THE UNION

AYO & NGOZI

The next morning, Ayo is looking around in Papa's office hoping to find clues to defeat Essence. He still doesn't take Ngozi allegations serious rather he is just going this to fulfill all justice, he sits down on a chair after searching for hours and finding nothing. He stares at his cybernetic body and sighs. "This isn't the life I signed up for."

In 2006, Abuja State. Ayo lives in a duplex with his family and has no robotic part implanted in him, he had a perfect family, both his parents were alive and had three siblings. He puts on a brown Jersey and picks up a basketball, he always enjoyed playing basketball with his friends and most times when he goes out like this he ends up getting back home very late.

Ayo leaves the house and starts jogging to the basketball court, the court wasn't really far from his house and his friends were already calling him to hurry up. He mistakenly pushes a young white lady.

"I'm so sorry." He says this as he helps her get up, the lady stares at him.

"Thank......." She falls on the ground before she could finish what she wanted to say, Ayo gets scared as people start facing them.

"Help me get to my car." She points to a black Jeep, Ayo carries her there. The lady eyes start glowing into different colours, she focuses it on Ayo and he faints.

Ayo wakes up in a very dizzy state, he finds himself in a small dark room and his hands and legs are tied with a rope on a bed. He struggles to escape but the rope is to strong.

"Somebody help!" He continues shouting and he suddenly stops after three minute fully aware he was kidn*pped but what for? Ayo never had issues with anyone, he was a very easy-going person. His thought went to the white lady, could she be punishing him for why he did? He knew wasn't possible, he was very polite and helpful to her when she fell. A young white man wearing a white coloured lab coat walks in, he was very tall and he had a lot of wrinkles on his skin.

"Hey, if you're the brother of that lady then I can assure you i didn't mean it so just let me go." The man and the lady looked alike so Ayo first thought was that the guy was her brother, the man clears his throat and speaks.

"Welcome to the place where you will be better as a human being." This man was Bryan and he was the leader of a group called "The Organization." The members of the group are different white men and women, they experimented on black people in order to discover different new creations in the world. Ayo had become their next prey.

"I'm Bryan and I want to help you Ayo, you are going to be fine and when you wake up you're going to be better." Ayo quickly gets scared and pleads that he should be let go, he had never been in any situation like this at all. He had always minded his business and kept a tight circle.

"Please let me go, I have a family." Ayo voice shakens as he talks, Bryan brings out a syringe from his pocket and moves his head really close to Ayo. "Don't worry, we'll take care of your family." He injects the syringe on Ayo leg which knocks Ayo down.

Ayo wakes up again still dizzy and still on a bed, he looks around and sees different scientist putting on mask checking out his body.

"Where.......... I'm..........." He talks in a very low tone, he faces his head down and sees that his left leg has been cut off. "What the f**k!" He screams, one of the scientist quickly notices that he is awake and injects a syringe on his right leg knocking Ayo down. The lady who kidn*pped Ayo removes her mask.

"We need to make sure he isn't awake while the surgery goes on." She says firmly, a young black boy wearing a mask walks in with a rectangular box, he doesn't move close to the scientists and his body starts shaking, the lady grabs the box from him.

"Now get out of here" She points to the door and the boy runs out of the room. She opens the box and inside is a moving eye, it leaves a blue trail anytime it shakes, the lady grabs the eye and grips her arm. This eye was a living being from another dimension, The Organization were after it but we're only able to recover the eye.

"Cut off his eye." She says firmly.

Ayo eyes opens gradually, he sees the scientists panicking around the room but he is just to weak to get up. Blood is all around the floor and even on Ayo body.

"The machine were using is going to overload, we can't contain this power." A scientist says, Ayo left hand raises up without his will and it releases a powerful beam on the wall, the whole building starts breaking down. Ayo sleeps off again.

Ayo wakes up and sees different dead bodies of the scientists laying on the floor, his hand had be freed from the rope but as he tried to get up his body felt really heavy, he struggled and heard sounds of clutches. He manages to get up and stares at a window, he quickly turns around out of disgust, he couldn't stare at his face and tears start rolling down from his only human eye, he touches the robot eye and felt a part of his humanity had already departed from him.

"What happened here? Did I do this." He stares at the dead body of the scientist, a satisfactory smile is shown on his face.

"I pray they rot in hell." He quickly finds his way out of the building but he can't move his legs again, he falls on the ground.

"Come on." He worries as he fears that The Organization might find him again, all was in Ayo's mind was getting back to his family his dad knew a popular doctor who could help him with his issue. A black can parks in front of him and Papa comes down from it, Ayo quickly gets scared thinking Papa's one of The Organization memebers he streches his robotic hand towards Papa.

"Stay away from me." Gboyega shouts, Papa raises both his hands up and tries to ease Ayo down.

"Calm down boy, I'm here to help you. We need to go before they come after you again and I know you might not trust me for very good reasons but let me take you home." Papa moves closer to Ayo and Ayo let's his guard down, he felt some warmth around Papa and his voice shakens as he talks.

"I just want to go to my family." Tears roll down from Ayo's only eye, Papa helps him get up and assist him to get to the van.

"It's a long story about your family and I've been monitoring this Organization for a very long time, thank you for burning this place down." Papa says relieved, he had spent many years trying to destroy this establishment but it has been done! He can live in peace.

A year had passed since Ayo escaped with Papa, he had moved with Papa after figuring out The Organization killed his family. One particular day Ayo heads out while wearing a hoodie and oversized jeans to cover up his robotic body. Ayo goes to his family house and stand in front of the place.

"I miss you guys every time." He breathes out and walks away. He moves to the basketball court and watches his old friends play, he wants to go to them but is afraid that they might run off, he looks away and runs off to Papa house.

Ayo sits at the rooftop of a building of a building and stares at the sunset, he suddenly hears the disoriented voice of a person talking in a robotic sound.

"Who's there." He gets really curious and starts looking around, the sound of the robot starts hitting his head.

"I'm Slip." Ayo heard the robot voice again and figures out it's comings from his mind, he is mentally connected with the robot voice.

"Who is Slip?" Ayo ask as he as never experienced any power with the robotic part in me except that it was heavy to lift his body.

"I was born when your body was infused into mine, took a year for me to be able to reach you." Ayo gets a little bit excited and gets really curious.

"What can you do?" He hopes his robotic side will have some advantages.

"I'm getting a list of what you can do with your robotic side." Slip says, Ayo sighs in relief.

"That's amazing, at least it's good to know I'm not alone."

Ngozi is in her room laying on her bed and looking at the ceiling, she doesn't want to get up and do anything for today she felt tired and traumatized after seeing the poor old man died. Daisy suddenly appears while floating, Daisy is quite the talkative.

"Everywhere is messed up in the amulet, you have to come and check it................." Daisy goes on but Ngozi isn't concentrating she seems bothered about something else something that happened in her past.

In 1990, a young lady is in the hospital trying to deliver a baby, this lady struggles to give birth to the child and uses all her energy to conceive the baby this causes her to lose a lot of blood. After pushing multiple times and with the assistance of the lady mother and female nurses around her she gives birth to a female child but does after few minutes later.

In 1992, the lady mother holds the the female child left hand and takes her around, she then carries her and places her on her lap. "Ngozi, I know you won't understand what I'm saying right now but you will in the future." This old lady was Adanna, Ngozi Grandmother she had taken Ngozi in since Samson Ngozi father never had time to come home and see his child, the last felt pain inside her belly she knew it was her time to go, she brings out the red crested amulet.

"This amulet has been passed from generation to generation of different strong women and it's going to protect you when I can't anymore. I know you don't understand anything that I'm saying now but you will, the amulet will always find you and I'm sure that when you're older you'll understand more" Adanna wears the amulet around Ngozi's neck and puts her closer to her stomach, the amulet glows in a very bright red colour which symbolizes that it has accept to shift it's powers to Ngozi.

Two years later, Ngozi is on her way to school she felt very troubled cause she just moved to another school, no one ever liked her at her former they would always call her "Dumb Igbo girl" cause she was one of the few Igbo in her school. Ngozi uniform was ironed and she hoped for the best as a normal kid would, she goes to the back seat and settles there, no one was seating beside her until three other girls sitting in the front walk up to her. Ngozi stared at them in admiration, they wore accessories with their uniforms.

"Are you okay?" The black skinned girl in the middle talks very calmly and concerned. Ngozi stammers a bit, she felt unsecured she only wore her green and white uniform with a typical black sandal.

"I'm fine." She gulps, the girl standing on the left grabs Ngozi hand and drags her out of her chair.

"Then come and sit with us in the front." The girl says, Ngozi nervously chuckles and was feeling a bit better, she brought out her amulet she was keeping in her pocket and wears it around her neck.

Getting to school, Ngozi goes to sit beside the girls they made sure to take her with them anywhere she goes so she won't feel alone, they genuinely cared about her. After settling in the classroom, a young light skinned boy called Chris walks in and sits beside Ngozi, he admired her amulet and tries to touch it.

"Your amulet is nice." He says as he moves his hand close to the amulet, Ngozi hits his hand with hers and tells him to back off.

"That's not nice at all." Ngozi says, they both shake hands.

"I'm Chris." He smiles. Ngozi chuckles happy she is already making friends.

"I'm Ngozi." Ngozi replies, she felt this place was right for her.

Ngozi, Chris and the girls suddenly became a group, they did everything together and everyone knew them. Ngozi knew more about herself as she continued hanging out with them, she joined a female football team and participated in other sports. She lived her fullest life and have never felt this kind of happiness in her life.

Two years later, one particular day Ngozi gets back from school exicted she passed her maths test while most didn't do well. She walks into a three bedroom bungalow house, her father Samson a huge man sits on a chair watching tv.

"Good afternoon Dad." She greets him, Ngozi didn't bother to show him her test score he never actually cared or bothered to ask they both weren't close, when Ngozi was given birth to she didn't live with him rather she was with Adanna. Samson said he never had time to take care of anyone and he was always busy but now that Adanna is dead he has to take responsibility.

"How was school?" Samson's voice was very deep, Ngozi is shocked by his question he had never asked her before.

"It was fine." She quickly responds hoping to finally have a conversation with him.

"Why don't I help you with your uniform?" Samson stands up and moves behind Ngozi, he grabbed her around her waist and puts his body closer to her back.

"Don't tell anyone dear." He says quietly, he puts his hand around her neck and starts choking her, Ngozi is confused about what's going on and a flood of tears rushed down from her eyes. She had no one to call to help her all she could do was keep quiet.

The next morning, Ngozi is a mess her hair isn't done, he uniform is rough and dirty. She runs to the back seat, her friends quickly run towards her to comfort her.

"Is everything okay Ngozi?" One of them says, she stares at them without answering all she could see was her father's face, she lashes out at them.

"Leave me alone!" Ngozi yelled, the girls quickly run off not to cause a scene. She couldn't trust anyone, if her own Father could have done such terrible thing to her what could other people do?

For weeks Samson does the same thing to Ngozi without feeling any guilt, most times when he is done with he'll always tell her that.

"If I'm going to be taking care of you then I can do anything that I want with you." He wouldn't stop and he'll always tell her to learn new styles even though she couldn't grasp what he meant. One night after Samson is done with Ngozi, she goes into a state of shock she couldn't move her body and tears were flooding down from her eyes. She wished she had a good father who would be there for here and take care of her that was her only wish at that present moment. Her amulet suddenly starts glowing, a wave of wind hits her clearing her wet eyes and face, a white baby gorilla is suddenly standing in front of her.

"You summoned me with your amulet" He says and bows down to her, Ngozi opens her mouth wide she was about to shout at first but felt it was best she didn't cause of Samson.

"Who are you?" Ngozi wasn't scared of the gorilla rather she felt it was amazing.

"I'm your friend and let me just tell you that I'll always be there for you." The gorilla says, Ngozi sits on the floor and the gorilla sits beside her, she chuckles and for a very long time she didn't feel alone.