The Last Bend

Staring Into the Pit I

Everything sounds better,

Everything looks brighter

Everything tastes better

Well everything we do feels better.

The song ended and she pressed pause as she flagged down the vehicle.

Ruth Njeri got into the blaring matatu and shut the window as she took out her Samsung J4+. She looked at the guy at her right who was smiling at her and she smiled back then looked back at her phone. It pinged as a message arrived from her twin sister.

She felt someone sit beside her and she looked up to see the guy smiling at her. He greeted her and she nodded her head. She wasn’t in the mood to be hit at so she put on her earphones, putting on her Dej Loaf playlist. She heard the man click in anger and move away.

Fifteen minutes later, she alighted and headed to her workplace. She walked in the busy warehouse where she was acknowledged as she headed to her office. Today was the day when she had to write LPOs as well as pay the invoices. She hated having debts and she was one of the few businesses around the city that paid upfront for goods with an exception of two suppliers.

That was how she had built her business back from a simple neighbourhood shop to now the biggest warehouse this part of the city. Starting small, business discipline and putting the business first and not the money had been the advice her father had told her when she started out. She had followed those principles to the letter and it paid off two years down the line.

She quickly offset the payments and looked at her incoming tray. There was just one letter and it wasn’t business related. She knew who it was from. She ripped open the envelope and read the letter silently. She stood up and went to the window just as she threw the letter in the bin.

For the last one year she had been getting the same letter with the same words daily- handwritten. It had no name to it and no return address but it was always delivered to her at work and addressed to her by her full name. At first she had been worried and scared but after the third week it became routine to her. She had tried to do a follow up but there were no leads and she wasn’t going to waste any money on finding out the mystery sender.

She closed up late evening and exited her office. The workers had gone an hour earlier and except for the security guards she was alone. As she headed for the car she felt a wave of fear wash over her and she stopped dead in her tracks. The parking lot was well lit however her heart wasn’t in entering the car. She then opted to take a matatu back home.

Juma her driver would be frustrated at her again. During the day he had brought the car from being serviced and told her to use it. Well she would just call him tomorrow morning to pick her up. She headed for the stage where she found a few commuters waiting for the matatu.

One minibus slowed down and she got in the feeling of dread having vanished. She quickly texted Juma letting him know to pick her up at six the following morning.

Twenty minutes later, due to slight traffic on Red Hill Road she got to her place and had herself a long and relaxing bubble bath. Today she could enjoy herself as her three kids were with her sister. The earlier text had been her sister informing her that she was taking her nieces and nephews.

That also meant that she could order takeout and not have to worry about making supper today. She ordered for a rack of pork ribs with fries from Big Circle and waited relishing the moment her teeth would bite into those fall-off-the-bone ribs. She didn’t feel guilty as she knew her kids were probably enjoying pizza or some other fast food.

She held up her hand looked at the platinum ring on her ring finger. She wore it though he had passed away five years ago during the global pandemic of the coronavirus. One day he had been healthy and laughing away but the next he had contracted it and was isolated for two weeks. Unfortunately, those two weeks never ended and he was declared dead on the thirteenth day.

That was the only day she ever saw his friends. A tear rolled down her face as she reminisced the good times they had together. After the funeral, one of the friends approached her and told her a big secret. A one hundred and twelve million dollar secret.

She found out that he had been aggressively investing all his money and had accumulated that amount. He also had bought the house that she was currently living in under her name. Basically he had left all his property to her and the kids. As he had made sure she would never be homeless she never touched the money he had left behind except for using it to school the kids, well except once, to expand her business.

She wore the ring constantly because she still loved him and she had no plans of replacing him, beside many men viewed her as unapproachable since she was a mother as well as a successful business lady.

An hour later she was eating her ribs and watching the prime time news.  She washed it down with a glass of cabernet sauvignon, another of her late husband’s lessons. He preferred Chardonnay but suffered taking red because of her. She finished the bottle and headed upstairs to turn in for the night.

The alarm crashed into her dreams and she woke up. It was five in the morning and she groaned, up until now it was always a struggle to wake up early. A message beeped as it entered her phone. It was a “Please Call Me’ from Juma’s wife. A frown formed on her face as she called back.

“Uhoro wa rucini Njeri, dina deto itare njega. Juma nianitwa ni mutino,” the voice quivered in Kikuyu. Juma’s wife always wanted to impress her with her language skills though she wasn’t good at it.

“Mrs. Juma speak in English please,” she interrupted her.

Mrs. Juma then went on to tell her how her husband had taken the car and was heading over to pick her up when he was involved in an accident with an oncoming saloon car. Apparently, the steering mechanism in the car had jammed as he was overtaking and collided head on with the vehicle. She also found out that he was quickly rushed to a nearby hospital and she was on the way to see him.

Ruth hang up and sat on the bed. The vehicle had just come from service so that problem shouldn’t be there. It was then that she remembered feeling that dread wash over her the previous night. That would have been her, she was sure of it.

She was also sure of something else. She either had a guardian angel or her instincts were finely honed.

This was the fifth time that she had escaped death. The first time had been just when she had met her husband. She had been heading for her second week of internship at his workplace when strangely she used a different route to get to the stage. Later on in the evening as she headed back she found out that there had been a gang of five young men who had been terrorising lone travellers that day,

Another time was when she had been scheduled to go the laundry room for her assignment at work but her boyfriend purposefully delayed her for about ten minutes by hiding her uniform. When she reported to the station still mad at him, she was met at the door by her supervisor who told her not to enter. Apparently one of the commercial steam presses had malfunctioned and given three workers serious burns. Later on she sat down and wondered if he had known because never had he delayed her, on the contrary he was always the one telling her to get to work on time.

The last time had also been his indirect intervention that had saved her. She had made plans to go and see her sister but for once he was totally against it. He didn’t try to stop but he showed strong disapproval and compromised by letting him go with her. It was a windy and cold day and he forgot to take his jacket. He had a serious cough and the weather seriously aggravated the cough forcing them to first go and see a doctor. After two hours they were on their way when she received a call from her sister.

She was told that a huge tree had crashed into their house demolishing part of it. Fortunately no one was hurt as they were both in the bedroom sleeping awaiting her arrival. Later in the evening she noted his cough had miraculously disappeared and forgot to ask him about it as they were hosting her sister and boyfriend as the house underwent repairs.

But now, he wasn’t alive to hinder and protect her. A thought crossed her mind, wasn’t he? Her thoughts went back to the letter and snapped her fingers. She had been doing this all wrong. First thing, she would go and visit her driver then head off and find that friend of his.

Kate was ushered into the spacious office and let alone as the men walked out. She looked around noting the furniture then upon not seeing anything that would give her a clue, she looked at the chair.

The door behind her swung slowly open and she knew that was William sneaking in. Everything was going according to plan she thought and she looked at the three chairs. It was a pity that the two of them couldn’t communicate as long as William was camouflaged.

Again she heard the door creak open and she looked behind her but saw no one. A cough directly in front of her startled her and she quickly changed position. There was a lady seated at the executive leather chair across her watching her calmly. Kate stared back unflinching as she gauged her. There was something about her that just wasn’t ordinary, well apart from being a spy chief.

The lady adjusted her spectacles and leaned back in the chair her gaze not wavering. Kate saw she was dressed in a grey trench coat that covered her frilly white top. She had on a light layer of makeup that accentuated her beauty. Her kinky and curly black hair matched well with her light-chocolate complexion.

“Special Agent Athena ESPer Squad, Directorate of National Security, you have been summoned because you are a person of interest.” The lady told Kate. “What do you know about Misty Crepuscule?”

“You were right William, they would definitely reach out when you uttered that word,” Kate laughed. She saw Athena tense and look around for a second before she closed her eyes.

“Come out and stop concealing yourself,” Athena said. “I can sense your aura now clearly.”

William appeared besides Kate and Athena opened her eyes. “I have seen that technique used before. You just phased into existence didn’t you? Although you just entered the room a few seconds ago.”

William was surprised and he nodded as he took a seat. He asked how she knew about his move. “Because sorry to say that is a low level technique I once saw a girl use that technique but far more subtle and versatile than you.”

“As much as I would like to discuss my powers with you I need information and the only way I would get you guys was by using that term.”

William took a seat and Kate followed. Athena sighed and looked at the two teenagers. “I can sense you have powers in you. Kate your aura is that of a non-confrontational being which means you most likely are the brains and as much as I would like to say that William is the muscle that will be a lie. I sense more intelligence and some muscle in him.”

She froze as something dawned on her and she started to laugh, “No way! It was you wasn’t it? The chatter in the air was because of your creation, wasn’t it? The chatter started roughly two weeks ago and just give me a second… ah yes if I cross reference any incidents of importance during that time the only one that ironically jumps up is the story about a passenger who died in Ngong Forest because of severe intoxication.”

“No name was given but if I look into the database it was you, Kate was the research scientist who discovered the anomaly about you. Now the funny thing is that all this information is redacted by an expert but I can piece things together.”

The amazement was written all over Kate’s face but William acted nonchalant. “Is that your power?”

Athena stood up and pointed around her office, “You forget I lead the ESPer unit in this country. At the core, intelligence is my forte and I proud myself as the fourth well connected person.”

“I’m yet to meet one of the crowd who says they are the best in their field or is that some kind of modesty?” William pointed out remembering his encounter with Voice and others.

“Modesty? No, it is hard facts, however we aren’t here to talk about our powers. Misty Crepuscule, do you know what that is?”

Both of them shook their head and William said, “Well not really, we thought it was the code of some secret weapon or something since I found it mentioned only on one blog in the deep dark web.”

Athena poured herself a glass of whiskey and laid back in her chair, “Misty crepuscule isn’t a weapon. It is a portion of world history that dis-happened just recently.”

She opened an eye and watched the confusion grow on their faces before she continued, “Well it happened but again it was reversed back to a point that it didn’t happen. I hope you have nowhere to go because this happened in a span of two years, let me show you exactly what happened.”

She clapped twice and the walls vanished before the whole area was filled by stars. She pointed down and the view zoomed down to planet earth to an unnamed place. They were strewn right in the midst of a battle and they watched as a group of humans fought a different set of humans. However both parties were all special in that they had powers.

William woke up groggily rubbing his head. Kate groaned besides him and opened her eyes. Athena watched them regain consciousness. She handed them a yellowish liquid and told them to drink it all.

“But how comes no one remembers such a global event as that?” William wondered as his head cleared from the effects of the liquid.

“Did you notice that all the figures were blurred, you couldn’t make out any facial features as well? Well that was the condition of me retaining this memory. I took part in the war along with the rest of the ESPers. Who we fought were just simple foot soldiers but the bulk of the enemy camp was taken care of by different groups in the world that came under the banner of The Alliance. They are what we could call meta-humans. Some of them are still alive and in active service. However, one group stood out amongst The Alliance, they are known as Treseime Conceil or The Thirteenth Council. Their combined power was responsible for over 70% of The Alliances power, in particular three individuals as well as their apprentices.”

She took another swig of whiskey and continued, “The Thirteenth Council is a group that is secret in the open. After Misty Crepuscule, I hunted for them but getting them was hard. These guys operate from the shadows and they are neither good nor bad and that’s the issue. During Misty Crepuscule they helped humans because it aligned with their goals.

“However I have seen them take part in rather questionable activities like they propagated or rather allowed the spread of a deadly coronavirus a few years back. Their modus operandi is they value their own interests. But money has never been their motive. However they are of the school of The Fist Of Life, they never kill humans.

“To answer your question, one of them has Time Manipulation skills. I experienced it first-hand when Misty Crepuscule was just beginning. She undid all the damage that had been on a world class level. That means at the least Treseime Conceil has world level meta-humans. She also implanted the memory in me after editing it, finally I have a restriction on me that protects their identity under any circumstance so nothing short of a god can get it out of me. Neither torture nor voluntarily nothing works, believe me I have tried.”

“Of late they have been very quiet almost disappearing and that is worrying, because they have no reason to vanish which just means something big is taking place. Rest assured they know of your creation.”

The two teenagers absorbed all the information in silence as they tried to gauge the size of their unknown entity.

“Should we be worried about them knowing of our existence?” Kate broke the silence

Athena shrugged, “Well unless you cross their paths or step on their toes then I don’t think you have to worry about that. Speaking of which, just what are your objectives now that you have brought it up?”

William replied, “I’ll answer you but I have another favour to ask. Do you mind telling me what happened the first time that you battled during Misty Crepuscule? Especially when the Time Manipulator appeared? Kate I want you to pay close attention and see whether Laplace can help us out.”

“Laplace as in Laplace’s Demon?” Athena asked rhetorically, “I see that just might do the trick. I know what you want to do. I’ll make it better I’ll use Third Person Narrative to see everything, so close your eyes. ”

With that Athena closed her eyes and clapped thrice as the room went dark. The two of them also closed their eyes and they felt as if they were being sucked down a dark chute. Suddenly bright light hit them and they opened their eyes. It was just the two of them in the brightly lit room that was empty except for what resembled a large pool of water at the centre. Kate was the first to approach it and she beckoned for William to follow her. William walked to the edge and looked down at it or rather into it where figures and shapes were starting to form.