Child of god | book 1 ✅

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1|3

At first, he saw his mother's face, looking at him with disgust before she would dip the knife into her stomach. The second scene was the one which she threw a knife at him wishing him death for all the children he had killed.

That too, changed rapidly to a scene that displayed the death of the first child. In an unfamiliar brick building, he saw it. Those hands, chubby with long fingernail and a woody bracelet as they strangled the girls bloody face. While they initially unraveled slowly, the scenes later changed to a lightening paced horror movie until he heard her voice, sweet and melodic as they pulled him in.

“Dike,” she called into his subconscious.

"Essence?" he muttered, the scent of mango immediately overcoming his senses. He saw flashes of when they had first met and when she had accepted his friendship. He saw Anwulika telling the class to pray to the god of the innocent in the face of adversity. He saw Kwento reminding him that he had prayed in his shrine on that particular night he visited.

He saw it all: the battle of his memories, good and bad fighting with each other; of Obiora taking him to school and convincing him to eat; of his mother stabbing herself; of the memorial service; their playtime in Essence's house.

As he kept writhing physically, he discovered that memories were never actually far from his subconscious. In fact, his subconscious would always be closer to him than any other thing, because he was the god who foretold the future in his nightmares. And currently, an image of him sleeping in a bed underneath a tent flashed in his eyes. Realizing what was happening as consciousness had slowly seeped in, he gasped, shooting upwards from the bed to find Essence laying next to him, holding his hand with her gloves free hand. Next to her and standing were Kwento, his teacher and Barb and there, standing tall above him, with a finger touching his forehead was Chimma.

He screamed when he saw her hand, not because of her long nails but because of the wooden bracelet and the scar, both which were present in the hand which had been tormenting him in all his nightmares.

"She's the one! She's the one! I swear she's the one!"

"Calm down," Chimma said, pressing a finger to his forehead and trying to infiltrate his subconscious.

"Leave him alone!" Essence shouted when the burning pain in her head escalated. "What are you doing?"

"He's becoming violent," Chimma said, forehead creasing as she tried to concentrate.

"She's trying to manipulate his thoughts?" Essence said, helplessly looking at Anwulika, Kwento and Barb.

Those three were rooted to the floor not because of what she was saying but because of how her skin was glowing.

Essence's skin was etheral, like she'd bathed in silver and you could see the energy she generated in her, flowing through her veins and transferring to her and Dike's jointed hand like a pipe.

"She's not human, right?"Anwulika asked.

"Of course she's not!" Barb exclaimed in anger before approaching Chimma and telling her to move aside.

"Leave the boy alone," he said. "You're upsetting her."

Chimma's eyes left the total black it had been and returned to normal. "Okay," she said, giving Dike a hard look before leaving the tent

"What is happening?" Kwento asked, approaching Chimma and grabbing her wrist.

"That child is insane," Chimma said before freeing her wrist and rushing away. Kwento looked at her dwindling form in confusion before rejoining them in the tent.