Children of the Sun: An Odu Story

“Ebrima! Where are you?” Tobi called out into the night. Ebrima’s shouted response came from the entrance to the alley that they had emerged from when the pair had first approached the house. Tobi ran in that direction.

As he entered the alleyway, he hopped to the right to avoid stepping in an open gutter and carried on running in the darkness. The lantern he carried felt like an impediment in his hand, awkwardly banging against his arm and chest as he ran; he was tempted to drop it, but knew if he did so he would be running virtually blind. He briefly wondered how Ebrima was able to chase Nansi with no lantern. Was he even sure he was chasing the right child?

He called out to Ebrima again. Ebrima’s response came from a side alley that Tobi had just ran past. He did a double take and ran down the narrower corridor.

The end of the smaller corridor led into the middle of another wider alleyway. He called out to Ebrima again and waited. And waited.

Fearing that he was on the brink of losing them, he arbitrarily turned right and continued to run. After a few seconds of running, he called out to Ebrima again, but once again received no reply.

A short distance ahead, he saw the soft glow of a flame coming from the glass head of a tall wooden streetlamp, the only streetlamp he had seen since he had first entered the urban spider web that was Zotto’s back alleys. He decided that he would go as far as the streetlamp and then call for Ebrima again, if he received no response a third time, then he would turn back and search for Ebrima in the other direction. Not that there would be much point. If they had gone the other way, then there was no doubt that he had already lost them, presuming that Ebrima had even managed to keep up with Nansi in the first place.

He had stopped running and was now walking, certain that he had failed his final task of the evening.

As he approached the streetlamp, he called for Ebrima once more, and once more received no response. Opposite from the streetlamp was the entrance to another alleyway, and from that alleyway, out ran a small child, practically straight into him. He looked down and saw a mass of reddish dark brown hair that had been separated into two large messy braids, and felt a burst of relief.

With his free hand, he immediately grabbed Nansi by the arm. “There you are, Nansi. I’ve been looking every –”

The look on Nansi’s face moved him to silence. He had expected her to be afraid; no doubt she had deduced his intentions for her, she would not have run from him otherwise, but what he saw when he looked into her face went beyond fear. She looked as if she had gone mad with terror. She was incessantly mumbling something that he could not make out, and her eyes were wide and unfocused with hysteria.

With Nansi in hand, he took a few steps forward and peered into the side alley that she had just run out of. The side alley featured two more streetlamps, which allowed him to see clearly into the narrow passage from where he was standing, and on the edge of where the second streetlamp’s light reached, on the ground and half covered in darkness, he saw an immobile Ebrima, lying face down.

“Ebrima!” He called out to his colleague, but Ebrima remained silent and unmoving.

He had only turned his attention away from Nansi for a few seconds, but his grip must have noticeably loosened because suddenly she threw herself back from him, breaking his grip and freeing her arm from his hand. He spun around ready to give chase but stopped when he saw that instead of running off, she had just retreated further from the entrance of the side alley to huddle behind the streetlamp nearest to them.

What the fuya?

He heard the distinct sound of movement behind him. Tobi spun around, long knife in hand and at the ready, but calmed himself when he realised that the noise had just come from Ebrima, who was now on his hands and knees attempting to rise to his feet.

He felt relief flood into him. He made a mental note that he would get the story of what happened from Ebrima later, but for now he had wasted enough time concerning himself with a little girl’s panic. He swung his body around to face Nansi once again, but as he did so, at the last second, he saw something in the corner of his eye. He quickly turned back around to see Ebrima no longer on his hands and knees, but once again lying face down on the floor. The man had just collapsed again.

He suddenly saw something again, but this time he was sure of it. He had seen something standing directly above Ebrima, at the very edge of the alley’s darkness. He had been looking directly at it and yet he still could not make out what it was. It was as if a blurred image of something had quickly flickered in and out of existence. How was such a thing possible? He could not make sense of it. The image flickered again, but this time it was much further along the alley and considerably closer to him.

Tobi had no idea what was going on, but he decided that he had seen enough. He turned around with the intention to flee, but before he could take a step forward, he felt a massive weight slam into the back of his shoulders. He heard Nansi scream as he fell to the ground on his belly. His lantern flew from his hand, but he managed to keep a hold of his long knife; he spun onto his back slashing wildly above him. And made contact with nothing. There was no one there.

He raised himself onto his elbows and felt warm blood run down his back. “Who’s there? S-show yourself!” He tried to speak the words with a firmness that suited the demand, but his rising fear betrayed him, causing the words to come stammering and stuttering out of him. “D-don’t toy with me!”

Then something was standing over him, and it was like nothing he had ever seen before. An unnatural mesh of deformed flesh and…metal? He could not tell for certain. Despite being so close to the apparition it was still somehow blurry, like an image that he couldn’t quite bring into focus. It hurt his eyes to even look at it. Inexplicably, he felt an overwhelming wave of nausea and threw up on himself. Then suddenly it was gone again.

He had to run. He had to move. He quickly turned over and pushed himself up from the ground. As he stood up, he felt a wide stinging pain across his shoulder blades, and what felt like a fair bit of warm blood roll down his back.

He was hurt, but it was okay. He could still move. And if he could move, he could run to safety. The fear that he felt was making it difficult to think, like a thickening fog clouding his mind.

He looked down at Nansi; her face was frozen in an expression of absolute terror. She was no longer making any sound, but her mouth was still wide open as if she were still screaming. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but then he was no longer looking at her, he was looking at the streetlamp, and then the night sky.

Am I falling?

A surge of pain across his shoulders indicated to him that he had hit the ground. If not for the sting of his back he would not have known that he had stopped falling; he couldn’t feel anything else.

He tried to sit up but he couldn’t. He gathered his strength, preparing to make another attempt to get up, but then he was inexplicably, and rather roughly, hoisted up into a sitting position. He looked down at his leg, and watched it for a moment as it laid awkwardly on its side.

He could no longer feel anything, not even the pain in his back. He rocked forward slightly as if someone had pushed him, and then he was pulled backwards. He looked at Nansi, still huddled behind the streetlamp, paralysed with fear, and wondered how she seemed to be moving further away from him.

His leg came into view, still lying in the same place and covered in blood. Confused, he looked down at himself to see that only one of his legs was still attached to his body. He was still looking down at himself when he noticed a large object protruding from his chest. He placed his hand on the object sprouting from his chest and was struck with a moment of clarity.

I’m going to die. If I don’t do something I’m going to die.

He gripped the object firmly with his hand, and then suddenly his hand, and the arm that it was attached to, was spinning forward, free from his body. Ebrima entered his field of vision; he was no longer lying flat on his front. He was still on the ground, but now he was pressed up against the alley wall as if he were trying his hardest to make his presence as small as possible. He had the same look on his face that Nansi did.

He tried to reach out to Ebrima, as he was pulled past and then further away from him, but he was unable to feel either of his arms. He tried to call out to him, but he was unable to speak. His throat was full of warm water, which made him wonder how he was still breathing.

Adisa’s going to be so mad when I don’t show up to meet her.

The last thing he saw, before the darkness that he had been pulled into stole his vision, was Ebrima using the wall to pull himself up onto his feet and then running in the other direction.