Chapter 2

"There's neither pulse nor rhythm, what exactly do you hope to accomplish this late. You and I know he can't survive it."

"I would appreciate it if you could try just one more time."

He stared long at those deep sorrowful eyes, with a heap of secrets skillfully concealed behind the dark blue shade of his eyes as he stared into space, distressed.

The two medics, familiar with his anguish, reached out to comfort him but he shrugged them away," he can not die...he must not. So, it's either you dumbass get to work or I will do just that for you,"he scolded pulling out a pistol, suspended in his shaky hands.

"You don't have to act this way. We are only here to help."

"Then get down and make yourself useful,"he shot back.

Frightened by the unsteady fingers, looming like the cold hands of death itself by the trigger, the medic stooped down, reviving a still body, pale and cold.

Frantic, he paced around, rubbing and scratching his head, and sobbing, often boxing the air in frustration.

"This is all my fault. If only I stayed back...if only I hadn't opened the box."

Looking at each other, they stepped away from him, attending to the body below, on the stretcher. 

His hair was lit like the moon beam, full and curled. Looking closer, his lips twitched, as well as those twin shut stars.

Yet there was no change in the lines running straight across the screen like a child late for school, yet, hesitating at intervals because Mom was yet to show up.

Looking around, the shattered glasses, scattered some foot away with a concentration at a center that appeared like the point of impact, drew my eyes trailing the height of the building like an outstanding iroko, to meet a broken window with its curtains torn.

" There's nothing else we can do."

The ambulance was yet to speed towards the hospital for some reasons. The door also lay open. At first sight, I attributed it to the distressed man, looking forlorn, seething and brooding. I didn't expect him to receive the message well, neither did I expect what he did next.

"You can not leave yet... I won't allow that."

"But he's alive," I thought looking intently at his countenance.

Sharp like a sculpture, an imitation of life highly exaggerated to fit perfectly, more into desire than what actually is, his brows, thin, almost like a single pencil stroke, deepened where it met him sharp pointed nose, raised at the edges. His skin had gone so pale that feeling life spreading through him, I couldn't help but think that a zombie was about to be raised.

Backing away, the older of the two medics, with a skin cut showing the outline and borders of his bald hair, laid hold on courage with a tout face," time of death," he announced," 17:59."

It was so familiar. I felt it. A low call to remember shuttled me down memory lane, rifling through a vast litany of events and then I suddenly came to a halt.

It didn't make any sense. How could the past be replaying in the present?

Hugging tightly unto my sweater, I pulled my frozen legs, barely shielded from the gnarly cold with my black pants.

I wanted to find the meaning in that array of confusion. I needed answers .

Is it just coincidence that our hairs are silver? What about the little mole by his left ear which looked very similar to the one on the image of a long lost father I call mine, nestling on the mini wardrobe beside my bed? Are they also mere coincidence?

Revving in my mind, a short mournful cry echoed from above. Is was the voice of a woman but the agony was similar to the distress of a bereaved mother, who had just lost her fourth child.

Tracking the direction of the cry to the building adjacent the one the silver haired man must have fallen from, my gaze met a window. There was no oddities at first and I had almost looked away before I met the fingers popping out from inside. Coming out gradually with a slow display of the length of a sharp black finger, dripping with a strangely familiar liquid.

It didn't take me long to discern where I had seen it, and just then, the window banged shut with the cry synced and dieing at once.

"Did you see that?"I thought out, thinking for a moment that Marcus was with me.

"See what?"

"That...or did you not... what are..."

"Did you suddenly loose your tongue,"he scowled, glaring menacingly at me.

"You are not real."

There was something oddly familiar about him. In him, I could feel the presence of Marcus.

"And here I was thinking you were insane."

"Insane?"

"If you can tell what's real and what's not, why haven't you woken up?"

"From what?"

He wasn't holding the pistol anymore but his brother's body was still on the spot, with the medics appearing frozen in time.

One, the older was still fixed at his watch," just like he was when he announced the time of death,"I thought, feeling sick. At that moment it was as though I was being shredded from inside. I could feel my interiors coming apart but besides the fiery gaze of the man, all was still as deep waters.

"What are you doing to me? What's happening to me?"

"What? Is it too difficult for you distinguish between these realities?"

His voice rose, and from his side, I watched as the younger medic lifted his eyes and in a split second, his short black hair elongated and began crawling towards me, tauntingly.

"If you will not wake now, they will wake you,"he said without breaking eye contact. My rumbling stomach ached and for a moment I felt a sharp pain on my wrist like a blade cut, and pushing up my woven sleeves, I met a gaping hole across my wrist like a gulley, and looked up at him in horror.

"They will wake you into eternal sleep."