My Quest for Money almost killed me, but I got a Second Chance: my entry for @jerrybanfield's Supernatural Writing Contest

This is my entry for the Supernatural Writing Contest hosted by @jerrybanfield

I have lived with this secret all my life, and I never knew that I was ever going to share it. Maybe telling this story is going to give me some kind of peace, and the strength to move on and not believe that shadows from my horrific past are waiting somewhere in a dark corner of the future, to haunt me and make me realize that I never truly got away.

I was born in a very poor family. When I was a child, it didn’t seem abnormal for me to share a plate of watery beans with my little brother, Ebuka. Although almost every food was tasteless, and each time we finished eating, I still felt the worms in my belly, churning and biting the walls of my intestines, asking for more, I was content with drinking a full glass of water to fill the empty spaces because that was what mother always asked us to. Our living condition didn’t seem abnormal till I became a teenage, and my parents sent me to live in Lagos with my Aunt. That was when everything changed.

In Lagos, I made some friends who although their families fared better than mine, were determined to become billionaires in their twenties. One day, on our way to school, my friend Chinedu told me about a certain Prince Odin. He said that Prince Odin was going to make us teenage millionaires if we surrender to him. Everything he said sounded strange and unbelievable. Although I didn’t understand it all, I couldn’t pay attention in class that day because I was thinking about it and looking at the round wall clock behind the teacher’s desk, anxious for school to close for the day so that I could ask him to explain it all to me.

Chinedu made me swear that I would never tell anybody about Prince Odin, even if at the end of the day, I end up not being interested. I promised, and he took me to Prince Odin.

I thought that the Prince Odin would probably be the son of a wealthy king, and maybe he was going to ask us to work for him, and pay us a huge amount of money, but I was so wrong. He wasn’t a Prince; he was the head of a mystical secret cult. When we got to his mansion in Festac Town, Lagos, we saw some boys of about our age coming out from the compound. The man was clad in a long golden robe, and was sitting under a shade in his compound when we saw him.

“I belong to Odin,” Chinedu confessed loudly and knelt down in front of the man as we got into the shade. He tugged on my trouser, urging me to do as he did, and I went down on my knees also. After Chinedu told him about me, Prince Odin asked if I would want to be a billionaire. I nodded.

He took me into his inner room, slashed my forefinger with a sharp knife and collected my blood in a small calabash. I looked into the calabash and saw that there was already fresh blood inside it. I figured that maybe it was the blood of the other boys we saw leaving the compound.

After collecting my blood, Prince Odin said that I was going to serve in the temple of Odin in the underworld for seven years, after which I would come back to the world and become very rich. It was August 28th 2005; he said that my day of service would start on 1st October the next year. He said that on that 1st October, I would follow him to the Lagos Bar Beach, from where he would send me off into the sea. He said that my family and everyone who knew me on earth would believe that I was lost, and that they would search earnestly for me, but will not find me.

“However, you have to pay only one more price,” he declared.
My heart missed a thousand beats. I had watched so many Nigerian movies where people desperate to make wealth were asked to sacrifice their parents, or worst still, their manhood. I wondered what he was going to ask me to bring.

Then he asked, “Who do you love the most in this world?”

“My little brother,” I answered. I didn’t need to think before telling him that.

“Your little brother is going to be the sacrifice. He shall die exactly after seven years of your exit. On the day you return to earth, your brother will die.”

My mouth fell open in shock. I wanted to protest, to tell him that I was no longer interested, but I felt tongue-tied, and no words could come out. “Your return is going to be a consolation to your parents,” he added, as if to make me feel better.

I was in for it. There was no going back, and all I could do for many nights was cry for my little brother, and beg God to forgive me. As the months went by, in July 2006, just two months before my proposed disappearance, I developed cold feet. I needed the money, but I didn’t want my brother to die. Several times, I fought the urge to go back to Prince Odin and tell him that I was no longer interested, but when I thought of the consequence of such tomfoolery, I restrained myself.

The next month, in August 2006, my Dad came to Lagos and asked me to go back to the village with him.
“Finally!” I sighed. I was finally going to get my chance to run away. The distance between Lagos and my village is almost 900 kilometers, so I thought that there was no way Prince Odin was going to find me.

I left Lagos without telling any of my friends; I thought I had gotten away, but I didn’t know that I merely changed the location of the battlefield.
On 1st October 2006, I was scared of the unknown. On one hand, I feared that they were coming to attack me, while on the other hand, I feared that they would come for my kid brother.

I wished I could tell me parents about it, but I was so scared to talk, so I decided to not let my kid brother out of my sight. “If they want me, let them come and take me, but if they come anywhere close to Ebuka, I will fight them till I die,” I swore under my breath as my brother and I prepared to leave the house to go for the Independence Day Parade (1st October is Independence day in my country Nigeria).

As I stepped into my room to get something, everywhere became pitch-black. I couldn’t see a thing. “Ebuka! Ebuka,” I called, but I heard no response. “Daddy, Mummy!” Yet no one could hear me, or if they did, they weren’t saying anything. Then, suddenly, I felt a heavy metal hit me on the head, and then my head started banging as if I was being hit with a hammer. I fell down, my mind blanked out and everything turned white.

“Dandy! Dandy!” I could hear my mom and brother screaming,” but I couldn’t move my body, and with every single passing moment, their voices began to sound faint in my ears. I could hear the voices of so many persons screaming and praying, but it all sounded very far away.

I felt myself drifting away from my body, and then I saw myself walking on a lonely pure white road. In front, behind me, and on the ground underneath, everything was pure white. It felt surreal like I was on a snow island.

I saw a man standing in front of me, so I walked up to him. He was dressed in a pure white suit, and his smile was a broad as the sun. “Sir, please where is this place? I want to go back home, everyone is crying because of me.”

The man smiled and told me that I couldn’t go back, that he was there waiting to take me to my new home.
“New home? Where is that, Sir?”
He smiled again and said that he didn’t know yet, that he was only a messenger, and would take me to the place where we’ll find out where my new home would be.
Just as I was asking the man questions and begging him to let me go back, I heard another voice behind me.

“Dandy, come let’s go; everybody is waiting for you.” I recognized the voice. It was Chinedu’s voice, and when I turned around, I saw him walking up to the place I was standing with the messenger.

“He has to come with me! We have an important journey ahead of us!” Chinedu barked at the messenger. The man frowned and started arguing with him.
“If you don’t go back right now, I will take the two of you together,” the man threatened.

“Dandy,” Chinedu called, looking deeply into my confused eyes, “he is the messenger of death. If you follow him, you will die. Come now let’s go.”

Chinedu held my hands and started running. At that very moment, it was very difficult for me to make a decision. I know that I didn’t want to embark on that journey with Chinedu, but I didn’t want to die either.

We kept running till we got to a very tall fence which had a ladder leaning against it. I looked back and saw that the man was almost catching up with us.
“Climb the ladder and jump over to the other side, I am coming!” Chinedu shouted, and I stared climbing the ladder while he fought with the man who was already at the foot of the fence struggling to lay his hand on the ladder.

Before I got to the top of the ladder, I heard my little brother, Ebuka’s voice.
“Dede, where are you going to?” he asked, “come let’s go home.”
I felt my heart melting. I looked up and saw him standing on top of the fence.

“Give me your hand,” Ebuka said, and stretched forth his hand. I slipped my hand into his, and we started running on the slim wall of the fence.

My eyes snapped open and I saw myself lying in a hospital bed. Outside the hospital ward, I could hear my family crying and wailing. I later found out that that was the third hospital they took me to that day, and the doctor had just told them that they couldn’t do anything to save me.

FINAL NOTES

Till date, everyone thinks that I had a spiritual attack (because Africans believe that there is a spiritual dimension to everything) but they still did not know how spiritual my case was, , and I still haven’t told any of them them. From that day, I lived in fear for seven years- fear that at the end of seven years, they’ll still come back to kill my little brother. But as I write this right now, it’s been over eleven years, and my brother is still alive.

Chinedu went missing since then; he still hasn’t returned, and I don’t want to ever mention to anyone that I know what happened to him. As for Prince Odin, I have never been to that part of Lagos again, so I don’t know if he still exists.

THIS IS MY SUPERNATURAL STORY; and I’m grateful to God that I am alive to share it.