Chapter Four

The bright moon was accompanied by a clear cloudless sky as a myriad of twinkling stars dotted the endless dark blue paint. The moonlight shined on the transparent white flowers called spirit blossoms that spread across the garden in full bloom to the moon as they released their faint calming fragrance into the air.

A large and magnificent wooden house stood in the very middle of the garden. Inside the house, a young teenager laid her head on her folded hands, fast asleep. On the intricately carved table where she lay asleep was a milky white cowrie twined together with white wool to make a necklace.

A bolt of white light flashed resulting in the sleeping girl jerking awake. Her light grey pupils made an unfocused movement as she quickly grabbed the cowries on the table and held them tightly with both hands.

She shivered immediately after her hands made contact with the cowries, causing her to release it and clutch onto it again shortly after.

She took a deep breath and grimaced, her lashes quivering in thought. The door to the room was pushed open and another young teenager, a maid ran in. After checking around and seeing nothing unusual or suspicious, her knees lowered and she lightly knocked her forehead on the wooden floor in prostration.

"My lady, is everything alright?"The maid asked, worry coating her voice.

The teenager turned to the voice and her frown tightened even more. "No, Nothing is right. Get on your feet Nyma, I need to see my father. Come and help me." The teenager responded.

Nyma quickly got on her feet at her Lady's command and walked towards her, carefully holding her elbow and leading her out.

*

"The Lorikeet was right when he said we have received an august visitor." A voice said.

The owner of the voice is a tall built man with salt and pepper hair and graceful air. He exuded an aura of calmness and his eyes showed vast wisdom. Years of experience, sights, and teaching. He is Orunmila, god of wisdom, knowledge, and divination and he had a small smile on his lips at the sight of his daughter.

"Father." The teenager greeted stoically, her eyes automatically following the sound of his voice and steps as he took a seat.

A dark blue parrot flew in and perched gracefully at the head of the chair where Orunmila sat.

"Greetings, Master's daughter, how do you fare?" The parrot asked chirpily.

"Greetings to you to Lorikeet, I fare well." The teenager replied.

"of course, you would, you are 'Eyitope' (one worthy of praise) after all." The Lorikeet praised receiving a smile from the teenager.

"You've always been a sweet talker," she said.

The Lorikeet's little head tilted with a nod of acceptance. "Master and his family are only worthy of the best." the bird said.

"Enough praises, as wonderful as it is to have you visit, you are not here without a reason. Why are you here Ifamila?" Orunmila asked easily.

Ifamila counted her cowries, a frown etched on her face.

Orunmila watched his young daughter's unfocused eyes with gentleness, patiently waiting for her to gather her thoughts.

"Lorikeet, excuse us." He told the listening parrot.

The parrot tilted his head. "Yes, master." He replied and flew out of the room leaving only father and daughter.

"I saw an owl in my dream today. I was stuck in what felt like a black void and I saw a white owl perched on a tree. As though it was waiting for me, it turned its head completely to look at me. Like a warning." Ifamila said

Her father frowned. The presence of an owl in a dream signified a lot of things but white owls were normally a bad omen and meant that something terrible was about to happen.

White owls symbolically represented mass destruction, bloodbath, and havoc.

"An owl and a flash of white. I am not sure if it was the owl's feathers or if there was that flash of white. I tried foretelling on it so I picked my cowries but when I touched it, I saw the vein of life being bespoken and it concurred. But everything on that is hazy and unclear." Ifamila explained.

Orunmila gave his blind daughter a complicated look before saying. "As you said, everything in your dream was unclear to you as it is to me. There are some things that we can not prevent or stop from happening despite seeing them and this looks like one of them. I don't want to get between something more complicated than meets the eye and my heart will be at ease if you stayed away from whatever this is too. The vein of life, the essence of living has its supremacy, circle, and reason. Despite our abilities as gods, we can not rashly intervene in what the supreme has proclaimed."

"So, we don't do anything?" Ifamila asked her father.

Orunmila rested his back regally on the chair.

"What are we going to do anything about?" He asked simply.

Realization flashed Ifamila's features.

Yes, the reason she was here in the first place was that she didn't know what was wrong.

Something felt wrong but she couldn't pinpoint it.

Orunmila smiled."Patience is one of the greatest virtue that there is little one. We just have to wait and see. It will gradually unfold eventually." He said.

Ifamila turned her head towards her father's voice and said. "Alright, I'll listen to you Father."

"Of course, you will. After all, Orunmila's child is one with knowledge and history. She listens with both ears." Orunmila said with a smile yet his brows wrinkled with worry.

*

The same bright moon emitted its shine casting a soft hue on two lovers propelling a boat at sea. Rosemarie smiled happily at her boyfriend and said. "We should do this more often babe."

They had dinner in a new restaurant she's been dying to try and her boyfriend, Josh had rented a cozy boat for them to go sailing. He also got her a beautiful bunch of bright red roses,' vibrant like you are' he told her. This made her smile.

They have been together for four years and are still very much in love. The school's golden couple, both A students, the campus belle, and the school sport's captain, it felt very much like romance off a fairytale story. She remembered when she first met him in school, he had been a nervous and stuttering mess when he tried but failed to ask her out.

After three trials and error, he finally gathered the courage to ask her and they got together.

His persistence was what she loved about him and still is. Their friends approved and even their parents approved. Rosemarie knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Josh.

"I promise we will," Josh said easily but Rosemarie knew he meant every word he said.

she smiled, content with her luck.

"I love you so much, babe,"

she said.

"I love you too" He replied sincerely.

Both wrapped in their pink bubble, they didn't notice the dazzling specks of black dotted with gold circling their boat underwater. The dark scales camouflaged with the darkness and glided stealthily without stirring the water. An enthralling woman with long black hair and a small palm-sized face emerged from under the sea.

Her big doe-like eyes held golden orbs with a thin horizontal line in the middle which served as the pupil. Her sharp jaw, full lips, and pale skin glowed from the moonlight as water trailed down her forehead to her jaw before dripping into the sea. Her long thin fingers held black sharp and pointed claws while a small smile graced the corner of her lips baring her sharp fangs and the desire for blood in her eyes.

She swam carefully to the boat and retracted her claws as her cold fingertips brushed lightly across the boat.

Josh glimpsed the beautiful woman first and his face morphed into a surprised expression.

He felt chills at the way her eyes looked at him and the weirdness of it made him quickly pull Rosemarie behind him.

"Who are you?" He asked.

Rosemarie gasped in surprise "babe, babe, babe she has a tail. She's a freaking mermaid." she whisper and yelled to Josh.

Josh's apprehension deepened. He didn't feel good about the woman.

"babe, turn on the engine, let's leave," he whispered back.

Rosemarie looked at him, not quite understanding but seeing the seriousness in his expression, she started the engine and it roared to life.

The quiet mermaid smiled, her sharp fangs coming to light. "why are you leaving?" She asked.

Her fingers elongated and a pink snake-like tongue darted out to lick her lips. "Dinner wants to run away, what should I do?" She asked leisurely.

Rosemarie and Josh chilled at the thought of being some mermaid's dinner. It didn't go down well no matter how he tried to look at it.

Rosemarie's heart thumped faster in fear and she held on tightly to Josh's cloth for reassurance.

The mermaid slapped the boat with her powerful tail flipping it and sending both of them into the water. She smiled lightly.

The water was her domain, the fools will never get out alive. Going underwater, her cold blood raced at the thrill of a chase. Her golden eyes shined brightly underwater as she meandered quickly toward the man holding on tightly to his lover and trying to swim ashore. It is a pity that they wandered too far off into the sea.

she wrapped her tail around him and pulled him underwater. The lovers broke from each other's grasp. The woman shuddered from cold and fear of the unknown but dived into the water once again in search of her boyfriend.

The mermaid wrapped her long tail around the man, squeezing and slowly crushing his bones. The soft cracks her hearing picked greatly satisfied her. The man wheezed from pain, a big mistake. Sea water rushed into his mouth drowning him and the mermaid increased her strength pulling him deeper into the dark sea. She lunged forward and tore a chunk of his collarbone, red coloring the water. He was dying.

Water flooded his senses urging him out of consciousness but the pain from his collarbone and the need to get his girlfriend out of the water kept him awake.

The mermaid wrapped her fingers around what was left of the man's neck and pulled him closer. An untainted madness in her eyes as she watched life slip out of him and his struggle. She held the back of his head and smashed her lips on his in a kiss. Her snake tongue intruded his mouth. His eyes dulled, losing their original luster. The mermaid's fingers stabbed into his stomach and pulled out his intestines and guts as chunks of flesh and blood floated around them.

Hands wrapped around the mermaid's neck, holding tightly and restricting her airflow.

An uninterested look flashed on her face as gills appeared at the sides of each neck and she let go of the dead man who had sunk underneath. Her tail coiled around the foolish woman offering herself for sacrifice.

Rosemarie felt tears sting her eyes as she watched Josh get brutally dismembered.

She wasn't sure if it was the seawater or actual tears but she knew she couldn't escape. Pulling out a small blade she hid before the boat overturned, she used all the strength she could muster to slash across the face of the mermaid, from her nose bridge to her chin.

The mermaid stiffened and her hand trailed the wound in disbelief. Although it was healing immediately, she knew it will leave a scar. Mermaids were creatures who loved beauty, they saw themselves as the most exotic creatures. A scar was a big no. Her golden eyes darkly.

Rosemarie smiled, "Bitch." Her mouth moved.

The mermaid's eyes flared in rage as she held Rosemarie's hand with the blade and pushed it to her eyes. Rosemarie's eyes widened as she tried to struggle but to no avail.

A sharp pain tore through her heart as the mermaid jabbed the blade into her left eye and punched it digging the blade deeper.

Without wasting time, the mermaid tore Rosemarie's hand from her body and blood quickly seeped out. Her hand grabbed Rosemarie's hair in a bunch and pulled with great strength yanking her head and neck from the rest of her body.

The death was swift and cruel. Rosemarie's eyes with a blade lodged in one of them were wide with pain even at the last moment. Her body sank onto the sea sand.

The mermaid crushed the head with both hands in anger. The skull cracked and mashed the brain and what was left of the eye seeped out.

The mermaid's tail swept the water angrily as she swam deeper into the cold sea. She needed to treat her scar.

The moving ebb washed blood-stained roses ashore. The last of Josh and Rosemarie.