He recovered his wandering mind and nodded in reply.
She stood looking at him with creases in her eyebrows, like one trying to remember a dream. “Did you ejaculate inside me?”
His look gave an affirmative response.
“I have always told you that I don’t want you ejaculating inside me.”
“But you wanted it!”
“What do you mean, I wanted it? When did I tell you I wanted it?”
“You don’t have to tell me. I can feel these things without being told. After you slept off, I felt your longing for me intensify. I felt you wanted everything I had to give. So, I gave you all.”
“So you felt I wanted it and poured yourself into me? Have I not always told you that I don’t want it, even if I seemed to? Why could you not just respect my wishes?”
“They were your wishes,” he said.
She seemed to reflect on his answer, but something else was on her mind. “The elders put you up to this, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “They asked it of me and even all but threatened to get someone else to. But that was not why I did it. I wanted it myself and I felt you wanted it too.”
“I did not want it.”
“It is not a big deal,” he said conciliatorily. “It has happened before.”
“I wanted it then,” she said, unappeased.
“If you don’t want a child yet, there are herbs, like you’ve used before.” She was quiet
for a while.
He tried to go to her and hold her, but she hit him in the face.
He held a hand to his face, more hurt by her behaviour than by the slap.
“I have told you before. I won’t be used by old chiefs, by Ife-Iyoku, or even by you. My body is mine, to do as I please.” She gritted her teeth.
“You said you loved me.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
“You don’t need to say it,” he said. “I can feel it. And I can feel your loathing for me now.”
She did not meet his eyes. And he knew. They were both quiet for a while, then she walked away. He just stood watching her departing figure like a lost soul.
✦✦✦
Imade went to the hut of Chief Ududo and banged at it repeatedly until it was opened. The chief was surprised at seeing her.
“What is it this early, Imade?”
She folded her arms akimbo. “I have come to warn you. Tell your chiefs and old men that I will never be used by you and the people. I will not be a vessel for childbearing to satisfy your desire to populate Ife-Iyoku.”
He looked at her quietly for a few moments, then laughed. “The boy has planted his seed in your soil, has he not? Who knew the boy could do it?”
Imade was shaking visibly.
“What is it woman?”
Imade strode towards him. He was oblivious of her moves, quite consumed in his mockery of her. He only became aware of her after she had reached out to grab his wrapper and tear it down. With the wrapper, she tried to throttle him. They danced around for some time before she caught hold of his arm, activating her gifts. He fell to his knees, retching and shaking. She had a hold on his neck now. He wheezed and struggled to breathe. She held on fast.
The old man would have died but for the intervention of some passing hunters who saw the altercation and rushed in to drag her off. She considered using her power on them, but she knew they would knock her out.
The chief gasped out after a couple of breaths.
“We were forbidden from telling you this as a way of protecting you,” he said to her. “You were responsible for the death of all the children and other women of Ife-Iyoku through your foolish insistence on being strong and doing the work of the hunters. Bearing children is the least you can do to atone for your deeds.”
Imade cocked her head, curious in spite of herself and her loathing for him. “The footprints you made when you left the townhall doomed the occupants of the hall. The intruders followed it to find the hiding place of our women and children. All because you simply cannot be what you were made to be, a woman. I curse you!” He spat out the last sentence and spat a wad of saliva at her. She didn’t bother to dodge it. Her eyes were red with anger. She turned and started to walk away, but one of the hunters went after her.
“Let her be,” the chief said. “She has done enough harm.”
She was assuaged somewhat by her attempt at killing Chief Ududo. As she walked away, she heard the chief telling the hunters to leave her alone, that she was the last woman and she mused to herself. “These people will never leave me alone. They will continue to work their evil designs on me unless I leave this evil place”
✦✦✦
Three of the chiefs walked into Morako’s hut. He was sitting with an expression of loss on his face.
“Morako! Morako!!” They called repeatedly.
He snapped out of his distant mindedness, his face losing its vacant expression. “Have you seen Imade? She attacked a chief recently.” Morako looked uncomprehendingly at the chief.
“She is acting crazy. But that is not the issue. She is missing, and some tracks were found leading out of the village, towards the path that leads to the forest of fears. What do you know about this?”
Morako seemed to comprehend them, and the alarm started on his face. He shook his head, but more in apprehension than in answer.
“She would not actually be so foolish just to spite us, would she?” one of the elders said. “I told hunter Agabo to contact me here once they were sure it was her.” They looked at Morako who was now staring into nothingness. At that moment, a hunter knocked, and they opened for him. He brought news that Imade had indeed left the village for the forest of fears.
“Ah, has she?” Morako said and muttered to himself. “Even without the radiation, that forest has creatures that will kill her a thousand times over. And the Mbadiwe lurk there.”
“Assemble a team,” one of the chiefs said. “We must go after her immediately, for her own good and more importantly for the good of Ife-Iyoku.”
The hunter nodded and left. The chiefs all stood. One of them barked at Morako. “Do you even care about any of this?”
“The boy has lost his mind,” another chief said.
“It does not matter,” Morako said to himself after they had left him. His face still carried the vacant expression of one who had lost in his mind before losing physically. “She hates me.”
He stood up and opened a box and brought out a new wrapper. He unfolded it and tied it into a noose.
She awoke to the blazing light of a torch on her face. She squinted at the brightness of the torch. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she noticed that the figure holding the torch held a calabash in the other hand. The figure brought the mouth of the calabash to her parched lips and she drank greedily and without apprehension. The water dribbled down her mouth and she coughed. She finally focused on the figure and saw with surprise that it was the Ooni.
“Help me please,” she said in relief and nodded at her bonds. She tried to stretch out her hand as if already loosened. Then, when the help did not come, she noticed the Ooni smiling slyly at her as if she was a plaything for his amusement. His eyes were yellow, and he had a somewhat rough and feral look about him.
“Things have changed Imade,” he said, and even his voice sounded different. “I am no longer the Ooni you knew. I am more than that here.” He made a gesture and several figures crept closer. It was the figures with yellow eyes. She stretched her jaw and winced at the pain and taste of blood she had forgotten in her struggles and bigger worries.
She knew the figures were the Mbadiwe, the outcasts of several years ago. They had not died but evolved and adapted to survive in Igbo Igboya. They were strong, powerful-looking, and half-naked with only loin cloths and ragged apparel to cover their members. Some of them were stark naked. They had fierce glowing yellow eyes, powerful claws and jagged, serrated teeth. Their hair was
dirty and matted.
She turned to the one she had known to be the Ooni. “I see you have found a new group to lead.”
“A new group to control, not to lead,” he said. He made a gesture and the creatures twisted and writhed on the floor. As he twisted his hands, the creatures reacted similarly, like puppets responding to their strings. Imade looked with disgust at both the Ooni and the hapless creatures under his control. He looked quite mad to her. His glowing yellow eyes had a focused, abnormal intensity.
She said, “It seems the radiation in Igbo Igboya does more than twist the body and kill.”
The Ooni threw back his head and let out a loud laughter.
In a sudden curiosity, Imade asked: “How do you control them and what will
you do with me now?”
The Ooni stopped chuckling and said in a more intense voice: “I have plans for the village of Ife-Iyoku. After the explosion, I benefited from the upsurge in power. I gained the ability to completely control the bodies of any of the gifted. I can do more than simply switch on and off their powers. I have implicit control now. These rejected ones have evolved beyond what any of them formerly were. Those who survived the radiation are stronger and faster than the hunters. You saw the bodies of the hunters, did you not?”
“So you killed them?” she said in disgust. “Why?”
“To test the power difference between the old and the new breed of hunters. And because they are not part of the new order I am building, they were unworthy to be in it and trespassed in coming here. They failed to obey the sacred charge by Obatala to survive.”
Imade looked confused at his last words. One of the rejected held the torch aloft and it cast a frightening shadow of the Ooni as he paced and gesticulated wildly, explaining his mad plans to Imade.
She asked, “What of the sacred charge? What business is our survival to you now? Did you not exile yourself? Have you not become an Mbadiwe?”
The misshapen hunters began to yap and growl. A look from the Ooni silenced them. He turned to Imade and said, “The prophecy said that we were to survive till Obatala returned. That task is now my charge as the last man.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “If anyone is the last of anything, I am the one.”
“No,” he said. “After the destruction and in the latest upsurge, I gained the power to control. A leader must have the power to control. Look at you. You are just a woman. Women cannot wield power. Nature chose us for that and chose you for the task of breeding. The jump skipped you, did it not? Have you wondered why?” Imade was silent. In truth, she had wondered. Her face must have given that away. The Ooni’s eyes blazed in triumph.
“It is because you are unworthy. You are unruly and unwilling. That is why any significant power skipped you. No power was gifted you with which you can escape your foreordained task. The only power you were granted was the power to produce and carry on life. Like the one you carry within you.”
Imade started.
“Oh, you don’t know it?” he said. “You are with child. That whelp of mine must have finally done something manly for once.”
Imade was numb with disbelief. “It was just yesterday,” she said aloud to herself. “How do you know I am with a child anyway?”
“You forget that I have the ability to control the gifted. All the gifted, even the yet unformed. I can sense the one in your womb. I cannot control it yet, but I can sense the part of it that makes up the gifts of Obatala. And do you wonder how? Conception was recent perhaps, just yesterday you said?”
Imade was silent.
He was thoughtful for a second then said. “I see now that I was wrong. The jump did not skip you; it merely affected you in other ways. It accelerated your reproductive processes. As the last woman you evolved in ways that would ensure our survival. No wonder I was able to sense the child. This one will be strong and will grow swiftly. It will have a place in our new world order.”
Imade cast him a look of pure loathing. “I curse you and your new world order and this child that I don’t even want.”
“Don’t be like that Imade. It is our collective charge to survive and ensure our continuity. Nature has merely imbued you with that ability. Now you may conceive in a matter of weeks. And this way we may populate Ife-Iyoku in no time. Though in all honesty I had planned to tear down what you know as Ife-Iyoku and rebuild the land with a stronger tribe. I wish to repopulate the land with these ones who have survived greater ordeal. We will keep you here after we destroy the old ones. We will keep you for ourselves and build our tribe with you.”
He gestured to the rejected. “Cut her loose, she is with child now. But there is no reason you may not have sport with her.”
One of the rejected slashed the rope with his clawed nails. It gave way immediately. Imade might have noted how sharp the claws had to be to cut those thick ropes so easily if she had not been preoccupied with all she had just learned. The Mbadiwe pounced on her. Three of them fought over her, leaving her in the dirt. They punched and clawed each other for the right to mate with her.
The Ooni cut in. “Enough! Must you act like dogs without my guiding voice?” He pointed at one of the rejected and said, “Now, you will go first.” The rest slunk away and the chosen one pounced on Imade. She tried to fight him off, but these Mbadiwe were stronger than even the regular hunters, who were themselves stronger than regular men. He picked her up and slammed her on the ground twice and she stopped moving and surrendered. He started to rip her clothes off.
Just then, one of the rejected came and communicated something to the Ooni. He signalled to the rejected who was about to mount Imade. When the rejected did not respond, the Ooni used his power on it and it fell to the ground, contorting.
“I will not be disobeyed,” the Ooni said as if in afterthought. Then after the rejected stopped writhing, the Ooni added, “I have just received message that the hunters of Ife-Iyoku are amassing and preparing to come into the forest for her.”
Imade crawled gently to a tree and leaned against it.
The Ooni addressed her without looking in her direction. “They want to come and fight for you as the last woman. I think they now realize your value in the continuity of their tribe.”
Imade merely looked at him from where she leaned. Her eyes had begun to turn a dull yellow.
“Imade!” the Ooni called. And when she still said no words to him, he said, “We will return for you when we have destroyed the others and made them Mbadiwe. Then we will burn the village and let all who will join the new order meet us here.” As they turned to leave, Imade shouted after him, “My name is Imadeyunuagbon. I have not come into this world by mistake. I was put here for a purpose. I shall not fall into the hands of the world or to its expectations.”
The Ooni chuckled. “Invoking your full name will do you no good now. They are just words. You were born for a purpose, yes; and that purpose is to ensure the continuity of life. You have already fallen into my hand. And I will make you meet and conform to my expectations. Your name is meaningless. Imadeyunuagbon!” He spat after saying her name and motioned to one of the rejected. “Secure her.”
That one moved to tie her back.
“Call the others,” the Ooni shouted at the rejected tying up Imade.
A moment later, dozens and dozens of the rejected lopped from the surrounding forest. The Ooni raised his hand and started to walk towards the village. All the rejected let out yaps and barks, lopping and jumping after him.
FOREST
It was getting dark in Igbo Igboya. Imade coughed and stumbled over a vine. She was starting to think to herself that maybe coming here was not such a good idea. She had no map, did not know where she was going and sooner or later the radiation would get to her. With her gift she had managed to slow its progress and how it affected her body.
She decided to find the path that led to the village of Ife-Iyoku. It was better to return with shame to the land she knew than to remain in
this place of uncertain dread. But as she turned on her homeward path, she stumbled over something. She squawked in fright when she realized it was a body.
She thought, “It must be one of the exiled, the rejected.” But the body looked rather fresh, like someone just coming from civilisation and not of one who had been living in the wild. Its hair was well braided. And he had multiple stab wounds all over his body and his throat had been ripped out.
She found the path she sought and hastened along it. Some steps along the path, she found several other bodies, mangled and scattered about. They were hunters; and now she realised the first body was a hunter’s too. She wondered what could have killed a group of hunters in this manner. She knew that Igbo Igboya was a dangerous place where all manner of creatures haunted and hunted, but she could not think of any creature that could kill a group of trained hunters in this manner. It seemed as though the hunters had not hunted but had been hunted right from the onset. And then it dawned on her as in a revelation that these hunters had come from the village probably in search of her, the last woman.
The guilt of this realization, and the knowledge that she was the cause of these deaths, caused her to start running. Something caught her leg and she lost her footing, sailing to land on the ground in a painful thud. She groaned, rolling about in pain.
She opened her eyes to see a pair of yellow, feral eyes looking at her. The eyes were attached to an inhuman-looking face. Coarse, rough hair grew on the face, and its teeth were yellow and jagged, serrated as if they had been filed to look like fangs.
Drool dripped from its mouth; its arms were corded and rippled with muscles; and its hands were lined with sharp and dirty claws. She got a good look of the clawed hands as they swung at her face in a full-forced slap that sent her into blackness.
When she woke, she found herself tied to a tree. She struggled vainly against the cords, then gave up struggling when she realised she was tied too tightly. She screamed for help, hoping one of the hunting parties searching for her would find her. But no one came.
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