With this mouth, I sing no songs.
Sister Hope fell to her death two weeks after the mist came. Tripped, said the men who took her away and disappeared into the thick grey smoke that covered every view like a board stroke of paint. This news was blasphemy to the headmistress, sister Olivia. For a good week now, she had been leading the girls into prayer morning afternoon, and night against the evils that the ‘mist’ came with, she strongly believed that this oddity was some kind of adversary that could be prayed away, or fought as she said it, spiritually.
She stared at the men as they told her the cause of the sister’s death, taking her time to drink her water quite dramatically, then rained insults on them for their ignorance of the spiritual.
The men simply shrugged and went on their way.
Nneka was unmoved by this when the girls came back from their eavesdropping, in her mind she had already labeled sister Hope a bubbling fool with two feet. She was rather crude for a nun, always lost in her head when she was not cursing someone out for the littlest of mistakes, nevertheless, Nneka still felt her loss. Despite her disdain for children alike she never cared for monitoring them during prep. This freedom would be greatly missed, Nneka mused.
That day prayers lasted for three hours straight, praying vigorously against the thing that killed the sister.
“There is evil everywhere,” sister Olivia said, “we must pray that it hurts no more.”
Sister Olivia was a former Mountain of Fire member before converting to Catholicism. Her hysterics and tactics converted into even more hysterics and tactics with a sprinkle of Hail Mary here and there. She was a big woman with an even bigger personality and presence, Nneka liked her the best out of the three sisters that worked as their matrons. She always made herself noticed throughout the halls with her loud stomping and even louder voice, so when she disappeared it didn’t take long for everyone to notice.
Sister Abena was the only one left in a house filled with children, the great mist growing now into a great fog. As if fed by their paranoia and fear. Taye called it an evil spirit that had possessed their dormitory, and Kehinda called it a curse for not being focused during prayer this whole time, as the trio tended to fall asleep during mass. Nneka had a couple of ideas of what could be the cause, after all, they had never had a mist like this since she could remember. The nature of it did not feel foreign or disruptive. The fog had eaten the sisters, she told them, it was an animal that would feast on them all, after hearing this every girl hearing range kissed their teeth in annoyance.
The calls would be led to nowhere as sister Abena found. The main school phone could not be reached, the police were even more useless than usual and the fog got thicker and thicker with no sign of sister Olivia. So thick that sister Abena feared the worst if she ventured into what she saw as a living trap.
Sister Abena was the youngest out of all the matrons. Many thought she was ill-fitted for the job, citing her age as a reason. Despite this opposition, time showed she was the most composed and calm of the three. She rarely spoke, but when she did your thoughts shut up. She never demanded respect and she was never cruel.
She led them into prayer for one last time in the cathedral their dormitory had connected to it. They prayed in complete silence, each girl speaking to god about their fears, their desire for the warm embrace of home, and the type of yogurt they wanted once this was over.
From the side, Nneka saw the way the sister’s fingers cluck to her rosary as a single tear rolled down her face. This time she prayed for real, she prayed everything was a dream.
For the next couple of days, sister Abena tried to return the dorm to some form of normalcy. Enlisting the older girls to join her to cook, including Nneka who was in charge of making the base stew for jollof.
The cathedral was used as a laundry room. Lines of wet clothing stretched from the arms and neck of the Virgin Mary to the pillars that held the holy water. At night, the sister would tell them beautiful stories of a life outside the grey walls that surrounded them, where life was so much more than homework and chores. The fun she had in her college days and what it was like growing up poor in the streets of Accra. She told them about how she came to Nigeria and loved her time there, and the children listening hung on each word and loved her in return.
On the fifth day, she did not bother with the phone anymore. Food was gone and things were getting out of hand. The catalyst started on the third night when SHS two’s Lucy woke up screaming her lungs out.
She ran down the halls frantically like she was looking for something, digging her nails in her ears constantly as if trying to draw blood. before she could do any real damage, she was tackled by her friends. Sister Abena soon came and carried her to their dorm room as she tried to comfort her to stop. The commotion caught the attention of all the 30-something girls in the dorm, causing a crowd to gather around them as the spectated Lucy’s face contoured as fought to be freed. When nothing else seemed to calm her down, the nun slapped her hard and screamed at her to stop, the first time anyone had heard her shout at anyone or seen her angry for that matter. This did get her to stop shouting, but the peace that came with that was short-lived as her cheeks shallowed in.
The sister moved before her thoughts were aligned. She used all her strength to try to pull the girl’s teeth apart as the seniors her down.
“Nneka get a knife!” sister yelled.
Quickly she ran kitchen, jumping steps and hoping she wouldn’t trip and fall. The kitchen had only three brunt knives that they kept for making food. It was never sharp enough, and it was always kept in the same place. The same drawer that was now empty.
In the heat of desperation, she tried looking for anything else, just anything that could be used yet there were no table knives, forks or spoons. Her mind finally wandered to the fridge.
The smell was the first thing that hit her before the nauseating sight became clear. All the food that had been made just two days ago was now rotten and maggots wormed their way through the green mush that barely looked like food, pot covers mold, and leaking of a fluid so disgusting it made suckaways seem like a bed of roses in comparison. The stench felt like acid through her nostrils as she banged the door shut and fell into a coughing fit on the floor. it granted her a moment of release from all the shouting that was going on upstairs, anything to not think about what was going on around them and the madness of it all. She went back to ransacking the kitchen before the screams stopped then turned into shrieks and cries.
The sister carried Lucy in her arms down the stairs.
Her lip trembled but remained close as the girls followed her shouting Lucy’s name, grieving the loss of their roommate. Nneka wanted to tell her she couldn’t find anything, and the food had gone all rotten, but the sister barely paid her any mind, treating her like a ghost as she walked past.
She sat on the parlor’s couch, trying the clean the blood of the dead girl’s face even though her face and glasses were strained with blood. The girls gathered around her and cried in sync, shaking her legs and arms as if the girl were in a deep sleep. Nneka took a few moments to realize she was also part of the sobbing mass.
The sister laid Lucy in sister Olivia’s room after cleaning her body and dressing her up. One of the girls got the stuffed teddy bears Lucy used to sleep with and laid them next to her. Her favorite book was placed on the table, the picture of her parents underneath her pillow, and a kiss laid on her forehead by every girl before finally the doors to the room were closed shut.
That night all the girls laid their mattresses together and held on to one another. Nepa had taken the light that afternoon and everyone was afraid to open the windows in fear that the ‘thing’ would get in.
The heat was almost unbearable, yet they held on to each other for comfort. Nneka buried herself into Taye’s back as she held on to her sister. The sister slept with them that night, not changing or cleaning the blood that caked her face and clothing.
“Will everything be, okay?” Kehinda asked her, looking for any kind of reassurance from the only adult that remained.
She rolled her head lazily to look at Kehinda, “Of course.”
The lie wasn’t much comfort, but they all slept for a while.
Nneka was woken up by a faint sound coming from outside their room around midnight. The door that had been locked when they all went to sleep was now wide open, with a strange noise coming from somewhere down the hall. Each beat had a sharp end that sickened her to her core.
She lay in her bed paralyzed as she listened to the night's ghastly tune.
I will go mad, she thought, I will run mad like Lucy did and no one will ever know.
She tried to wake everyone. Shouted even. Yet no one woke from their slumber also like they had been enchanted. She looked around to see a couple of beds empty, a couple being JHS students. She tried to find some rationale for their disappearance but came to nothing. Their bathroom was their dorm so there was no reason to go out. Worried, she swallowed her fear and went out the door.
Now the door to the Cathedral had two see-through windows by its sides that looked like small guardians to the house of the lord, as sister Olivia had described it once. Then you could see the arrays of chairs, the beautiful glass works that made Nneka wonder at the beauty of man’s art, and the giant statue of Mary that had been made in England and shipped to their humble cathedral in the middle of somewhere in Nigeria. Now those windows were blocked by the now black flog that no light could penetrate. the only thing visible thing was the head of the virgin that loomed above the fog.
The sound seemed concentrated in the cathedral yet radiated throughout the dorm like a ticking bomb, each one ‘koi’ turning her stomach.
The fog comes with it, she thought as she quietly turned away, hoping the noise she had earlier hadn’t alerted the thing to her whereabouts
From the hall, she could hear some movement from the kitchen. Two girls were giggling amongst themselves as they feasted on the pulsing mush that was inside the fridge.
“Want some?” she declined.
More laughter could be heard coming from upstairs, five girls giggling to themselves as they hung onto the handrail.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a panic, seeing them swing their bodies.
“You can hear her, can’t you?” One of the girls, Jackie, asked her, “the madam.”
“I don’t care about that just stop playing and go over.” She pleaded with them. “What kind of rough play is this?”
“The madam is here little cold Nneka.” Said another.
To this, Nneka began to scream and shout for help. She knew the distance wasn’t high enough to kill them, yet she screamed anyway.
“We will make her stop you see, she whispered into our ears the plan to appease her.” Explained the other as she ran up the stairs, still screaming for anyone to hear them and help her save them.
“This would be our sacrifice for you.”
She went to the ground fearing to hear that sickly sound of their drop, but it never came. She opened her eyes to see something had kept them suspended in the air, and like a noose, it broke one’s neck whilst the others were being strangled, pee and vomit painted the floor beneath them as they all tried to free themselves from their invisible rope until they finally went limp.
Nneka simply sat and stared at their floating bodies until morning came and the screams came with it.
The two other girls were found dead and rotten in the kitchen. The kitchen was closed shut.
The sister spent the day preparing the girls to venture into the fog.
“Don’t go into the fog it dangerous.” This was answered with a slap from the sister.
No one slept that night. Even the younger ones were tired of crying so they all sat in silence. The sounds of the madam still rang through the walls.
She begged them not to go and told them what the girls had said and what they had not said just in hopes it would make them see reason.
“If you leave you will die.”
“You let Lucy die.” The sister stated, looking her in the eye as she did.
Only Taye and Kehinda stayed with her as the nun and the rest of the girls went into the fog on the fifth day.
To keep themselves occupied as the screams that came from the outside rang through every corner, basking in the last days of their lives.
The next morning, Kehinde and Taye disappeared and so Nneka wandered the halls, imageries of the fun times she had playing with her friends projected like a film in her mind’s eye, as she ignored the hanged girls and the koi koi sound. Dancing to no music at all.
When she got tired, she went to Lucy’s resting place, lucky the keys were on the sister’s mattress, and crawled into the bed, stealing one of the dead girl’s teddies as fell into slumber.
The five hanging girls floated up the stairs to the room where Nneka slept with the decaying body of Lucy. They did not speak as she woke and trembled in fear. The floor opened wide like a hungry mouth, wide enough for her to see the slow movement of the flog and the silhouette of a limping woman with the sharp koi koi following each step she took.
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind
janainaart
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon