Transmutation Page 3

  **************************************************************

  “Larry! I can’t believe you are that bad. A cultist for that matter!” I said as I closed the door behind me that night. Feeling so weak and exhausted, I crashed on a chair that serves as reading chair paired together with a table in front of it with textbooks and lecture notes littering the half top of the table.

  That afternoon, after wearing the green beret, Larry and I took the bush path behind the administrative block, later some other three guys wearing green berets as me joined us without uttering a word. We kept going until we reach a rough road—a dusty one—where other two dusty roads joined it, A T-junction. We waited there for almost thirty minutes before seeing some figures emerging. Immediately they were visible, I recognised them to be the three who had collected my stuffs earlier that afternoon.

  Immediately they came close, they stopped; not uttering a word but wearing a hard face.

  “Give back to him all you’ve collected!” Larry ordered!

  “Na command be that or na request?” The first guy and probably the boss among the three spoke out coming closer to Larry.

  I was filled more than ever with terror and fear. I was fidgeting and panicking.

  “Skinny; Larry began addressing their boss. “For this cabal, E don tey wey I don dey warn you” Larry said pointing his index finger and shaking his head. “Your fuck-ups don too much for me to bear. I don dey keep am, but e be like say, you wan taste my wrath. Before I change the parol now, give am all you don collect and mo we dey go peacefully!”

  “Tarh! One of them shouted! For where? For this movement oh, we no dey drop anything wey we, the White Eagles don collect. So, clear road mo we dey continue our journey.” He said and withdrew back.

  “Praggy! Na who blend you? Na Skinny? Na who blend Skinny? No be them Dark Eyes? Who Skinny be? No be traitor? Wetin dey happen to a traitor? Larry asked rhetorically

  “Na die!” The other three replied.

  “Oya, suck their blood!” Larry said and turned back

  I’ve heard it countless time; I’ve never witnessed it before in my life where a human is being stabbed to death by a fellow human. Larry face was down while the gruesome murdering was going on. I saw all with my eyes opened in terror. Skinny, their boss was stabbed at the centre of his head, at his heart; he didn’t last thirty seconds before he died. The other three were stabbed simultaneously in their stomach and was left to die also. Of all these; one thing drove me insane… they sucked their blood!

  “Nice one! One of Larry’s guys said after sucking the boss’ blood. “Chai! Fresh blood!” the other guy said cleaning the blood stain in his mouth

  “Dark Eyes!” Larry said raising his hand with a shinning dagger and his face down.

  “We see everything!” The other three chorused

  “Its 3-0. That’s the scores. Brothers? Good day!”

  “Good day boss!” The other three said and made for different directions. Larry, for the first time raised his head and started going without uttering a word save for my stuffs that he handed over to me. I had to start running after him as he increased the speed of his movement. I caught up with him only at the bar where he had gone to drink to calm the beast in him.

  I had wondered why he wouldn’t go home straight but did not ask him. I got the answer when I got to the room and observed that all the whole places has been scattered, most of our clothes has been carted away! They came for him and thank goodness, he did not go home straight.

  “Did you just call me a bad guy? Larry said looking at me sternly. Now I was fear-stricken, because I’ve come to know who exactly Larry is.

  “No… n…o…no!” I stammered. “I was…”

  “Did you not have your phone back? Your wristwatch and your money? And I still look like a bad guy? If you’ve called me Robin Hood, I wouldn’t have bothered but a bad guy?

  Now, Larry is being jovial again!

  “Oh sorry! Never knew you were Robin Hood of this campus!” I said giggling… Giggling with terror! Larry chuckled.

  “Here in High Hills, I mean in this very campus, one thousand of them White Eagles no fit do anything to me!” “Why then did you run? Why didn’t you come home straight?” I said feeling relieved a bit.

  “You would have being dead by now!” Larry said re-arranging the wardrobe. For some minutes I was silent. Realizing the naked truth in what he said, I knew Larry must be one witty bad boy, he saved my life. Actually, he might be immune against White Eagles attack but I’m not and again, I would be the sole target if they should attack us in the room.

  “You are right!” I said giving the green beret back to him.

  “I know! I know I look like a beast, like a devil this afternoon, that’s just the spirit of Dark Eyes” He closed the wardrobe, putting one leg on the bed; he continued—

  “In this campus lies the reality. Out there, there’s no reality but a total fantasy or a paradise you may want to call it. This place builds you up for the coming war. You don’t need to look for the world, the world is here; it’s a universe in a city! The bad, the good, the beasts, the wicked, the angels, the naïve and all sorts of them are here!” Larry re-positioned himself, standing and facing me with his hand in his pockets.

  “I joined the Dark Eyes two years ago. I’m not really the boss as you may presume but those guys you saw in the afternoon are lower in ranks, so to them, I’m their boss!”

  I became more curious than ever now. I want to know more was the facial expression I put on.

  Larry walked to one corner of the room where we do keep our provisions. He took a cup, put some cornflakes and add water. He stirs it a little with his spoon and drank a mouthful amount directly from the cup. He walked back to the centre of the room, sat down at the lower edge of the bed still stirring the cornflakes.

  That night, I became more afraid of Larry but relieved again that Larry has never mentioned it to my hearing or ask me to join his cult. Larry must after all be a good guy! How wrong I was as things gradually unfolds; all the whole thing was a set up even the killing. But now, Larry wants to tell me more about the Dark Eyes.

  “Vampirism, as you have watched today, is a core activity of the Dark Eyes and that must be undertaken by every of its member!”I became disgusted and showing the sign of throwing up.

  “You meant, you’ve sucked blood too?” I asked irritatingly.

  “Else, I wouldn’t have being able to save your sorry butt today! White Eagles are only inferior to one cult in this camp, and that’s the Dark Eyes! All other ones are nothing to them. Blood sucking, made us the Dark Eyes superior to them!”

  “I won’t say much again but few words to send you into your thinking and reasoning world.” Larry continued as he gulped down the last content in the cup.

  “The Dark Eyes henceforth will haunt you until you become one of them but understand it now that, White Eagles or other craps cant haunt you again; not after you’ve worn the green beret! In this camp, you can’t sit on the fence for a very long time. You have to belong somewhere, stand for something or your intimidation would continue as eternity! As a good friend, I offer you a free membership to join, don’t make them force you to. Good night!” he dropped the cup on the table besides me and went straight to the bed, covering his blanket; I know Larry is not going to say anything this night again.

  And yes! I have being sent into my world of thoughts. Larry has left me alone with my thought. I would decide for myself now or they’d decide for me later.

  But all these years, I’ve looked at Larry to be innocent, gentle and a good guy. He never stays up late in the night, I’ve never caught him smoking or drinking to stupor. Though he’s ladies’ man and flirts a lot, he’s a lover of just one girl. In fact, Larry is just like an angel. He had paid my tuition fee the first year I got admitted. He bought me clothes and provisions and has gone to advice me never to join any cult on any ground. Throughout the course of my first year, I experienced nothing called
intimidation. I was free,happy and enthused to be in the largest learning society until… another angel appeared; white, brighter, more caring and loving angel walked into my life. Since then, Larry’s kindness has somehow diminished. No more buying of provisions and clothes. He does give me money for my handouts but never a pocket money again. He doesn’t care whether I read or not, whether I failed or passed. Something he doesn’t do in the past year.

  I never thought about that in as much as I have someone doing it in his stead. All my thought was; it was the Lord’s doing, making sure my parents’ prayer over me comes into fulfilment. A kind of when people roll of their mat, God lays his own rug adage. Never knew I was living in total fantasy—a delusion! Now that I’m faced with reality, I must decide, a decision to survive must be the decision but I’m not done yet with my own investigations. It continues tomorrow’s morning!