NINE - CAVE.

“Realms are perfectly suited for its residents, to travel outside of it, is to put one's self at risk and in danger, so, how do we prepare to combat this? We adapt, wear a different form, enhance our form, do whatever is necessary.” 

Uloma sighed visibly annoyed. 

“Who is asking you for this lecture now?” 

She asked, glaring at the floating sparking form in front of her. She emphatically threw her hands about as she spoke in mimicry of Emenike. 

“Is helping out in my way a problem now?” 

Ekama replied. Uloma sighed again and turned her back to her friend, she was too busy for Ekama’s antics, she told herself. 

“If you keep sighing like that, all the air inside of you will finish, what would you look like then, with no air inside of you?” 

“Kama everyone is busy, why am I your target? Go and bug someone else.” 

“You will miss me.” 

Ekama told her, floating in circles, almost twirling. 

“I can live with that, now leave me alone.” 

“But everyone else keeps sending me away, Abali even put a curse on me, so I cannot find him. I am only trying to help you guys.” 

“Kama go away.” 

Uloma shouted at her friend. 

“Fine.” 

Ekama replied floating away, through a narrow opening that led out of the chamber they were in. 

“I will go and make more accommodating friends.” 

She called over her shoulder to Uloma’s hunched form. 

“Good luck.” 

Uloma muttered under her breath. 

“I can hear you.” 

Ekama’s disembodied voice whispered in Uloma’s ears. 

“If you can hear me, you are still too close, go away.” 

Ekama’s disembodied voice sniffed. Uloma imagined the annoyed expression on her friend’s face and sighed again, Ekama would make her pay later, but that too she could live with. What was she these days if not a ball of things she had to live with?  

Ekama’s refusal to do ‘manual labour’ as she calls it, only meant that she was in the way. She had taken to floating over walking the last couple of days, because of how much, she was bumping into people. The Dragons of the sky would be here for the trainees any day now, they were never on time, but it has not stopped the frenzy of preparations and fortification. Ekama was right, they could not expect to survive outside of their own realm without adapting something, and Emenike and the Elders agreed that carrying essences from The Realm of Death should be good enough fortification. Ekama’s and Abali’s parents paid people to do their harvesting for them, but Abali would not sit out the preparations, he was helping the Cosmics who needed assistance. Ulo had Emenikes doing her work for her, but she wanted to do something as well, hence her joining the preparation. 

She was inside this cave trying to harvest as much essence as she could. It was quiet in here, thoughts travelled in dark blue swimming shapes, and indigo lights. Uloma’s feet rubbed against the dried and caked mud floor, rain seeped in here all that time through the slight opening above, but it had not rained since the harvesting. The harvesting was putting a lot of strain on the atmosphere, with everyone pulling essence from it.  

She snatched her leg away from a vine that had been snaking up to her, they like to sneak up on you, like they thought you could ever surprise a Cosmic by sneaking up on them. If she did not feel so hollow, the almost childish attempt to capture and eat her feet by the vines would have made her smile. 

This was the place to go for students who wanted to keep away from the all-seeing eyes of Emenikes. Emenikes existed too much for places like this, it did not matter now though, as students were too invested and preoccupied with the harvest to want to sneak off. Uloma was pulling brown goo into the basket by her feet, as she worked, she was careful not to stand still in one place long enough to have her feet or hand caught by the vines. She needed to concentrate, that was the reason she sent Ekama away, all her wittering and talking was distracting. 

Thoughts, the essence of this place was barely there, she had to first chase it around in her mind when she got a wisp of it, and then coax it into form, and then draw it out, gathering it in her palm, until it was no longer a wispy fog, writhing about on her palm. Her basket made a slushing sound every time she released the brown-like goo into it. She felt the wall with her palms, her hand digging into crevices for porousness, pulling a dead vine lodged into one of the holes on the wall, she felt a wisp of thought, it was a tingling sensation that was barely there. Sometimes the thoughts made screeching noises, like nightmares chased into waking, those kinds were redder than they were brown, they did not tingle, they seared, scotched, and bruised, this was a treacherous place, everything was trying to hurt or eat you. She caught a few of those and her raw hand was a testament to her need to be more careful, to feel through the opening in the wall of the cave more carefully. Uloma worked like this for hours, ignoring the progressively darkening cave. 

Too lost in her activity, the ache in her arms and shoulders was her first clue that she was overdoing it again. She would have kept going, because how much work was penance for being responsible for the looming end of everyone and everything you loved? There were easier places to harvest essence, but she only went to places that tasked her, she was not trying to make it easy on herself, somewhere in her head, her own mind was telling her she did not deserve to have it easy. People were dying, so why should she have it easy? 

She picked up the basket and heaved, almost doubling over, she always underestimated the weight of essence because they looked so light. But these were thoughts and when had thoughts ever been light? The darkness outside meant that the cave could come alive, it was not bright, but the low hue of dark ebbing thoughts charged up the cave. Uloma sighed, it was beautiful, but her heart felt like something was lodged inside of it, and no matter how much air she let out, the thing inside her chest stayed unmoving. 

Making her way out of the cave, with the basket on her head, Uloma walked down the road that would lead her back to the main school. The sun had set a while back, not that there was ever real sunlight here, but night time as usual was where the Realm of Death excelled. The dark realm was covered in a pinprick of silver looking down on them. The clear night smelled of everything and nothing, there was no drizzle or threat of the usual rain. 

“You know you don’t have to carry that basket on your head, right?” 

Uloma swerved around, so fast she almost dropped the basket on her head. Why did her chest think thumping the way it was, was okay? 

“The weight of all that essence must be pulling you even more under than your realm already is.” 

Eligwe was leaning against a tree, his skin glowed in competition with the silvery sky above, and his brown eyes watched her lazily, she watched him back not sure what to do with herself, or his sudden presence. He had vanished after that night and left her alone to navigate through emotions she did not understand. Snap out of it, you don’t have the time for this, her brain chided. She shook herself visibly. 

“Why are you here?” 

“What a silly thing to ask me?” 

He replied that arrogance he always wore shook her awake even more, looking at him now, she knew she would never have kissed him if he hadn’t been so vulnerable that night. He walked over to her, in that lazy way he had, throwing one leg in front of the other. He was so infuriatingly insufferable. She raised an eyebrow when he reached her. 

“I came looking for you.” 

He was too close, she could see where the neckline of his robe creased and flowed down to the rest of his body, his robe was thin enough that she could see the rising and falling of his chest. 

“You are standing too close she told him.” 

“Would you like me to move away?” 

He asked her, his chest moving even faster and faster, no, she shook her head laden with the basket of essence. 

“Let me help.” 

He said, flicking his wrist and pulling the basket from her head, she did not try to hold on to it or watch where it was floating by their side. She was at eye level with his rapidly beating chest, she should have looked up, looked away, but she did not want to look into his eye. 

“Your chest is beating really fast.” 

She told him, he chuckled, and pulled her chin up, forcing her to look up at him. 

“You were away.” 

She told him, trying to prevent whatever was about to happen, discuss anything else, she screamed at herself. He shrugged and frowned, his forehead creasing. 

“I was summoned.” 

He said simply, she could see that he did not want to talk about it, but she felt lost for what to do, she needed to keep talking, anything, so that she was not thinking about his perfect cheekbones and the beautiful way his eyes dominated his face. 

“I thought you had come to your senses after you kissed me.” 

She smiled trying to make light of her words, but she meant every word. 

“You kissed me too, and I was not out of my senses.” 

So much for lightening the conversation, he was not giving her an escape. 

“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time. I want to kiss you even now.” 

He lowered his head to hers, and paused his lips just inches from hers, as if asking her permission for what he was about to do, when she did not move away, he leaned even closer and let his mouth cover hers. 

She thought she should stop him, but seconds before his lips touched hers, she kissed him back now, forgetting every objection, she let him consume her; her thoughts, and everything else, this was a moment and the moment was him. 

When he pulled away, she almost cried. His eyes searched her gaze, what did he see there? Himself probably, because he was all that she could see and perceive, he kissed her again, his lips gentle like a flutter against hers, so why did it feel like he was consuming her whole? When they parted for the second time, she threw herself into his arms and wept. He did not move, he held her as she cried, gulping and sobbing, her heart felt like a hole that would not stop caving, in his arms, the hole was not so devastatingly hollow. 

She felt Ekama in her head and pulled away from him. 

“Hey, is she okay?” 

Ekama asked Eligwe, glaring at him suspiciously; she still hadn’t forgiven him for his behaviour at the party. She might never forgive him for how he treated Echi. 

“Are you okay?” 

Abali asked gently swiping the tears on her face, she instinctively looked up at Eligwe, he was looking at her with expressions she could not decipher or understand. Abali kissed her forehead and hugged her. There was a time she lived for the tenderness a being like Abali could show her, but something had changed, she was not sure what it was, but her eyes did not leave Eligwe’s while her friends fussed over her and he did not look away either as Abali still hugging her, his palm tenderly cradling the back of her head pulled her into oblivion.