Oracion Seis (Oracle Six)

Chapter 4

Darkness engulfed Nikki.

She could not tell where she was or how long she had been there. She felt sore all over, and weak too.

She felt a cloth tied around her eyes and her mind flashed back to the initiation.

She had been tricked.

She wanted to be the Oracle and she had miraculously won Silu-Tza, she had wanted everyone to acknowledge her existence and they had; or so she wanted to believe and she had greedily wanted power, which she got during the initiation. Even now that she sat in this unknown place, she felt as the power rushed through her veins and crushed against her bones.

But no one had told her that she would have to sacrifice her eyes in return.

"Stupid!", she smacked her hand on her forehead, and winced at the pain she felt.

Nikki admitted to herself that she couldn't blame anyone for the loss of her eyes, only herself. She wanted to cry, but she had no eyes to carryout her objective.

Nikki rose from her position, she felt that she had been laying down for a long time and she could do with stretching her body. She struggled to keep her body from collapsing back onto the cold hard ground as her thin petite legs wobbled uncontrollably beneath her. She grasped at the wall, trying to find something to hold on to, to make her legs steady against the ground.

She immediately assumed that she was still in Mohan's Temple, because she had found out that the Oracle was not to leave the temple till she dies. Hearing that alone should have turned her away from her mission to become the next Oracle.

Why had she been so stubborn?

Still grasping the wall, she tried to will her legs to move.

"Okay left leg, this is how it will go. You will move forward and we will try to find someone who can tell us what's going on, Okay?!"

She kept trying to will her legs into movement, until she felt a weak motion below her waist. Her left leg had moved.

"Thank you", she squealed. She tried for a more bigger step, but this time her hopes were dashed as she crumbled down to the floor with a loud thud.

"What am I even doing here? I can't see, I can't walk and I'm sure that I'll soon be deaf and dumb!", she yelled out into nothingness "Is this how all Oracles are treated? Is this what happened to the last Oracle?"

"Did you kill her", she whispered

Nikki had heard little about the last Oracle. It was said that she had lived her days in the temple, without contact with the outside world, except those that had come to consult Mohan. When she died, her body had been burnt right there in the temple and her ashed had been stored in an urn, place with the rest of the former Oracles somewhere in the temple. Nikki had pegged all that talk to be rumors or people trying to discourage her from competing in Silu-Tza.

Now that she had been robbed of her eyes and she couldn't even stand properly, Nikki had started to rethink most of the things she had heard about everything that happened to the former Oracles in the temple of Mohan.

The temple made her feel more alone than she had living in the Mngwa cave.

She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes to remember.

Nikki remembered years spent with the Mngwas. Contrary to everyone's thinking, the Mngwas were quite peaceful and they loved to play. They had taught her how to walk and had fed her daily. They had taken care of her and had been her family, when her real family, the Sybils had abandoned her.

She also remembered him.

There had been someone, a man, who had visited the cave for years. He was the one that educated her on how to talk and had told her about her tribe and what they had done to her. He was also the one that told her to go back to the village when she turned nineteen and become the Oracle. He had told her that it was her destiny, but being in this situation, she had begun to think that maybe the man was wrong.

She could still clearly see his face, even in the darkness. She recalled his rough beard, that had surrounded his perfectly sculpted lips and his strong jaw. She remembered his crazy looking thick, long eyebrows and his slicked back black long hair, his hair had been incredibly long, even longer than hers which was waist-length.

Though he never told her anything about himself; not even his name, Nikki felt closer to him than anyone else.

Nikki fell slowly into a deep sleep and dreamt of her family of wild cats and her mysterious man.

~~~

Nikki abruptly woke up from her sleep when she heard a loud clang of steel or tin cups, which had startled her.

"Who's there?", she demanded

"It is I. The name is Irma, I am one of the many maids who will tend to your needs", a little voice answered

Nikki sat up straight, "You sound like a child, are you a child?"

"No mistress, I am twenty-five years of age, but I was raised here in the temple as a child and I have served the Oracle before you", Irma explained, "I was sent to bring you dinner"

"It's night?", Nikki asked. She grasped at the wall, trying to get on her feet again. She heard footsteps coming close to her and felt a hand slide across her waist and she was hoisted up to her feet, "Please walk me outside. I feel suffocated in here"

"I'm sorry Mistress", the woman apologised, "You are only allowed into the shrine to pray to Mohan. You may never leave the temple"

Nikki screamed and pushed the woman away, making herself fall back to the ground. She began to crawl slowly forward, feeling her surroundings with her hands, since she couldn't see.

Nikki heard footsteps running towards her.

Five, maybe ten women had come running into the room and she heard the voice of the woman named Irma order the other women to restrain her.

Nikki struggled under the weight of the women holding her down. She wanted to get out. She could feel hot sweat trickle down her forehead and down her back as she struggled. Her nails and fingers hurt as she tried to use them to fight off these women.

"Undress her and take her out to bathe", a familiar voice commanded. Nikki recognised the voice as that belonging to the tribe leader, the woman that had overseen the Cubed Games, Mathete.

Nikki was just about to start begging her to let her go, when she felt someone move closer to her left ear.

"Time to meet Mohan", Mathete whispered