you end up disgracing your father and the throne. Just so you know, I am the one that will hand you over to His Majesty and I will personally supervise your punishment. Should you play any trick on me, I will make sure you regret it bitterly. Am I clear?"

She nodded in agreement but Feturi was not satisfied with that gesture.

"It is common sense to reply with words when an elder questions you." She walked up to her and asked again. "Now, am I clear?"

Yuki cleared her throat to enable her speak up loudly. "Yes. I will...." She began, but before she could complete her statement, Feturi held her hand and in the blink of an eye, they were in front of the castle.

"Stop!" An elderly man ordered from a distance at the hallway.

Recognising the voice, they stopped immediately and turned to face him.

"Akomen." Feturi acknowledged and bowed to him at the same time with Yuki.

"She's not fit to enter the castle." He glanced at Yuki.

"She's here for her punishment." Feturi replied.

"Then she should be at the sanction court not here." He countered.

"I would like to speak with His Majesty first."

"Then go in while she waits outside for you." He replied and stood in front of them.

"I would like for her to go in with me."

Akomen shook his head. "Our land has just undergone its general cleansing. She's as filthy as those trivial beings she has chosen to mingle with. She should not be found roaming about until she has done the needful."

"Just this once. Tamper justice with mercy this once and let me take her with me to His Majesty." Feturi pleaded.

"Come here!" Akomen ordered Yuki, after a long pause and a deep sigh.

She took three steps towards him, and bowed again.

"Do things that would make our people reverence you. That is why you're from the royal household. Stop putting your father and our clan to shame." He whispered sternly, and used his wand to draw some circles in the air before placing it on her forehead. "I don't want to see you anywhere around here after thirty minutes." He declared and walked off.

"Go!" Feturi ordered Yuki and they set for the King's chamber.

When they got to the door of the King's chamber, they were met with two guards guarding the doorway as usual.

"Is His Majesty in?" Feturi asked after they had greeted Yuki and her with a bow.

"He's in his inner chamber." They replied and opened the door to his chamber for them.

When they entered Ateso's chamber, Feturi made some magic signals with her fingers and released it into the air.

Few minutes later, there was a knock on the door and Onah, Yuki's elder sister walked in.

"Feturi." She bowed.

"Go, tell your father Yuki is here. I have no right to enter his inner chamber and Yuki is not fit to go in either." She explained.

Onah glanced towards Yuki and nodded.

"Abah!" Yuki kowtowed immediately her father stepped into the room.

"Your Majesty!" Feturi kowtowed also.

"You may rise." He ordered.

"Thank you, your Majesty." Feturi replied as they stood up.

"What brings you here?" He asked, avoiding their gazes.

"Your Majesty....."

"Let her speak for herself." Ateso stopped Feturi.

"Abah, please forgive me." Yuki pleaded.

"What brings you here? I asked."

"I have lost a bit of my powers. I am here to replenish it and serve my punishment." Yuki replied.

"How did you lose your powers?" Ateso asked calmly.

"I was absent for more than three days."

"Why were you absent?" He turned away, with his back towards them.

"I was on earth." Yuki whispered in guilt.

Swiftly, Feturi reached out and poked her ribs. "Speak clearly." She whispered.

"I was on earth." She repeated more clearly this time.

"Aside your primary assignment, what were you doing there?" Ateso asked.

Few seconds passed by, and there was no response from Yuki.

"You know the rule. We live by the rules. Your work on earth does not hinder you from stopping by everyday. So I ask for the last time, what were you doing on earth that made you miss your graduation and the general cleansing!" Ateso roared and faced Yuki.

"Abah." Yuki dropped to her knees and held her father's leg. "Forgive me Abah. My calculation was wrong. I was carried away with an upcoming project that I forgot what month it is."

There was a deafening silence in the room.

"This is your first warning. If you follow the footsteps of your late brother, I would make sure you live to regret it." He turned to Feturi. "Make sure she serves her punishment completely. Tell the person in charge, that I said she should be treated equally until her punishment is over."

"Yes, your Majesty!" Feturi bowed.

"Don't play any dirty tricks on those in charge of your punishment." Ateso squatted and took hold of Yuki's hands that was still on his right leg. "You are from the royal family, our kingdom comes first before your personal matter." He stood up and added, "I don't want to hear that you have a close relationship with a human of any kind. Rules are rules, I will follow the rules if you bring shame to this throne."

"Stand up." Feturi ordered Yuki as soon as Ateso walked back into his inner chamber. "To the sanction court."

Saturday Morning

6:00am

Jaita's alarm beeped softly, waking her up from her sleep.

"Five more minutes." She whispered to herself and turned it off.

Later on, she heard her alarm ring again and coupled with the amount of merciless sunlight beaming on her face through the window, she knew she had no choice but to wake up.

"Wow! Isn't it too early for the sun to be this bright?" She yawned and stretched after turning off her alarm.

"Hold on wait!" She paused. She picked up her phone from the bed again to confirm the time. She wasn't sure of what she had seen, in fact there was no way she could believe what she had seen so she had to reconfirm.

"Eleven thirty five?!" She yelled and jolted out of her bed. "How long have I slept for?" She asked rhetorically.

Quickly, she dressed her bed and made a mental note to do some house cleaning. Although, to her, the house itself looked too clean to be dirty.

And she was right. Two minutes into cleaning the parlour, she gave up. The sitting room was already gigantic and sophisticated enough. There was no need to stress herself over something that was obviously tidy.

"By the way, why has that little devil not showed up here?" She asked herself loudly.

When she could not find a reasonable reason, she decided to look for her instead before making breakfast for herself.

"Hello! Are you in?" She called out, after she had rung the bell to Yuki's door thrice, without getting any response.

"Yuki? Are you there?" She tried again, banging the door this time.

After trying for a few minutes she headed back to her flat, with the conclusion that she was definitely not at home.

"That's even better. I bet she would have roasted me alive if she had met me still sleeping." She smiled to herself, as she walked into her kitchen to prepare breakfast.

The rest of her day unfolded peacefully. Free from Yuki's interruptions, she explored the house, relished the natural scenery and quietness of her new environment, and spent most of her time watching movies and proofreading manuscripts.

The next morning, Jaita woke up to her alarm blaring at 6:00 AM.

'Why do I feel something is wrong?' She thought to herself, as she got ready for church. She had not seen Yuki since Friday night and although she was glad that she had her peace of mind, she was not satisfied with Yuki's sudden disappearance.

She thought of checking up on her again but decided to go to the church first. She didn't want a situation whereby she would meet her at home and get hindered from going to church.

By the time she had finished dressing up, it was 6:45am. At first, she was pleased that she was in order as usual, until she recalled that she wasn't living in her former house anymore. Her church was now farther from where she was.

She bolted out of her room in panic, grabbed her bag which she had already placed on the counter in the living room and ran out of the house. Her church was not a very large building so her pastor literally knew the name of all his members and was fond of criticising them if they made a little mistake.

"Taxi! Taxi!" She yelled out and waved in frustration to an oncoming taxi. She had been on the road for more than ten minutes flagging down as many taxis as possible but they were all filled up.

Luckily for her, the taxi had an unoccupied seat, so the driver picked her up after she told him her destination.

"Sister Jaita!" A woman beside Jaita tapped her.

"Ah! Mummy Jack! — short for Jackie — Good morning!" Jaita greeted.

"What happened? It's already 7:00am, service has started. Normally, you'd be in church about ten minutes before the start of service."

"Ah, the thing is, I got carried away with something very important." Jaita lied.

"Okay. Well as you already know, I'm a perpetual latecomer — they both laughed — so I guess there's no need to ask why I'm late."

About an hour later, the taxi driver pulled up beside Jaita's church.

"Aren't you getting down?" Jaita asked Mummy Jack from the window after she had paid the driver.

She let out a guilty smile. "You see, there's this customer waiting for me in the next two streets. I'll just drop her goods with her — she nodded to the paper bags on her lap — and rush back."

"Hmm. Just give them to her and hurry back." Jaita replied and zoomed into the church compound.

"Sister Jaita!" Jaita's pastor called out from the pulpit. She had just settled down in a seat at the back row. "I just used you as an example to the latecomers last Sunday and you decided to grace the presence of the Lord with your lateness today, as a result, disrupting the flow of this service."

Jaita sighed quietly. "I'm sorry sir."

"You shouldn't have bothered to come to church today if you were going to be this late. The other latecomers are even earlier than you are, or do you now want to start dragging positions with Mummy Jack?"

"I'm sorry sir. It won't happen again."

"Meet me after today's service. I need to book a deliverance session with you. I can see another spirit has begun it's work in your life, we need to cast it out before it's too late." He ordered.

"Yes sir." Jaita replied, although she knew that there was no way she would let him catch a glimpse of her after the end of the service. He was just being dramatic as usual, she consoled herself, and continued with the rest of the service.

It was just after 10:00 AM, but the scorching sun shone brightly and mercilessly like it was on a mission to roast down everything in its path that morning.

"She's still not back?" Jaita wondered aloud, as she waited for Yuki to open the door.

She had just returned from church and headed straight to Yuki's front door. She rang the bell, knocked on the door, but did not get any response.

"Can you imagine?" She hissed and took out her phone from her bag. It had occurred to her after she had waited and waited, that she could just phone Yuki.

Scrolling through her contacts, she realised they hadn't exchanged phone numbers. She clicked her tongue in frustration and returned her phone to her bag.

As she turned to leave, she remembered that Yuki had called her phone on Friday night, so she brought out her phone again to check her recent calls, but could not find it there.

She exhaled sharply and went into her apartment.

Just as she stepped into her room, her eyes caught sight of the two long scrolls Yuki had given her, on the dresser table.

As she picked one of them up to go through it, she recalled that Yuki had texted her that Friday night too, concerning the scrolls.

She immediately picked up her phone, to check her messages, but she could not find any message from Yuki. She was very sure that she had chatted with Yuki that night, so it was surprising not to find the texts anymore.

Then it dawned on her..... Yuki was no ordinary being. They had not exchanged numbers yet, so any other interactions on the phone was just Yuki merely using her powers.

She groaned and collapsed on her bed. She just had to wait till the next day to take Yuki's number from her secretary. At least, considering the amount of time they had been together, she should have her number.

It was half past five on Monday morning, and Jaita was already up. She had taken her bath and was preparing breakfast. Once again, she was happy that Yuki was not around to wake her up as early as four in the morning. But she was getting worried since it was almost three days since her disappearance.

She checked to see if time was against her as she remembered that she had to leave the house earlier since she was no longer at her former residence. Her coffee maker beeped, indicating her to start brewing her coffee.

Not long after, the kitchen became hot. It was strange because the windows were opened and she was not sweating before. She decided to ignore it, but as time went on, the kitchen gradually became hotter, until it was unbearably hot.

She poured herself a cup of chilled water, to cool down her temperature and walked towards the door to receive some fresh air from the passage.

Her coffee maker beeped again, her coffee had finished brewing. She walked over to machine, picked up a mug from one of the cabinets, and fetched her coffee from the machine.

All of a sudden, a chilly breeze swept past her face. The kitchen became icy cold in a few seconds. She felt very uncomfortable and turned instinctively.

Her fingers reacted involuntarily and her mug fell to the ground and shattered. She tried to scream as loud as she could, but she could not even open her mouth so it came out as a muffled sound. She forced her legs to move also, she needed to run, jump, hide, anything at all but she could not move herself.

She was sure of one thing, something out of the ordinary was going on.

"So this is what you look like in person?" The woman in front of her, who looked like she was in her late fifties asked.

It was Feturi!

She was clad in a blue flowing gown, with shinny stones and pearls on it. She let her long silvery hair down to her waist. Simply put, she looked terrifically beautiful.

'Who are you? How did you get in here? What do you want?' Jaita wanted to ask but she was unable to speak out.

"Who I am and how I got in here should not be your problem, Jaita."

Jaita was baffled. The woman in front of her had read her mind and even knew her name. There was only one person she could be connected to.

Feturi stared at her with dead eyes. "I'm not here to waste my precious time." She began.

'Again, there was only one person she knew, who behaved and talked like the woman before her.' Jaita thought.

"Pack your things and leave this house!" Feturi ordered and released her from the spell she cast on her.

Jaita cleared her throat once she felt she was able to move again. She was now sure of one thing. The person in front of her had to be connected with Yuki.

"And why should I leave?" Jaita retorted.

"Look, whatever it is Yuki has said to you is a lie. She doesn't need a human acquaintance and never will."

"Even at that, she should be the one to send me out, not you. And what right do you even have to order me around?" Her egoist self popped up.

As soon as those words left her mouth, Feturi snapped her fingers and immediately, Jaita fell to the ground. She felt like she was suffocating, and tried everything she could to breath but she could not. She could not talk, she could not stand up, she was just on the floor struggling to move again.

"How foolish of you to think that I am someone you can talk back to. I hate nonsense. I don't tolerate it! Especially if it is from irrelevant beings like you and your fellow humans."

At this time, the whole kitchen was unbearably hot for Jaita, she was sweating profusely and silently praying for Feturi to set her free.

Feturi continued. "Is this how you talk to Yuki? Wow!" She scoffed. "I would have killed you a long time ago if I were her. Listen to me, I believe she hasn't told you yet. Her brother was killed by a human like you, do you really think she would be comfortable around humans? She wants to avenge his death. She's just using you, once she gets what she wants, she'll take your soul, exactly what she should have done four days ago."

Jaita could no longer feel her arms and legs. Death was at the corner, she could feel it.

"The human brain can only last four minutes with no oxygen, without getting permanently damage, the highest you can stay conscious is two minutes, the highest you will stay alive is six minutes." Feturi smiled. "It's been a minute, now tell me, would you like to live?"

Jaita felt the tightness in her neck loosen so she quickly nodded and it immediately became stiff again.

"Good, leave this house. If you leave, your contract with Yuki ends. I'll make sure she forgets you ever exist. You would be able to live your designated long life then. But if you choose to stay, I'll be the one to supervise your punishment when Yuki later takes your soul. How does that sound?" She asked.

But this time, she didn't release Jaita. She was still very stiff and was beginning to feel dizzy.

Feturi squatted down and opened her right hand and a small clock appeared.

"Look," she commanded. The time was now 5:55 AM. "It's a minute and fifty seconds." She smiled. "Fifty one, fifty two, fifty three, fifty four...."

Time was running out, she either gets freed or she dies. The chances of Feturi releasing her were slimmer.

When it dawned on Jaita that Feturi had nothing to lose if she let her live or let her die, hot tears began to stream her face.

"Fifty seven, fifty eight..." Feturi burst out in laughter.

She laughed and laughed and laughed, until everywhere went blank.