The Other Side.

Chapter 3

Nathifa's endorphins disappear, as she pales, her body trembling in fear, she can feel the eye of her classmates piercing, Lolo snares at them and snatches their plates out of their hands and she passes them to the goons behind her, Nathifa wants the ground to swallow her whole, "small rat and her friend," Nathifa takes a step back but Lolo takes one forward towering over the tiny girl, "I-I-I'm sorry, senior Lolo," Nathifa doesn't know what she's apologizing for but she hopes it would calm her down, instead Lolo laughs and shoves her, Nathifa loses her balance and fall on her butt. She wants to cry, she feels so humiliated as Lolo and her friend's laughter rings in her head, she clenches her fist forcing back her tears.

"Leave her alone," Nyakio hisses, Lolo stops laughing. "Excuse me?" Nyakio glares at the older girl, "she didn't do anything to you so leave her alone," Lolo cackles humorlessly, "you dey craze? No, no, you dey ment? Who the f**k do you think you are? First you no get mouth to talk now you have the guts to talk back!" Lolo all but screeches, she looks possessed, veins trobbing around her forehead, her eyes are red and bulging and spittle flies from her mouth when she speaks. She shoves Nyakio but the girl doesn't stumble, "you f**king b**ch!" Lolo screams and throws a punch, it catches Nyakio on the cheek. The punch echoes through the cafeteria, Nyakio groans and stumbles backwards clutching her throbbing cheek, Lolo smiles in satisfaction, she so badly wants to show the older girl that she's not afraid of her, that she's dealt with worse, her fingers itch for the switch-blade in her pocket, but she stops herself, she can't she can't risk it.

The older girl's laughter echoes through her head, it makes her blood boil as the girl sneers at her, her blood boils, she tries to calm herself down, she tries to count to ten, "ode" Nyakio sees red and spits in the older girl's face, "insecure sh*t!" She screams, it happens so fast Nyakio is actually impressed, the older girl swings another punch, it catches Nyakio right in the face, and Nyakio swears she heard her nose break, Nyakio hears a scream it's probably Nathifa, the girl doesn't stop there, she pounces on Nyakio and the cafeteria goes wild.

The girl lands blow after blow, Nyakio blocks most of them, by now her anger has dissipated, so she lets Lolo have her fun, she's already made things worse she might as well pay for it. The punches are starting to take their toll and by the time the cafeteria prefects peel the girl off her, Nyakio can barely feel her face, red hot pain throbs through her entire face, her nose feels stuffed, her ears are ringing and she can barely keep her eyes open. "Nyakio? Nyakio can you hear me?" She can make out a blurry figure of Nathifa leaning over her, the girl sounds like she's on the verge of tears. Nyakio grunts to let her know she's alive and her vision goes black.

"That was something else," Kiki says referring to the earlier fight, Afiwa hums in agreement, she was still surprised Nyakio had the guts to stand up to senior Lolo, she shudders, she couldn't even make eye contact with the girl.

The next class after lunch is business studies, Kiki groans as Mr Mustapha enters the class, "I'm sleeping in this class," Kiki says as the man proceeds to write the note on the black board, Afiwa doesn't blame the girl, she'll probably sleep in class if she could, Mr Mustapha wasn't exactly one of the interesting teachers, his class seemed to go on for more than forty minutes.

Afiwa tries to focus on copying the note on the board but she can't, mama Agbodi's cryptic warning still echoes in her head, 'maybe if I keep an eye on her nothing will happen? I could sleepover at her house today to watch her during the night,' with that comforting thought, Afiwa continues writing.

Mr Mustapha begins his class properly and thanks to his monotone voice and the breeze from the window beside her Afiwa finds herself drifting off to sleep.

BAM!

BAM!

Afiwa jerks up , blinking trying to clear her blurry vision, "you're already sleeping on the first day of JSS3 I pity you, you're not ready for this class or your external exam-" Afiwa barely registers his speech, Kiki's seat is empty, her stomach sinks with dread as bile creeps up her throat, "Mr Mustapha can I go and use the toilet?" The man glares at her, an obvious, no. Afiwa gnaws on her lower lip, she can only hope that nothing happens to Kiki.

Nyakio slowly opens her eyes, her face feel swollen, she groans and sits up, the events from earlier replaying in her head, she sighs hopes Lolo doesn't attack Nathifa, after-all she let the girl beat her up, so that should be more than enough. She climbs out of bed and slips on her shoes, the nurse is playing candy-crush on her phone, she looks up "you're awake, how do you feel?" "Sore," the nurse chuckles and Nyakio wonders what's funny, "before school is over come back for your medication," Nyakio nods and leaves the infirmary.

She heads for the toilet. Thankfully it's empty, she quickly does her business and just as she's about to leave she hears a gagging sound from the stall next to her, "are you okay?" she asks, "yeah," a familiar voice replies, "Kiki?"

"Nyakio, what's up?" The girl replies she peeking at her from atop the stall, "your face looks like sh*t," Nyakio rolls her eyes, "get out joor," she retorts lamely, the girl chuckles and her head disappears over the stall.

Nyakio washes her hands and face and makes her way out.

And then she hears it.

A blood-curdling scream like the ones in horror movies.

It rattles Nyakio, "Kiki?" she calls going back to the stall, she knocks on the door. Silence.

Then an ear-splitting scream, it almost sounds inhumane echoing through Nyakio's head even though she covers her ears with her hands.

Silence.

The light goes out throwing her in darkness, Nyakio's heartbeat quickens, she wants to run, to call for help, to do anything, but fear keeps rooted to the spot, in the darkness everything looks like a horrifying monster; the open stall doors look like wide gaping jaws of monsters, the breeze coming in from the open bathroom window sounds the like the whistle of the grim reaper and the constant dripping noise of the taps behind her sounds like blood dripping from a dead body.

She reaches for her switchblade, holding it in front of her with both hands and leaning against the sink behind her. There's a loud rattling sound, followed by a high-pitched screech even louder than the screams from earlier and it certainly isn't Kiki.

Nyakio covers her eyes sliding to the ground as the toilet goes berserk, the doors and windows open and close in an eerie cacophony of noise that matches her erratic heartbeat, at this point she's muttering all the prayers she knows begging to live.

Nyakio wants to scream for help, but she can't. She's afraid that if she does, whatever is in there will hear her and come after her. She closes her eyes, covers her ears and hurries her face in her knees praying whatever is there would disappear and that she would wake up and this would be a horrible nightmare.

But that never happens.

The scream comes again louder and longer seemingly never ending, the scream turns to a gurgle like someone choking on blood, and a sickly crunch quickly follows.

There's silence for a few seconds and Nyakio still doesn't raise her head, she buries it deeper between her knees

There's a loud rustling noise from the stall like someone exhaling loudly and she feels something breathing down her neck and against her skin, leaving goose-pimples in it's wake, she screws her eyes shut 'please don't let it kill me, please don't let it kill me,' she begs in her head

She feels something cold wrap around her neck, 'this is it,' she thinks to herself, she screws her eyes tighter praying the death would be swift.

And the lights return.

The creature vanishes.

The door of Kiki's stall swings open and Nyakio pulls herself up on her feet, her heart slams against her ribcage as if trying to break free as she slowly makes her way to Kiki's stall.

The metallic stench of blood infiltrates her senses, the marbled tiles of the toilet are painted red, she traces the blood to its source.

And she screams.