Giving you control.

Chapter 10.

(Baraka's P.O.V)

"Yes!" I answer the phone without as much as checking to see the caller ID. Someone as antisocial as me doesn't have that many options after all.

"Baraka, " His voice comes across the receiver, rushed and frantic. "Where are you!"

"I'm fine." I say nonchalantly, although my hands tighten around the phone as if meaning to crush it.

"Come to my office... wait, Baraka, are you at a bus station."

I sigh so heavily it echoes across the phone, my emotions battling against themselves, becoming seemingly impossible to control the more he worries about me. I may be a child, but there is a limit to the secrets adults keep from me.

"I'll be home soon, just something I have to see to." I didn't even know I could sound so mature, I guess circumstances do shape people. If I don't hold my ground now, I can't save Mika. I have already decided to travel to Wanzusa.

"Hey, kiddo!" A matatu cout not much older than I am approaches me. He has a huge grin on his face, revealing teeth darkened by excessive smoking and miraa, as his hand rests upon my back. He pushes me forward, urging me to come with him. "You young ones like fast ones yeah, mine moves like a jet yeah, come now, 300 only."

"Baraka, don't run away from home. Your mother, it was just a really bad cough."

"I'm not running away, I promise." I hung up, having mixed feelings still. I feel relieved she's alive, worried beyond measure that something worse might happen when am away seeing her symptoms are becoming worse when I thought she would come home, and extremely pissed that Doctor John is keeping something from me. Is my mama in on it?

The matatu begins to move away from the city, heading south towards the mountain of Wanzusa. I stare outside the window most of the journey, glad that the weather let out today and out came the sun at last.

"Mummy, mummy, look zebras." A child behind me can't hide her excitement as we leave the city behind, and only then does magic and wonder seem to come alive. Or maybe to us townsfolk and tourists, the county side green, wildlife, and raw nature of the earth is something we forgot is normality.

I feel fatigued and dumped down, having been up and about the last few days without rest. The journey progresses with more to see along the way, including the mountain peaks now a bit of dark purple when one looks yonder, yet my eyelids grow heavier and heavier until I cannot help it.

It's not long before am walking barefooted on a field, my feet hurriedly advancing even though I cannot see ahead. Before me, mist heavy and grey blocks me from passing through, but I don't give up.

"Mika!" I call her name, which only echoes far off in the distance. I just keep walking, unafraid of how thick fog darkens the area around me. Taking deep regular breaths, I run towards it, eyes closed despite not knowing what awaits me on the other side.

It turns out to only be a few meters thick, yet so suffocating one can barely breathe. The other side greets me warmly, birds chirping in the sky, trees in the distance swaying against the wind youthfully, and sun rays warm against my skin.

The grass whispers, swaying back and forth yet ruffling like something is passing underneath it. I follow the direction it goes, chasing after it, until am standing a few meters before a thin flower bed with butterflies swirling a top of it. Their wings flap slowly, captivatingly, leaving behind sparkly dust that falls and fades in the air.

I get closer, only to be so taken aback that I fall to my knees. Under the flowerbed isn't earth, but the skin I recognize so evidently. Every inch of her body and hair is covered in small flowers of all kinds, having sprouted on her, except for her face.