My mates, thankfully, said nothing concerning the prophecy Da Ankora spoke of. They knew I didn’t want to talk about it, so they let it be, opting to act like everything was okay when it wasn’t.
The dreams persisted. At first, it was just walking through the forest with the older version of me that I realized was my mother. The more I dreamt about her, the more it seemed like a part of my memory that was sealed off was finally crawling out from a shell. Each day felt like I was getting closer to the truth.
“What’s wrong?” Blue asked, massaging my aching feet. “Still thinking of the dream you had?”
“Hmm.” Nodding, I peered down at my mate, who was pressing the soles of my feet, to relieve it of the pain.
This morning, I forced them to run a lap with me, to clear my mind of everything happening, and I was paying the price for it. My abdomen was hurting like hell, and so were my feet.
“You don’t have to worry about it.” He smiled, gently squeezing my toes.
He didn’t ask what the dream was about. They never did. They knew I had been having reoccurring dreams for 2 weeks now, but never forced me to tell them about it. They respected my wishes, waiting for when I would decide to let them in on it.
“What if what he mentioned is true?” I voiced out, too scared to speak about it, but had to. Ignoring the elephant in the room was the best choice, but not for long. We needed to talk about this, to consider most of the things the old man said. Even though his remarks about me being a hybrid, and stronger than my mates, sounded far-fetched, there might be a little truth to his words.
Blue paused at what he was doing. He didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he stared at me, mulling over my words before he responded with a question, “Do you want it to be true?”
“I don’t know.” I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “I just don’t know what to believe any more. My dreams aren’t helping matters at all.”
“Oh.” Nodding, he watched me, waiting for me to say something, and I did.
For the first time since I had my first dream, I told someone about it. He listened with rapt attention, not interrupting until I concluded the story.
“Strange,” he muttered, setting my foot on the table before he rose from the floor. “It seems Da Ankora was telling the truth about your memories. They were sealed.”
“Why?” I demanded, voicing out a question I had constantly asked myself for the past week. Why did the person who sealed my memory do it? What happened to my mum? How did I end up in the orphanage? If I wasn’t human like I had always thought, why did I grow up as one?
Blue sat next to me and hugged my side, urging me to lean my head on his right shoulder, and I did. Sighing, I closed my eyes.
“Don’t let it bother you, love,” he whispered, his tone soothing.
“But -”
“Shh.” He patted my hair. “We will solve the mystery soon. Just don’t think about it.”
I wanted to argue. Not thinking about it didn’t sound like the right solution to the problem, but I knew he was right about one thing. It would take time to unravel the truth behind everything happening. Talking about it now won’t help at all. It would only burden me, and that would be all. None of us had the solution to it.
“I’m home!” Fred yelled as he stepped into the house and shut the door behind him, grinning. “Who missed me?”
“No one.” My reply was dry. Yawning, I removed my head from Blue’s shoulder and sat up.
Blue left this morning for a meeting he had with only God knows who. None of them were willing to tell me where he went. What I knew was he had to sort an urgent problem out.
“No one? That’s a lie.” He walked over to me and placed a peck on my forehead. “Even if you didn’t miss me, my bundle of joy did.” He got down on one knee, so his face was at the same level as my tummy. “Did you miss Daddy?” He asked, placing a kiss on my stomach.
Blue and I rolled my eyes at him as he continued to ask the foetus if they missed him.
“He said he did.” He got up and plopped down next to me, puffing out a breath.
“What’s wrong? Had a hectic day?”
“Not at all. I just missed home.” He grinned. “So? What have you guys been up to in my absence?” He directed his question towards Blue. “I hope you didn’t do something I would do in your absence?”
“Since you would do that in my absence, why shouldn’t I do the same?” Blue retorted.
And that was all it took for them to start bickering like kids. Most of the time, I always wondered if they had split personalities. With each other, they act like Tom and Jerry – my favourite TV show while growing up. But with others, they act like a villain out for blood. They hardly smiled.
I opened my mouth to ask them to shut up when I felt the ache. At first, it started like a throb on the back of my head before it gradually became more. It felt like my head was about to split in two. The pain was intense, almost knocking my breath off. My teeth started hurting like someone was trying to pull them out.
A soul-shattering scream left my throat as I fell back on the couch, yelling for them to stop. I felt hands on me, but couldn’t tell who it belonged to. I knew they said something, but I couldn’t hear it. The insistent ringing in my ears made it difficult for me to hear them.
Screaming out, I trashed on the couch, with my hands placed on my ears, begging them to make the pain stop. But it didn’t. All parts of my body were hurting. My bones seemed to be shifting, like they wanted to change position, each shift hurting like hell.
At that moment, I would take menstrual cramps over this. It was no child’s play.