🌼🌹ONCE UPON A GIRL🙅♀️
🥀🍁SHE’S JINXED (CURSED)🍁🥀
(History repeats itself)
©GIFT OKORIE✍️
👑CHAPTER 13👑
And that was when I saw her face clearly. “Mum?” Was all I could reply before I pas-sed out.
***************
I opened my eye lids, and rolled my eyes ball to the right where the light was coming from. There was a small window by the wall and the rays of the sun shines throu-gh it and into the room.
I felt a warm hand smooshing my left hand in comfort, I turned to my left and saw Dave sitting on a stool, he had my left hand in his hands and his head on the be-d.
“Dave?” I called him, he raised his head up.
“You are awake” he breathed out and k!$$£d my forehead, I smiled at him and he smiled back.
He turned behind him and that was when I saw a figure of a woman who was staring throu-gh a window that led to the courtyard, I could see people walking about their businesses outside.
“Ma’am she’s awake” Dave announced.
The woman sighed and I didn’t nee-d to be told that it’s mum. I can’t believe it, I thought it was a dream.
She turned and walked to us, she smiled down at me but I was too angry to smile back even though all I really wanted was to just jump into her arms and cry but pride took the better p@rt of me.
“Hey pumpkin” she called out. David stood up from his stool for her to sit down but I held his hand to avoid him walking out of the room.
I sat up and looked up at the woman I called mum who left me for three years without calls, letters, or text message.
“Marichuiy…” She called.
“Don’t even think about it” I waved her off, she stared at me with pleading eyes but I blinked. “I know what you wanna do, ‘I’m sorry baby, I didn’t mean to leave you blah blah blah’, bullsh*t, you hear me, that is bull$h!t, I don’t wanna hear it, save it and keep it to yourself” I fired at her and stood up. “Let’s go Dave” I said to Dave.
“Mari maybe you should listen to her plea-se” Dave asked me.
“I don’t wanna hear it” I argued and made for the door.
“She’s still your mother Marichuiy and whatever she did was for your own good” I heard that voice I’ve not heard for the past 12 years, God plea-se tell me it’s not him, cause if it is, so help me God, I’ll kill someone.
A door I hadn’t noticed by the left wall pushed open and my dad walked in. He still look really cute, tall and muscular in his mid fourty. More anger clouded my eyes as I stared at him, even if I forgive mum, I’ll never forgive him.
Memories of when he left flooded into my head, how he told my mum the marriage wasn’t working that he has found someone better, how we saw him in a mall with his bit-chy wife and son who happened to be my age, I ran to this man to hvg him as my dad but he pushed me away, his bit-ch insulted my mum, if not for his son who helped me up, people would have stepped on tender me. After all these years he dared show his face.
Without any second thought I ran to him and gave him a resounding sl@p.
“Marichuiy!” Dave and mum called out in shock.
“It’s fine I deserved that” he stated as he ru-bbe-d his cheek while giving me a soft stare.
“No you don’t, you don’t deserve that, you deserve more than that, you deserve more pain than you’ve ever caused me, how dare you..” I screamed at him, I saw Michael, Kira and the rest barge into the room but I cared less, I was furious and this man nee-ds to feel the heat. “How dare you show Your face here after 12 years of your embarras-sment..” I screamed at him.
“Marichuiy cut it, you are talking to your father” mum yelled at me.
“Oh no, this man standing right here seized to be my father the day he pushed me away at that mall…” I fired back and turned to her. “And you, don’t even think that I’ve forgiven you cause I haven’t” I barked at her.
“Marichuiy plea-se calm down, I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness or acceptance but your mother doesn’t deserve to be treated this way, she’s here because she’s trying to help you, she wants to right her wrongs, your mother loves you so much and she can’t deliberately hurt you, plea-se try to un-derstand” dad pleaded, I turned to him.
“Don’t even try to Make me look like the bad person here, she’s here because she is stubborn. I’m in this situation because someone I called a mother could not obey simple instruction, ‘do not t©uçh the book of wisdom and the box of magic otherwise your offspring will be cursed’, is that so much for that dragon king to ask for, but my mum decided to disobey, now look at me, cursed to my bone marrow and it will become permanent if I don’t get to that temple and return that book and box before my birthday” I barked as h0t tears slid down my cheek. “Tell me dear father, when is my birthday?”
He looked down and sighed before raising his head up to answer. “In three days”
“Wow, I’m really surprised you remembered” Michael snapped at him, I wish the atmosphere wasn’t so intense, that joke could have triggered laughter.
“I can never forget my own daughter’s birthday” dad retorted.
“But you pushed your own daughter away, dude not to boast but, I think I’ll make a wonderful father than you” Salvador stated as he patted his back.
“Marichuiy, I’m so sorry, for everything I’ve caused you, plea-se forgive me and trust me, I’ll fix it” mum pleaded
“You’ve been fixing it for the past 3 years, how is it going for you ma’am?” Kira fired at her, for the first time, I applaud her rudeness.
“We got lost” dad stated
“Right after you forgot the main purpose why you started this journey” Salvador mocked as he brou-ght out the book and the box from his backpack.
“Oh My goodness, where did you get that?” Mum asked him, she ran to him and snatched the twok stuff and hvgged them ti-ghtly.
“You forgot them in Pedro’s lab” I replied.
“How do you know about Pedro?” Mum asked.
“This is his evil brother Salvador….” David stated and I chuckled.
“Evil is a strong word dude” Salvador complained.
“Salvador wants us to accompany him to the Temple so that he can steal all the temple’s treasure in exchange for marichuiy to return the book and the box and get freed from the curse” ru-by detailed.
“He refused to let us go home after he kidnapped us from a night p@rty because he was afraid we will report him to the police” Kira explained further.
“So he made us tag along instead” Kiwi added.
“Wow, you are a bad one” dad snapped at him.
“At least I’ll be a good father unlike some people I know” Salvador mocked him.
“Yea, but you won’t leave to be a father if you t©uçh those treasures, taking the book of wisdom and box of magic away from the jungle is bad enough and you alre-ady know the consequences, but taking the temple’s treasure is instant death, why did you think your brother and us his crew c@m£ back home empty handed, we were almost killed in that temple” mum explained to Salvador.
“Thats because y’all were weak” Salvador argued.
“This is not a matter of the weak and the strong, the dragon king almost woke up that day, it was terror for us, imagine if you finally wake him up because of your greed and selfishness, you will bring a great tribulation to earth cause the dragon doesn’t stand evil, and almost everywhere you go in this earth screams of evil, starting from the government, don’t start what you can’t finish Salvador, Pedro should have warned you” mum stated.
“We will see about that when we get there” Salvador insisted.
“What is this place and how did you guys get here though?” Bathny asked. Mum turned to her.
“Bathny right” she asked and Bathny nodded with a smile, mum hvgged her.
“I’ve actually been thinking about how I’ve seen the face before” dad said but I rolled my eyes, everything he says irritates me now.
“How are you” mum asked.
“I’m good” Bathny replied.
“Thanks for taking care of my baby” mum said and I almost laughed out loud.
“If only you know how I abandoned her, you will be more angry with me than her dad” she stated and we all laughed.
“It’s OK dear, I won’t blame you, people make mistakes” mum cheered her up.
“Yea, and I won’t make such mistake again munchkin” Bathny said and dragged my left cheek.
“Ouch” I cried and we both giggled.
“But mum you didn’t answer the question, what is this place and why have you been here all this while” I asked her.
“Well when we go to that cliff in the south where you c@m£ from before we saw you, we realized that the bridge which was there 17 years ago was no longer there. We sat for a while, I asked your dad to check on the box and book which I thought I put in his backpack but we realized the book wasn’t there, we thought we had lost them, we search around but couldn’t find, I didn’t know we didn’t even come with it in the first place, I was crying and your father was consoling me when I heard a voice whisper ‘this way’…. I thought it was your father, I told him to st©p pla-ying tricks on me cause I’m not in the mood for it but he said he didn’t say anything, so I paid attention cause I know anything can happen in this jungle. And like I expected the voice whispered again ‘this way’, I looked up and saw the dragon lord staring down at me, he was pointing towards the north…”
“OMG, that was Exactly what happened to me, I heard and saw him too, he lead us here” I cut in.
“Really?” Mum asked in astonishment and I nodded.
“Let her finish her story first” Salvador stated.
“So we walked down the north, we saw a vineyard, we were hungry and we thought the gr@p£s belonged to no one, we ran to it, plucked some and ate only for people to start yelling thieves….”
“History just repeated itself” Henry whined.
“Its crazy” Kiwi backed up.
“We tried to explain to them but they refused to listen to us, I looked around for the dragon lord but I didn’t see him, they took us to their leader, and we were s£ntenced to 5 years in captivity, which means we can do whatever we want, we will be given a house, we can buy and sell, we can cultivate and harvest, but we can’t leave here until we are done serving our term…”
“I love this type of captivity” ru-by cut in and we laughed, seriously what type of captivity is that.
“Why didn’t you run?” Kira asked her.
“Trust me we tried, but it’s as if they have eyes in the skies, three times we’ve tried to run but each time they catch us with ease, and then they warned that if we try to escape again, the penalty will be death by drowning and you know your father and I hate water, so we decided to let it go” she concluded “but then something happened” she added.
“What is it, you fell in love again with someone better?” Salvador asked her.
“Salvador” we all exclaimed and he rolled his eyes at us, we laughed.
“What happened” Dave asked mum.
“I saw the dragon lord in the village farm market” she started.
“Wow”
“OMG” we exclaimed.
“Did you approach him?” Michael asked.
“Of course I did, weirdly he is not who we think he is, he is not actually the main dragon lord but his great, great, great great great great great grand son, the dragon lord was his ancestral father”
“Whaaat” we screamed.
“But how come he has the same face?” I asks her.
“May be the dragon lord is being reborn, cause in the story, the four dragon lords never married, so I think he’s being reborn every generation to take care of the slee-ping dragon king but he didn’t want to tell me” mum stated.
“Could be true” I added.
“I asks him for help since he knows why I’m here, he said he could have helped us escape and continue our journey to the Temple if only I had the book and the box but until the book gets here he can’t help me, I asked how is the book going to get here if I don’t go back and get it, he said that I should wait for fate”
“I guess he knew we will come” Bathny said and we nodded in agreement.
“Well let’s go meet him then” Salvador urged.
“He’s here” we jumped when we saw him sitting on the stool David sat on before. “I’ll only help you because that book of magic and the box is what my master the dragon king nee-ds for him to wake up peacefully without causing chaos” he said.
“Thanks a lot, that’s a very good reason” mum thanked him but he didn’t reply.
“Walk together straight to the village gate, do not make eye contact with anyone, that way they will not recognize you as the prisoners, when you get out of the village, walks about 3 miles and turn right, that will lead you towards the temple, you may pas-s throu-gh some tribulations but if you keep going on that track, you will get to the Temple before her birthday, when you get to the gate, mother and daughter shall answer a riddle each for the gate to open for you if you fail on your second attempt, you shall go back to where you c@m£ and cursed forever.” He stood up and turned to the wall. “You may leave now, and try not to die on the way” he said and walked out throu-gh the wall.
“Let’s go” mum said, she opened the door and bu-mped into Ricky who was coming in. “Hey Clara” Ricky greeted.
“Ugh, this guy” mum complained.
“Are you still angry with me? It’s been 17 years Clara” Ricky complained as we were walking out of the room and into the busy streets filled with people in bush clothes, don’t they know what civilization is.
“Yea, 17 years anniversary of you almost killing me in this jungle” mum fired at him.
“But you tried to kill me first” they were arguing as we were walking towards the gate without anyb©dy st©pping us.
I really pray we will make it to the temple.
“We will” I heard Dave whisper to me. Sh*t, I thought aloud.
He squee-zed my hand and smiled at me, I smiled back.
TBC
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