Point of no Return

At The Croosroads of Hades

Five

At the Crossroads of Hades

The room was empty! Not a sign that someone had been there tonight. Even with the lights on, Jennifer still beamed the flashlight on her phone just to make sure she was not missing any detail of value. Exasperated, she paced the room reluctantly. Sensing her plight, Ken chose to speak gently, lest he sparks an unexpected plug.

“Jennifer… I think we should go. It’s only an hour to daybreak and you need a little rest, please. As the daybreaks, we might be surer of the measures to take. But my gut tells me everything will be fine,” he said.

“What if someone got word of his recent transaction and arranged for him to be kidnapped? What if…” she just broke the sentence and sighed heavily. Kennedy made to say something but thought better of it. He just sighed, shrugged and led the way out of the bedroom, crossing the living room to the exit. It was time for him to be careful. Now that Jennifer was suggesting foul-play and kidnapping, the nearest suspect would be him. In fact, every way of getting out of this conundrum was bad for him. Besides, he genuinely felt the loss too. Despite a few differences in personality, Tile was indeed a good friend and they’d had a great time together in the last five years.

 Jennifer followed him closely behind. But as she reached the centre of the sitting room, she paused and looked back. Perhaps to make sure this was some trick, or perhaps out of instinct or desperate hope; but she confirmed nothing, so she just sprinted out swiftly as if she was realizing the futility of her effort for the first time.

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Tile opened his eyes with a start. He felt this haze in his head that he couldn’t explain and he seemed to remember nothing. Then he saw them. About ten or so of them, staring wide-eyed at him as he lay on his back to the ground. It was just then he realized something had gone terribly wrong. Then he heard something like spoken language, in a bold baritone voice, but it was all gibberish to him.

“Uvuku, katapilaka zapo!” One of them was saying to a younger one.

“Uzipa kataki taka taka,” the young one said and sped off. He ran like a lame deer.

His awareness was more awake now; then the shock hit him. “Where in the hell am I?” he asked in a frightened whisper.

The one, who had spoken, apparently their leader, thought Tile was referring to him, so he bent his ear to his mouth and asked: “Utako ku?”

Tile did not reply. Even if he wanted to reply, what would he say when he barely understood the question? However, he used the opportunity to take a good look at the sweet-smelling creature crouching to him. He had ears like a rabbit and his hair was green and thick like green moth. The strands of hair sprouting from his long corky ears looked incongruous like spirogyra growing on human skin. But was this even human?

When the corky ears did not hear any answer from him, he stood up and issued another order to one of the other beings. Without notice, the other came forward swiftly and yanked Tile up to a sitting position. Then gradually, the images started sinking. All of these creatures had only one large eye situated where one could call the forehead. Their skin was smooth but patched with patterns like a toad’s. Green hairs sprouted sparsely on the pale watery-looking skin. They had a wide mouth but with a fine dentition. If it were in the human world, these creatures could easily pass off as human amphibians going by their skin texture.  

The females were very beautiful. Even with the odd-looking one eye and snout-shaped nose, their beauty was not hidden. They had finely-cut lips that would hunger their kind to kiss at all times; that is if they knew anything about kissing. Their one eye was beautiful too and they had a seductive lull in the eye that was very piercing when they looked you in the eye. They dressed in leather-strapping that exposed almost all their long thin thighs all the way to the feet on which they wore leather-strapped sandals in the fashion of Biblical Jews. They dressed like amazons depicted in DC Comics. The dress covered most of their chest and the private area to the small buttocks behind. Everything hair on the body was green spirogyra. The females had long hair that was woolly, deep green, and dragged like Jamaican dreadlocks, and with other growths sprouting out of it like ferns. Their bare arms looked slender but purposeful. Some of them held swords with beautiful sheaths, and others held containers that carried unseen stuff.     

The males were muscular and carried some ancient-looking gadgetry with modern designs that were clearly weapons. They dressed in the same strapping as the females but fashioned in male designs. But they also wore fine long furs like mantles over the leather unlike the women. The look in their one eye was purposeful and determined and they seemed to have little time for bullshit. Clearly, they had been through a lot already. From what Tile could gather so far, this must be an elite force or military scouts of sorts. Soon, the younger one who had sped off returned with a handful of bushy collection. He handed the grass to the leader who had sent him.

The leader took the grass, plucked some leaves thereof and handed the rest back to the boy. He then rubbed the leaves in his palms with long scrawny fingers. He said another order to the other who had yanked Tile up; he came forward and held Tile’s head and pinned it to the ground. The leader then squeezed the liquid from the crushed grass into Tile’s nose and he sneezed violently.

“Utako Ku?” the leader repeated the question.

This time, Tile heard him and understood him perfectly. What in the hell did they administer to him? He was now picking all the chattering behind him coming from the females. They were all wondering how he had come there and what creature he was.

“My name is Tile… Tile Atu,” he answered.

“Where do you come from?” the leader asked.

Tile was at loss of how to answer this particular question. If only he knew the geographical coordinates of his whereabouts, he’d know how best to answer that question. So instead of answering the question, he asked: “where am I?”

“You are at the crossroads of the living and the dead. How did you get here?” Scrawny fingers asked.

This question was what brought pain and shame to Tile immediately. Suddenly, he remembered everything. Jennifer, Mr. Atir, Kennedy, the night party, the deal, Baba Ortwar… he sat up abruptly. Then he managed himself up to his feet. As he stood up, all the one-eyed creatures took a step or two back. Panic gripped him as the realization of how far away from home he must have been began to dawn on him. He then saw the abedegȏdo lying a few inches away. One of the creatures was holding onto the bundle of his clothes. As soon as he saw his clothes, he realized he was naked. Stark naked. He quickly noticed the blush on the females’ faces and a curious look on the males.

“What do you mean by ‘crossroads of the living and the dead?” Tile asked, still surprised that he was now speaking with and understanding these creatures in their language. As he said this, he reached for his clothes at the same time. The gullible looking creature quickly handed him the clothes and he began to wear them.  

“You are in the land of Kuv, the planet next to the dead. My name is Boju. I am the commander of the army of Mugulubu,” the scrawny fingers said.

Although Tile did not understand where Kuv was, or what Mugulubu implied, but he just said: “I am from Nigeria, Benue State to be precise.”

Now it was Boju’s turn to look confused. “Where is this Najiriya?” he asked.

“Somewhere in West Africa”, Tile answered, still not sure which part of the world he was. Then he remembered that Boju had just mentioned 'planet'. As he observed the atmosphere closer now, he realized that indeed, this was not familiar ground. The atmosphere of Kuv was amber in colour. It felt like one of those late sunsets in West of Africa during harmattan season. The sun was a lull, dark, round shade in the sky. It seemed like it was not in a hurry to shine, if at all it ever shined. The sandy area upon which they stood looked like a desert of sorts, covered by flimsy flakes of snow. But down beyond the sandy area was a dense forest of gigantic trees that looked taller than telecommunication masts. Tile noticed that, although this lot appeared sophisticated in their own right, their attitude came off as foolish or stupid even.

Without asking any other questions, Boju beckoned to the running lad and he produced a gadget that looked like a phone, but heavily crusted like a phone that may have been used in ancient Greece. Boju removed a sharp knife from somewhere within his mantle and cut into Tile’s index finger, who was too unsure to protest. As the blood began to drip, Boju took his gadget, pressed an unseen button and the screen came to life. There was a small glassy provision to fit in a finger at the edge of the ancient looking gadget. He took Tile’s bleeding finger and placed in the finger area. There was an instant beep and a human skeleton appeared on the deep-blue screen with the picture of the globe at the bottom edge of the screen. A stream of symbols like ancient alphabets appeared on the screen and flowed ceaselessly from bottom of the screen to the top besides the skeleton. Boju read the information and turned to peer cautiously at Tile.

“How is this possible, is there life on earti?” he asked but did not wait for an answer. He still returned back to his screen. After a little while of observing the screen, he turned to the others and announced: “he is from earti, but he is not the enemy.”

The others were clearly shocked. All Tile could hear was a spontaneous gasp of, “eartiling” from the others. By now, Tile was fully dressed with his shoes on, but still confused and clearly not thinking just yet.

“How did you say you came here?” Boju asked.

“I didn’t say, but that brought me here,” Tile answered pointing to the abedegȏdo on the ground. As he made to pick it up, Boju reached it first and picked it up. He observed the strange-looking ‘gadget’ and carefully put it somewhere inside his cloak.

“I think I should have that back,” Tile said firmly.

“I think you should see Kanka, king of our cretѐ, he will decide what happens to you.” As Boju said this, he started going, walking with a lazy gradual glide. He made no effort to coerce Tile into following him or gave any order to that effect. As the others started following in a straight line, Tile too just fell in line and started following these strange creatures with whom he was now communicating in their language. He began to think of Jennifer and Mr. Alex Atir; of his new deal and how to get back home to proceed. It began to dawn on him how worried Jennifer might be and where they thought he must have gone. And Ken… Ken should better go to Ortwar to tell him that he has gone missing, so they could find a way to get him out of here. Or was it even possible that Ken would be thinking in that light? How in the hell was he going to get out of this place called Kuv? It was at this time that he realized he was indeed at the crossroads of life and death.