Sundown

It was Saturday, and sundown, the perpetually heating and ever-resilient harmattan sun had just gone lurking behind his co-sky dweller the moon, it went hiding after a day of ample overwhelming labour which could be distorted as malicious and vindictive. Because just like a vendetta the scutching sun rained its pungent rays on the ever-receiving earth causing all life in the boulevard of the earth to run for shelter, abandoning the open ways for the inanimates to reign, even the trees wished they had means of evading the tough jaws of the hard atmospheric condition. But it was calm, it was cold already, the vengeful sun had gone lying low, and he had exhausted his strength and time, so he had given way for his counterpart darkness to reign. But even though the sun had left the sky, paving way for darkness to reign, the gentle but persistent moon still could not permit the night to do her thing. Like a jealous wife, the moon tormented and frustrated the regime of the night as she shines so bright, illuminating the whole street like it was near morning.

It was actually a full moon in Rossville. Rossville was a settlement known to many as a small town, but in a real stand, it was a mighty town, located at the frontier of the state. A place popular for its consistent silent tales of night-crawling creatures. Rumours had it that these night creatures wander in the dark woods laying ambush and waste on anyone careless and fearless enough to find him or herself in the woods during the night's reign. It was also told that flesh-eating beasts crawl around the pitch-dark woods in search of life to devour. There were also these unbelievable tales of sirens sported on the little stream in the community. This tale was the most impossible to acknowledge because the stream was obviously too small to contain any life aside from tiny fishes and tadpoles. But the tale of the beasts was backed with the fact that most nights, especially during a full moon, one could conspicuously hear the distant lionlike roaring and wolf-like howling. It was also said that a man had seen this creature which he called a lion man, according to this tale, the man who was a hunter found himself in the dreadful woods, there he saw this young man who ran into the woods panting like a beast, he almost stopped the man but his instinct said otherwise, so he obeyed his instinct and ducked in the woods as he saw the man shapeshifted into a full-bodied lion. This was also this unbelievable which was debunked following the fact that the man who told it enjoys the reputation of a drunken hunter. According to him, he also saw this young man with long-locked hair, just like in the first tale, he said the young man shifted into this large beast, with the body of a lion and the head of a wild dog, he said the beast was very terrific that he passed out just by the sight of the creature. No one actually believed or paid attention to him, he was a drunkard, he probably saw what the alcohol wanted to show him and he actually believe it.

In a barbecue joint called 'Deep Bite Barbecue Joint' where different types of processed meat were sold, ranging from fried to dried, mostly barbecue. This joint was the busiest joint around Rossville and Sunderland, including the surrounding communities.

Among the frequent patronizer of this joint was Kaima who was popularly known as Precious, she resides in Rossville, Precious was a very beautiful girl, a light-skinned beauty queen with a pointy nose, "Oyibo", so they often call her because of the way she looked, she was the true definition of beauty, and icon of beauty, she had this portable, thick, round, and soft looking butt-cheeks which wiggle like a troubled sea whenever she strode, the two bumps on her chest, not too huge but very vivid, they stood gallantly and untamed on her chest, so proud and arrogantly pointing at the eyes of anyone that caught her in their sight. She was conspicuously the spec of almost all the boys in school, around her vicinity, and beyond. Even some of her lecturers had their eyes on her, most of them had even gone as far as making advances on her but she kept turning them down. Precious was not that much of a friendly person, she only had a few people among her friend cabal with Lionheart and Love as her best friends it was always Precious, Lionheart and Love together in the school, in the street and even at the Barbecue joint. Lionheart was her male best friend, "Bestie" so she prefers to call him, but the feelings that Lionheart had for her were far from a conventional best friend, he had always yearned that their relationship will advance farther out of the friend zone where she had tightly confined him, but even though he wishes of this, he still could not muster the stamina to confess it to her. "Common Lion, try and shoot your shot", so will Love always declare to him whenever she gets at him lustfully looking at Precious.