(semi final)
EPISODE 23
He was running as fast as his legs
could carry him, the house was
just ahead. He could see the lights
of the house, the curtains were
drawn, and the inhabitants of the
house were probably asleep, unaware of the terror about to be
visited on them. He could get in
front of the ivory painted gate
now, and he began shouting on
the top of his voice. “Help, Help, wake up” he yelled at
the top of his voice. But a shot
rang out, and he was still gazing
at the lit balcony of the house,
when he felt a pain rip through
him, he held his throat as blood spurted out of it. Before he fell to
the ground, he saw a young
woman come out to the balcony,
he wanted to warn her, but the
darkness enveloped him, and the
world blacked out… Dayo bolted up from sleep like he
was yanked out of the dream. He
was sweating profusely and he
felt a cold chill in his heart. “What sort of dream is this?” he
pondered. He got out of bed and
held his head, there was pain in
his head, he thought perhaps it
was the speed he used in waking
up from sleep. He went downstairs to the kitchen to get a
glass of milk. He always had a
glass of milk before he slept, but
last night he had forgotten, so, he
attributed the nightmare to the
lack of milk before bed. But when he got close to the kitchen, he
heard whisperings and he
stopped. He heard Stone’s voice
as clear as day. Stone: “This operation is very
important, there must be no
mistakes” he said in his usual
coarse voice. His voice was
because of too much smoking of
weed. “If you don’t want mistakes, then
you must keep that protégé of
yours, at home. I have a bad
feeling he is going to spoil things
for us one of these days.” One of
the gang members retorted. “What is the essence of bringing
him along, if he is going to sit in
the car and not join the
operation” another quipped. Stone: “Silence, you are forgetting
the real issues, which is the
operation, not Robert” he
thundered, and everywhere
became silent. They didn’t talk,
neither did they move. Then Stone began to speak in the
silence, detailing the operation
and the timeline. He quickly jotted
down the address of the house in
his head and would have
lingered to hear more, but someone came out of the kitchen. Dayo dived into the alcove
adjacent the kitchen entrance.
The alcove which was a small inlet
in the wall, house supplies like
cleaning agents, garden tools and
other equipment. Luckily it had a door, and Dayo closed it quietly
and from a little hole, he watched
the gang member climb up the
stairs. Dayo rushed out of the
alcove and entered the kitchen
yawning and walking like he was sleepwalking. Stone smiled at this
and rushed to hold him thinking
he would fall. Stone: “When will you outgrow
sleepwalking?” he said fondly. He
opened the refrigerator and
brought out milk because he
rightly assumed that it was milk
that brought Dayo to the kitchen. As he poured the milk into a
glass, Dayo looked at the people
in the kitchen from under his
eyelashes. Dayo: “Thank you” he said
sleepily and walked back
upstairs. In his room, the glass of milk was
forgotten on the table, he was
worried about what he had heard
and the dream. Was the dream
trying to tell him something? He
wondered to himself. Cassandra did not understand
why she couldn’t Robert(Dayo)
on Facebook again, and the last
message he had sent to her,
sounded like something that
couldn’t come from him. She was broken hearted over the easy
way he had discarded her. While
she laid in her dorm room,
nursing her broken heart, her
real-life boyfriend, Ken, called her
and invited her out for dinner. She wanted to turn him down,
but she saw the dinner date, as
an avenue to forget about Robert,
so she obliged him. She dressed in a little black dress
(LBD) and strand of pearly
necklace. At the restaurant where
Ken had invited her to, she still
could not concentrate, a young
man in his twenties that had walked in, reminded her of
Robert. Ken: “Were you even listening to
anything I said?” he asked and
followed the direction of her eyes
to the young man who had
entered the restaurant, “Really
Cassandra?” he asked incredulously, not believing for a
moment that he was sitting with a
girl and she was checking out
another man. Cassandra: “Sorry Ken, I have a
lot on my mind” she said, trying
to cover up with a smile. Ken: “I can see that” he said flatly,
and with a hint of sarcasm.
Cassandra raised her head up
from the plate of spaghetti she
was eating, at the sarcasm she
had heard in his voice. and saw Ken looking at the young man
with anger in his eyes. She
chuckled. Ken: “I was asking if you would
be going for the summer break”
he said Cassandra: “Of course, I have
missed my mother” she replied. Ken: “Then I am going too” he
replied. Cassandra shook her head at this,
it repulsed her that Ken always
did anything she did, even
though he was not pleased with
it. He did it to be close to her
always. She wished that she could reciprocate his feelings, but she
couldn’t. No matter how she tried
to have some sort of connection
with the opposite sex, she
couldn’t because they were not
Dayo. It baffled her though that Robert was the only one aside
Dayo who caught her fancy. She
felt nostalgic towards her
impending trip home. Whenever
she was in Nigeria, she was
always considering people’s faces, checking if she would see
Dayo. The next day Stone asked to
drive Dayo to the University for
his clearance. He wished that he
could keep Dayo at home forever,
but it was not possible. He had
discussed online learning with Dayo but he refused saying he
couldn’t do any other course
other than medicine, and
Medicine could not be taken
online. Stone: “Remember all I told you,
measure your words and don’t
answer questions that are too
personal. Keep everyone at arms-
length, and call me when you are
ready to come home, I will come and pick you” he admonished
before unlocking the door. Dayo exhaled as he stepped out
of the 4matic car and walked
towards the school gate. It was
like the school was inviting him
with open arms, he felt happy
because he was closer to achieving his mother’s dreams. He
rushed through his clearances
because he had some other
assignment to do. The address
was still in his head and he
wanted to check it out. He was certain that the occupants of the
house would be visited by Stone
and his gang soonest and he was
wondering how e could help. It
felt like he was meant to help
them because he had been shown a dream. But he was also
afraid because he had been shot
in the dream. Any attempt to go
against Stone would be met with
death, he knew, but he didn’t
know how to turn a blind eye, he had stumbled on their meeting
for a reason. When he got to the address
which he had heard from Stone,
he knocked on the gate for a
while before the gateman opened
the small entrance gate a peep. Gate man: “Eh, eh, wetin you dey
find?” he barked aggressively. Dayo: “Please can I see the owner
of the house?” he asked Gate man: “Why, shebi you be
one of those boys wey never
chop belleful, wey dey come
disturb my small madam anytime
she come back from school abi,
dey vamoose for here now before I comot your teeth” he
said in pidgin. Dayo: “It is important I see
someone from this house,
something bad is going to
happen if I don’t warn them” he
said with urgency, but the gate
man was the least bit concerned. Gate man: “That one na new
format? Go think again, this one
no follow. If I close my eye open
am, and you still dey here, you go
blame yourself for anything wey
happen to you” he said closed his eyes. Dayo shook his head sadly
and walked away. He went back
to the University and then called
Stone. Two days later, Dayo began to
shadow his guardian, Stone, he
needed more details about the
operation, to inform his next
action. He noticed they only had
meetings when they were sure he would not stumble into their
conversation, so he pretended to
be asleep. Stone came to his
bedroom to check on him and
when he saw Dayo was asleep,
he went away. Dayo waited a few more minutes and then he tiptoed
to the kitchen. He heard voices and he listened.
They were loud this time because
they were having an argument. Stone: “The daughter complicates
everything. We will have to
eliminate both of them” “There is no need to do that, she
is just a teenager” one of the
members replied. Stone: “The client wants both of
them dead, and we always do
what the client wants. Our hearts
have never been the thing we
think with in this business. We
won’t start now. We kill both of them. We leave the house by
8pm, operation ETA is five
minutes. Remember when we are
out there, we think about our
individuality, if the police happen
on the operation, run, and don’t get caught” he said with finality. Dayo could still hear murmurs
among them but Stone’s words
were final. He was shaken to his
bones by what he had heard.
They were going to kill a woman,
and her daughter. He remembered the gate man he had
met at the address, and his
words. He had talked about a
small madam, that could be the
daughter they wanted to kill, he
thought. His decision was already made, he was going to run away
and save that family. He crept
back up to his room and dressed
in black sweatshirt and
sweatpants. He opened his
bedroom window, and climbed on to the window sill. From there,
he stretched his hand and held
on to the branch of a tree
growing in the backyard. With the
support of the tree he swung off
the window sill and on to the tree.
.
.
.
.
Will Dayo succeed in
warning the occupants of the
house or will he be shot like in
the dream? Also do you think the
occupants of the house are
related to Dayo in any way?
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