₦airaland Forum

Khutie:
I know y'all have been waiting for the update. Skarlett will be back soon; she have been a hell of workaholic girl, working on different projects at same time. It hasn't been easy on her. No doubt she will definitely complete the story.
SorryForTheWait.

okay oh

I don't know where to start my apologies from but I want everyone to understand that the few days without update was not intentional, i had some things to do offline, which unavoidably disturbed writing the story. The good news is, I'm back and I appreciate everyone of you that tried to reach out to me one way or the other and even those that made excuses for me, y'all are the best

Cc:
Khutie
Ritababe
Jeffreyjamez
Lleigh
Swann
Yormhienerd
Johnwizey
Dominique
Jagugu88li
Lawlahdey
Adeculate
Yinkhar
Phieccayuhmie
Jay542
Mackbrooklyn
Bb4u
Creeza
Nelsizzy
Lovelyudy

skarlett:
I don't know where to start my apologies from but I want everyone to understand that the few days without update was not intentional, i had some things to do offline, which unavoidably disturbed writing the story. The good news is, I'm back and I appreciate everyone of you that tried to reach out to me one way or the other and even those that made excuses for me, y'all are the best

You welcome.

Glad to have you back Skarl

Twenty-seven


“Dr. Lily?” A deep voice called to her. “Dr. Lily are you awake?”

Dr. Lily Olu tried to move, tried to respond. Pain radiated from her neck. She remembered being stabbed, half conscious and deposited in a car’s boot, helpless. She remembered a gush of blood. She remembered...

Dr. Lily bolted upright on the bed, shaking uncontrollably, “Blessing.”

“You’re awake,” Detective Ehis said from beside her.

She looked at him and tried to focus on his features. “You,” she said slowly, “I remember you.”

“I should hope you do, we met a few days ago when you regained consciousness. I’m sure you don’t know my partner, Detective Chukwuka,” he gestured at the other officer in the room who nodded briefly.

“Good morning, ma’am.”

She tried to smile a little but it ended up a frown as pricks of pain surged through her nerve endings.

“The doctor has had to keep you heavily sedated to allow your body heal sufficiently,” it was Detective Chukwuka.

She touched the thick bandage around her neck and winced, “that explains the slipping in and out of consciousness, my brain still feels foggy.”

“But you still remember Blessing,” Detective Ehis said eager to get to the heart of the matter.

“How could I forget her? She wanted to kill me. I hope she’s been arrested.”

“Actually no, she’s still at large and we were hoping you could help us with some information about her.”

Dr. Lily looked at both of them, “what do you want to know?” she asked.

“Everything, everything you can possibly tell us will go a long way,” Detective Ehis replied.

“I met Blessing when I attended a seminar at the state university. I talked about the role of dreams and visions in the conscious and after the seminar was over, she came to meet me and gushed over my work. She was in 100 level then and showed so much enthusiasm for the particular topic I’d talked about that day. I can still remember the topic because we pretty much discussed it in the years she came to consult me off and on.”

*****
Locked in a cupboard after receiving lashes of her father’s ruthless whip.

She would learn even if it killed her.

Blessing Adeoye’s eyes widened at her recollection. Her lips turned pale and her fingers closed in a tight fist. A classic sign of uncontrolled fury.

She had been five when the visions first started or spells as her mother always called them. They often left her weak and scared. There had been a time she’d been actively trying to fight them off, it was either that or the hot sting of her father’s leather belt.

I will beat the devil out of you.

To Samuel Adeoye, the devil was everywhere; every show of weakness was the ample opportunity for the devil to use you. And his first daughter had allowed the devil use her in spades. He had done his best to beat out that spirit of witchcraft from her.

He had tried but failed woefully. After years of running away from who she was for fear of her father’s beating, she had learned to embrace it in the end and wasn’t it a bitter end for her father? Samuel would be turning and gnashing his teeth in his grave. The place she had sent him to just like he’d sent her mother.

She was seven and her younger sister, Tracy was five that year when she had woken up with a huge fright. She was shaking all over as she woke up. She had unknowingly roused the entire house from sleep with her screams and her mother was by her bedside.

‘It’s a dream dear, its okay.’

‘Its not okay Mama,’ she shivered uncontrollably, ‘I saw, I saw…’

‘What did you see, you this witch!’ it was her father from the sitting room doorway. They lived in a room and parlor apartment, the parlor was converted every night to the children’s bedroom. The apartment was small and it was so hot because there was a power outage so even breathing was a chore. She had twitched and moaned for several minutes before waking up the house with her scream. She had seen her mother lying dead with an ugly gash at the back of her head but how to tell her with her father already calling her a witch?

Her father was a big man with a towering and impressive frame, one she had taken after him. Mama said he was once very handsome. But years shape a man in different ways, her father’s years had shaped him to be bitter. Bitter and stern with a mean streak.

Her mother feared him. She tried to forgive her for that, for fearing him so much she never came to her aid when he used his belt to whip the demons out of her. Her favorite saying had been ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words can’t get to me.’ How horribly wrong she had been to allow her father get away with his mean attitude and words that could flay the soul until it was too late. His sticks and stones had made her his first casualty.

‘What did you see?’ he asked again, his voice dangerously low.

She had been taught not to lie so she simply said what she saw in her nightmare. Mama lying cold and dead on the concrete, she hadn’t seen her killer. There was a moment of deafening silence in the room as everyone stared at her wide eyed. Her heart started to pound painfully, one hard hammer pound after the next. More than ever she felt more suffocated as sweat trickled down her spine.

He spoke softly then as he did just before the rage. Hadn’t he warned her not to let the devil in? She brought wickedness to his house and she would learn to keep her demons out even if it killed her.

Her mother said nothing while he spoke, punching the words at her like fists wrapped in boxing gloves. She clasped her hands and they shook. Did she tremble for her first daughter? Blessing liked to think so, liked to remember her as the victim of her father’s cruelty. But she liked to suppress the gnawing anger that her mother had never stood up to her father for her. Had never shielded her child from the vengeful God he tried to whip into her.

Tracy had it easy, she had always been her father’s favorite after being named after his mother. She was always the good child, the apple of daddy’s eyes and the one who learned to avoid her sister’s mistakes. She had also been an onlooker in the cruelty her father meted to her.

He gave her one slap that night. One slap that effectively numbed her pleas even if she hadn’t had any. Her mother turned her face away as he whipped her numb. They lived in isolation so there was no fear that her cries would wake up the whole neighborhood. The time for deliverance was always immediate, deliverance from familiar spirits was nothing to be shelved till tomorrow.

He left her weeping and locked her in the cupboard thereafter. She needed to be isolated to ward off evil spirits, the ones that gave her nightmares of her mother’s death.

It was a pity beating her had not stopped her dream from coming to pass. He got into a bitter argument with her mother one night that led to a scuffle. It was over the man that had dropped her home in his sleek car on her way back from the market. He had seen her get out of his car smiling and concluded she was having an affair with him.

One vicious push from him had been all it took to hit her head on the hard wall and break her skull. Blessing had stared in horror as her vision came to pass.

*****
Detective Ehis rubbed the bridge of his nose a little confused, “Visions? Why visions?”

“She had always been a child tormented by visions of doom especially death. Her father was a religious man who tried to beat out the spirit of witchcraft from her, as he called it but it didn’t do anything to stop the visions, as she’d termed them. She would foresee the danger of death and even how the person would die but when she was younger, her father called her a witch and beat her up.”

“Wow, that is scary.”

“You think?” Dr Lily asked and without waiting for his reply, “What I find scary now is the fact that I never took her seriously. She was such a kind and sweet girl that I only thought her a little disturbed.”

“But why? If you say she always told you about her nightmares that turned to reality, why didn’t you investigate further?” Detective Chukwuka, asked.

Dr. Lily sighed, “that was because I had my own demons to deal with.”

Both officers shared a look but said nothing so she continued.

“My own demons were my two young daughters I left at an orphanage. I left them to get help for a condition I’d always suffered as a child, bipolar disorder. It made me a saint and demon to the people I loved most in the world so I decided to get help but when I returned, I couldn’t find them. I lost my children and the thought kept hunting and tormenting me night after night.

“When I met Blessing, she reminded me of my first daughter and I did all I could to protect her. She was psychologically scarred from her experience as a child so I tried to believe she was only a little disturbed.”

“Well now you see she is a lot more than disturbed,” Detective Ehis said and blew a breath.

“Indeed she is and she has been right under my nose for so long. I know for a fact now that she killed Stephanie.”

Detective Chukwuka frowned thoughtfully, “why do you say so?”

“Because she had always nursed a huge crush or should I say obsession, for Dayo Cole and she saw any other woman he was dating as a competition,” Dr. Lily said and shook her head. “Damn, I should have known this all along.”


Tbc

dominique:
Glad to have you back Skarl

Thanks a lot dear, I replied your mail

Dedicated to debonairprinx, yinkhar and bb4u


Twenty-eight

Blessing

When Papa killed Mama, he should have known I would have my revenge but that is the problem with evil doers. They forget that the world turns, likewise the people in it. I started having visions of his own death eight years after he buried Mama in a three feet deep grave in our backyard. Mama didn’t have any relatives alive and we had been isolated from the world for so long so nobody could prosecute Papa for Mama’s death.

“I have found work for you in Lagos,” Papa said to me the night I started dreaming about his death.

“I don’t want to go anywhere, I want to stay in Ibadan and complete my education just like Mama wanted for me,” I said defiantly. Ever since Mama’s death, I had started my own rebellion and Papa had come to see there was little he could do about it. That was probably why he was sending me away.

The fear was in his eyes when he spoke to me, “just look at yourself. I have found you a household where they have promised to send you to school and instead of falling on your knees to thank me, you’re defying me.”

I would have rather spat on his face than thank him but I couldn’t tell him that so I sat and thought of the most painful death for Papa. A death that involved fire and bitter gnashing of teeth.

That night when I slept, I dreamt that Papa died in a fire. It was my first vision after eight years and instead of screaming, I relished the feeling of watching him die. I didn’t see the cause of the fire but I felt the golden tongues of fire that roasted him to death. The air smelt foul and full of screams but inside, I was jubilating.

I woke up triumphant that night and realized that Papa’s scriptures were right after all. He that lived by the sword would die by the sword. It didn’t matter who would make my dream come to pass, all that mattered was, Papa would pay because my dreams always came to pass.

I moved into the Cole household when I was fifteen and true to their words, the Coles sent me to school. They were rich and had three adorable children who tried to make me feel like part of the household. But with Tinuke Cole’s big frown of disapproval, I knew I would never be a part of the household. I was only a house girl and my status would not change despite the fact that her first son who was six years older, liked to spend time in my company. He’d taught me to drive on my eighteenth birthday, secretly of course and when his mother heard, she had been displeased at it and that effectively put an end to our time together.

I served the Cole family for five years and then went on to serve their daughter, Feyi as a nanny. In all that time, my attraction for Dayo grew and on lonely nights when I touched myself, I imagined his fingers in where my fingers were on my cli.t, touching me and sending waves of fire through my blood. It was a sinful act to touch yourself, my father had always told us but I didn’t care. I felt alive when I pleasured myself, imagining it was Dayo doing it.

It was Usman, the gateman, who first climbed between my legs when I was nineteen. I saw him one night when I went to empty thrash pounding into a strange woman and making her scream like a bit.ch in heat. I watched them have sex and felt my own body respond to the act playing out before me.

I had never thought Usman a stud before then. I imagined all the men as half the man Dayo Cole was but that day I wanted to feel the pleasure the strange lady seemed to feel with Usman. I wanted to have Usman inside me so I set out to seduce him. Flirting came naturally to me and before long, I was the one writhing and moaning in pleasure as Usman’s thick co.ck went in and out of me.

We were bedmates for six months and most of that time, I imagined him to be my Dayo. I soon tired out of Usman even though he was a pretty good fucck and wanted the real deal for myself. I knew there was a path for me and Dayo and I decided to take it. One day, I trailed him from the house to his office. When his secretary let me in, he looked pleasantly surprised to see me and although I tried my wiles, he didn’t seem to get the hint. I left that day, disappointed but determined. He was my man and I would get him by whatever means.

In the years I lived in the Coles household, I never forgot what my father did to my mother and after five years of expecting news of his demise, I decided to take the matter into my own hands. My father killed my mother, a murderer, that’s who he was and I wouldn’t rest until he was punished. Papa’s God often said, ‘vengeance is mine.’ Well, if his God could delight in vengeance, how much more me.

Five years after I left, I returned to Ibadan. My heart thumped with anticipation as I crept slowly behind the house. Papa had started building the upstairs but it wasn’t finished and didn’t look like anybody inhabited it yet. There was no real need to crouch and hide as we still didn’t have neighbors. Papa had built the house away from the rest of the village, I always thought that gave him the reason to do his evil acts, unchecked.

Starting from the backyard, I poured the kerosene I bought on my way along the walls. I poured some on the doormat in front of the house. I sprinkled kerosene over everything I could see.

Tracy didn’t recognize me at first when she opened the front door. “Hello traitor,” I said and she seemed to remember me just then. All the years I’d spent away from our house, she never came to visit or ask how I was doing. She was truly her father’s daughter.

I locked all the doors from outside and poured in more kerosene through the windows to the house. She had gone to get her father and both of them were banging the door, screaming. It was just like in my dreams but what wasn’t in place was Tracy locked in the house with my father. It wasn’t time for her to die yet but I couldn’t get her out without my father escaping his punishment.

It didn’t matter, I would get my revenge, I thought as I struck the matches and lit up the floors. How speedy fire runs! I ran far away from the house and watched at a distance as the insides of the house was half consumed. Fiery red flames burst through the windows just like in my dreams. Tracy was upstairs in the uncompleted apartment screaming for help for her father at the top of her lungs. It felt reminiscent watching her scream like I did when our father whipped me.

I watched in amusement as she took a flying leap off the balcony when it was obvious there was no where else out of the fire. She broke her leg on her fall and had to be admitted to the hospital for weeks but she didn’t die.

When the villagers converged on the scene, I had slipped away unnoticed and my father was a blackened corpse caught under the heavy wardrobe that had fallen on him.

I told you my visions always came to pass.

*****
Dayo isn’t like most men, he certainly isn’t like Usman who wept and begged like a child when I told him I wasn’t interested in our nocturnal sessions anymore. He begged me to allow him enter one more time; ‘just the tip,’ he’d said but I’d laughed him to scorn. My Dayo could not be reduced to a beggar, he was successful and arrogant with his crooked nose. The type I wanted to see on our children.

I lied to my madam that I wanted to see my sick sister and instead went in search of Dayo at Abeokuta where he was handling the opening of another mill factory owned by the Coles. My intuition has never been wrong and it was what made me see I wasn’t the only woman interested in having Dayo to herself. I had a competition and I needed her out of the picture.

I followed them home when he dropped her off and after he left went to see her myself. I wanted to warn her off him but she was obstinate and she called me a lunatic.

Ha! Me, lunatic? Maybe I was for loving Dayo as I did but she had no right. She had a dirty mouth and when our conversation deteriorated, called me a bit.ch and cussed like a drunk sailor. It showed her poor home training, maybe I was there to instill some of mine in her. My father hadn’t allowed us use swear words at home, he said it was a sin and I when I couldn’t stand her vile mouth, I used her soap to wash her mouth.

It wasn’t as if I expected much of a fight because years of domestic violence in my father’s hand had made me stronger. But for somebody with such a dirty mouth, she was weak. She flailed helplessly as I pushed the soap further and further into her mouth. She kicked wildly on the bed we had eventually landed in but she didn’t even get one hit at me.

I stopped pushing the soap into her mouth and she held her throat, choking. Her towel was exposed now revealing her naked body. It didn’t give me joy to watch her struggling so I slipped out of the house just as noiselessly as I’d slipped in leaving nothing of myself there. I was scared but I had the sense not to leave evidence that could be linked to me in future.

For days I’d had nightmares of watching her torment and became suddenly reserved around the house. School registration was there to distract me and I turned my energy towards it until the day of Dr. Lily’s lecture on visions. I found someone who didn’t think me crazy and she became the mother I’d lost.

I followed the story of the death of the girl Dayo was dating even though it had hardly made the paper headlines. Apparently Seyi Lawal had been bleeping the dead girl and even though, his family tried to hide news of his arrest, I knew anyway that he was being convicted for Ifeoluwa’s murder. He had been found innocent of her murder a few months later but that had opened his can of misdeeds and he’d eventually been charged with fraud and embezzlement.

She had been unfaithful to my Dayo and so I felt justified for taking her life. It struck me as odd though, that he didn’t know she was dead. He didn’t even act like he’d taken his relationship with her seriously and a few weeks later, he started dating another who.re, Stephanie.

It was probably at that moment that I realized that I meant very little to him. All of us did. But Stephanie wasn’t going to get my man on a platter and Dayo would never find happiness with her. I would make sure of that.

*****
Omotola

The news of Dr. Seyi’s death had added a dampener to the Afolabi household, it was in the grim silence and the serious looks of the police officers. But outside the atmosphere seemed oblivious to the turmoil going on within. The brilliant sun painted the sky with the brightest of a palette of colors and the air smelled clean and fresh.

It was time to see my mother, I decided exhaling a big breath. I didn’t know how that would work out but I had to at least tell her of Ifeoluwa’s death. Even though Tunji and Feyi didn’t seem to be raising any objections because they were involved with getting Tomiwa back, I knew my days in the Afolabi household were numbered. Dayo might be expecting us to work out an arrangement for the sake of our child but I knew I couldn’t work with him on this. Not this time.

Feyi had said we would get married but I didn’t see that happening. I couldn’t marry him knowing he had no interest in loving me. I couldn’t be a man’s duty. His penance. My blood ran cold at the thought. What kind of life would that be? For any of us?

I would find a way to make it clear to Dayo that I didn’t need him and neither would my child. After years of loving him without a reciprocation of my feelings for him, I knew we couldn’t ever work out. He was cold and unfeeling, using women just to satisfy his whim and I didn’t want my child and I to become a burden to him. I knew I still had some feelings towards him but I wouldn’t allow my feelings blind me to the obvious, again. How about I told him now?

He was getting out of his car looking as handsome as ever and my heart fluttered in my chest, it had to be sinful for a man to look as good as Dayo Cole.


Tbc

debonairprinx:
You welcome.

Bb4u:
when I'm very glad that my name has finally been used in a story, now skar lett has decided to use it as a bad character...God is watching you oh

Pele dearie

Eleyi gidi gan o

skarlett:
Dedicated to debonairprinx, yinkhar and bb4u


Twenty-eight

Blessing


It was Usman, the gateman, who first climbed between my legs when I was nineteen. I saw him one night when I went to empty thrash pounding into a strange woman and making her scream like a bit.ch in heat. I watched them have sex and felt my own body respond to the act playing out before me.

I had never thought Usman a stud before then. I imagined all the men as half the man Dayo Cole was but that day I wanted to feel the pleasure the strange lady seemed to feel with Usman. I wanted to have Usman inside me so I set out to seduce him. Flirting came naturally to me and before long, I was the one writhing and moaning in pleasure as Usman’s thick co.ck went in and out of me.

More sensuality and imagery... more! This part is too bland.

DarkRebel101:
More sensuality and imagery... more! This part is too bland.

Lol, okay.

Thanks

skarlett:
Lol, okay.

Thanks

You're welcome. I know you like to write things as they are – like John Grisham –, but try to have your next update peppered with some more metaphors and figurative language that goes beyond the ordinary. Not too much, but not too little either.

skarlett:
Thanks a lot dear, I replied your mail

Seen, may God crown all your efforts with success

Finally... thanks for the update skarlett. So I was right, that psycho Blessing loves Dayo, that's her motive for the murders.

skarlett:
I don't know where to start my apologies from but I want everyone to understand that the few days without update was not intentional, i had some things to do offline, which unavoidably disturbed writing the story. The good news is, I'm back and I appreciate everyone of you that tried to reach out to me one way or the other and even those that made excuses for me, y'all are the best

Cc:
Khutie
Ritababe
Jeffreyjamez
Lleigh
Swann
Yormhienerd
Johnwizey
Dominique
Jagugu88li
Lawlahdey
Adeculate
Yinkhar
Phieccayuhmie
Jay542
Mackbrooklyn
Bb4u
Creeza
Nelsizzy
Lovelyudy

Wow! What a long wait it was. Welcome back dear and thanks for this wonderful update. Oliver Twist!

What can I say? I have not been following this story for a very long time- because surprisingly, I am a newbie to nairaland Literature section and within weeks am proud to say that I've been honoured tremendously to be mentioned to this great thread.
Not just to read but to profer my own comments about a great story.

Skarlett-- You as simply amazing! Execenlenté! Bravoir! Bravoir!!!

And these two great writers I've been acquainted with

bibijay123 and lleigh , I Dolph my hat for you!

I'm honoured beyond doubts

Hmm, welcome back skarlett, great read

dominique:
Seen, may God crown all your efforts with success

Amen

DarkRebel101:
You're welcome. I know you like to write things as they are – like John Grisham –, but try to have your next update peppered with some more metaphors and figurative language that goes beyond the ordinary. Not too much, but not too little either.

Alright, I will try my best

welcome back

Welcome back, skarlett. . I missed you oh

Blessing is a time bomb ah ha. I thought maybe she was openly dating Dayo at one point and maybe got dumped, No. She's doing all this because of a crush, Lawd gracious hear us!

You go fear crush

Lawlahdey:
Welcome back, ska rlett. . I missed you oh

Thank you dear, I missed you too

ritababe:
welcome back

Thanks dear

okorro1:
Hmm, welcome back skarle tt, great read

Thank you dear

Creeza:
What can I say? I have not been following this story for a very long time- because surprisingly, I am a newbie to nairaland Literature section and within weeks am proud to say that I've been honoured tremendously to be mentioned to this great thread.
Not just to read but to profer my own comments about a great story.

Skarle tt-- You as simply amazing! Execenlenté! Bravoir! Bravoir!!!

And these two great writers I've been acquainted with

bibijay1 23 and llei gh , I Dolph my hat for you!

I'm honoured beyond doubts

Thank you for following too, I'm equally honoured to have you here

adebriana:
Finally... thanks for the update skarle tt. So I was right, that psycho Blessing loves Dayo, that's her motive for the murders.

You're welcome dear, yes you were right although this one na obsession

jagugu88li:
Blessing is a time bomb ah ha. I thought maybe she was openly dating Dayo at one point and maybe got dumped, No. She's doing all this because of a crush, Lawd gracious hear us!

You go fear crush

Candy crush ni

Methinks its an obsession because she also stalks him

iykekelvins:
[color=#099999]What kind of demons does Blessing have inside of her sef..

And all those killings, just because she has feelings for Dayo? Chineke nna![/color]

The worst kind

God save us from enemies within like somebody would say

Excellent skarlett thumbs up