Lilies Glow

Second land

Just for the money

Yaba’s teeth!

Ipo Massai

After her innocent soulascended for its creator on that day in the hospital, he saw his wife’s collapsing into millions of fragments that destroyed his soul.He realized how incapacitated his body was , which looks like the body of wrestlers and which thought to be a wall of protection for his family, but he did nothing to relieve even throes of death on his six-year-old daughter ... his baby Yaba!

＊＊＊

He was sitting on his comfortable couch watching TV without sound and focus. His hand holded the remote to press the channel flip button to change the station, but his finger kept pressing it in consecutive clicks without settling on a particular destination. He looked at his watch tight and mumbled, saying... (I’m late, I’ll make sure reducing her commission as punishment for that delay!) .

At the same moment, there was a long shadow to a big macho guy, climbing drainage pipes on the back of the house. He was so black as you can’t distinguish it from his shadow at the walls.He Firmly stuck to the lower open window frame, then by graceful jump , he became inside the bedroom. A few moments later, that fluffy brunette hand stretched out to press the main doorbell outside! .The 40-year-old man sighed from his boring sit in front of the screen then he took eager steps to open the door. The brunette entered the place with a smile filled with temptation, the man said :

- Too late!

She said with the same smile :

- Sorry, I’ll make sure I make up for this delay!

She was about to sit down, but he attracted her from her elbow saying:

- We will not sit , You’re already late.

From the sound of rising steps, Ibo knew they were two. He studied the situation in a few seconds then he made his decision quickly and hid behind a seat ,while applying his hand to the gun with a silencer in anticipation of any emergency. Obviously, the guy has a girl. obviously too,they intend to do it now!. He can carry out his mission without delay, but he thought he wouldn’t kill an extra head he wasn’t paid for!. That’s in addition to his conscience who was speaking with a low voice, saying... (Why don’t you let the man have fun before he dies?!) . So with the utmost magnanimity, he decided to wait in his place dimming his breath, while their breaths accelerated without delay! .The minutes passed and Ibo wished that the man would not be a superhuman, so that he would not be in his cache throughout the night, if he was bored, he would abandon his previous chivalry and would kill them right away. About half an hour later, they seemed to reach their peaks and it was over. The girl wore her clothes and stretched her hand to take the money he put her to bed, while her partner told her relaxingly:

- I intended to deduct from your commission due to the delay, but I won’t because I’m satisfied with what you did tonight! . She smiled confidently and sent him a goodbye kiss, and then left the room, so that Ibo could hear the sound of her heeled shoes landing on the stairs, after which he heard the sound of the main door closing.

After reassuring that he was now alone , he slowly stepped out of his hide and approached the bed where the man laying on his belly . Ipo pointed his gun to the head rested on the pillow . The man felt like he wasn’t alone. He turned his face to be surprised by the cold nozzle right pointed to his head, and before he uttered... Ibo pulled the trigger!

＊＊＊

Everyone started to slowly retreat, while the terrible sound was rising at a pace that almost stopped hearts, till the scene we used to see in horror movies happened.. Someone stumbled and the beast paid attention! . She was the one who stumbled and so the gnawing sound stopped and the hell doors were opened !

Hard running raises the adrenaline to superstitious proportions in bodies. Torn bodies scatter every where around them. Black beings with sharp incisive tusks drool after seeing their living prey. Survival instinct declares itself , now there is no place to talk about wanting to die, and hunger instinct declared itself next to it too !. The fruits are still shimmering in that forest, which looks like a paradise on the outside, but the truth is it contains the darkest hell. We can’t appreciate the time of the chase, as those minutes of fear have expanded into hours. Finally, a forest of stems looked like bamboo stems , but it was radiated with a green glow ,appeared infront of them . A whole forest with a narrow corridor that can barely fit two persons . There was no time to think... Are we going in or not? They followed each other in the corridor, and from the severity of their panic they did not stop running and did not notice that the monsters had stood snarling outside that forest. But it was Asia in the back of the line who noticed and stopped!.

she looked at the front and found them escaping as fast they could , then she looked at the backside to find that the monsters were unable to penetrate the forest, so they started pulling out except one of them who was standing on the edge looking at her and snarling. Here the survivalinstinct began to calm down after the panic eased, and the old desire to leave the world began to looking out of the eyes . Death without pain, why not? Slowly she turned around so the rest of the group became behind her back , and then she started moving toward the monster who knew he hadn’t lost all the fugitive herd!

After they finally stopped running, Ibo gasped:

- They preyed on Chai Lee!

Ramo inspected the rest with accelerated breaths:

-Yeah, we lost him there before we got in here.

Then he suddenly stopped to say:

- Where is Asia?!

Taqiya said:

- She’s been with us for minutes!

Here Ramo didn’t think for a second , he ran back ,while the voice of Bilal came from behind:

- Crazy. You’re gonna kill yourself!

They didn’t get a response from him. He continued running back to the destination from which they were escaping and he mumbles.

- She will spoil everything!

In those moments, Asia was still standing and fighting her fear, staring at this hideous face in front of her as she was thinking .. (Yes, it will be merciful, I haven’t heard any human screams here!) She made her decision and stretched her trembling hand to empty her ears from leaves, when Ramo’s hand stretched out to hold her hand firmly :

-What are you doing?

She said angrily as she pushed him:

- leave me alone.

He did not pay attention to the revolution of her anger as he forcibly took her inside. she was unable to wriggle out of his strong arms, or that fear had awakened in her heart again. The suevival instinct was restored by a mechanism, after which they moved together in speeding steps, away from the monster that issued a rage snarl because he lost his meal.

After their quick walks, they reached the rest of them , then everyone emerged from the glowing bamboo forest to the edge of a cliff separating them from another land and there was a wooden bridge leading them to the other bank so They started crossing it one by one to that unknown side!

****

In front of the ATM, he stood waiting for his yellow bank card. Seconds passed and the ATM showed him his bank balance which jumped a few thousand dollars, thanks to that head which he shot in the bedroom!. He withdrew a small sum and then took out the card. He headed to one of the American-themed restaurants on this vital street from Mombasa city that located on the coast of the Indian Ocean.After he bought his American lunch as he prefers, and instead of eating it in the restaurant yard, he took it and headed to the coast by taxi. After he got to his destination, he got out of the car and then took off his shoes to step into the beach with steps that sank into the sand. He walked along the swamps of mangrove plants which fill the coast , with their twisted stems like snakes below their green leaves. Here, where there are almost no humans, is his favorite place. Many who know him don’t imagine that this huge macho body goes to meditate on the waves and to unite with nature. Actually, after moving from Nairobi the capital , he no longer had acquaintances or friends, so he comes here whenever he feels alienated and nostalgic for old Ibo!

He remembers well the beginning of deviation the course of his life. He remembers how much he needed to save that little spirit that used to light up his life. He remembers how many doors were closed infront of his face for a sum he collects today from two operations for his clients.After her innocent spirit ascended for its creator on that day in the hospital, he saw his wife’s collapsing into millions of fragments that destroyed his soul.He realized how incapacitated his body was , which looks like the body of wrestlers and which thought to be a wall of protection for his family, but he did nothing to relieve even throes of death on his six-year-old daughter ... his baby Yaba!.He remembers well the day his wife carried her bag and decided to leave. She was not angry but when they lost the little one, that shared soul they created together one night under the will of the almighty, they did not endure to stay together because whenever she looked at his face and he looked at her, they only saw the little one that was gone. He then left with his huge body for Mombasa, and later his body teached him how to earn a living. At first they asked him to discipline or beat someone for a reasonable amount of money, and then they started turning to him when they wanted to get rid of an opponent or enemy. When they want to kill!

Now, four years after the parting of his family , he’s Ibo Masai, the unbelievable and unforgiving murder machine, Who you can access to him only via deep Web.. This Internet which used for the drug trade, murder, sale of human beings, organs, devil slaves and their terrible rites!. Who imagines that this professional hired killer, comes to sit alone in the ocean presence and coconut trees to remember his memories!. He finished his meal and then he messed around in his pockets until he pulled out the thread that penetrated it three human teeth, one of the three was his tooth that he took off at the dentist that day, and the others were two baby tooth that fell from the little Yaba... !

****

When they saw the first land with its blue sands and crystal fruits, they thought of it as paradise, but when they left the wooden bridge and began to penetrate into that new land, they were thinking exactly the opposite! . barren red soil in which grass finds no habitat for living, its trees are scattered at spaced distances , its trunks are broad-brown, its leaves crumpled with rough texture, while its fruits look like tomato but with heterogeneous sticky textures. It’s dirt. It’s red. suffocation -inducing cough and temperatures were relatively higher. The new land is dismal , but they have reached a significant amount of fatigue after all this running and panic that has made their joints as marionette joints.

They all sat on the ground in silence and the bloody scene was still present in everyone’s mind. A while later Bilal spoke and his face was still shocked:

- We lost Mr. Chai Lee, I saw him between the clutches of that monster, this scene will not easily leave my mind.

Asia said while avoiding looking at Ramo :

- What you don’t know is that he is the luckiest of us as he didn’t feel any pain . Being alive for extra time is no advantage and Horrors are inevitably coming.

Ramo did not answer her as he decided to avoid arguing with her then Ibo said:

- Asia is right, we seem to atone for our sins here!

The group surrendered to the gloomy silence which surrounded their black destiny . This group is a realistic demonstration of the human nature full of good and evil. One, like Ibo, might seem, with his criminal history, a monster stripped of humanity in the eyes of his rulers, but when he looks at himself in the mirror, he sees only someone who has veered his way against his will. Inside him there are the remnants of a living and real human conscience, so we find the most evil criminals who never view themselves harshly, but always justify themselves those acts, all of which are very logical and indisputable justifications for their conscience.

Milan got up from his place to head to the nearest tree and picked up some fruits and then began to taste them, while his eyebrows gathered as he was eating .Taqyia asked him :

-It tastes bad?

Continuing to chew, he said:

- Not bad but weird. It tastes a bit like meat!.

Milan continued to eat the fruits and the others began to follow him. the majority of them felt weird and disgusted by its strange taste, and while they were engaged in chewing, they ended up hearing the sound of whining!

They freezed in their places as robots . They consumed their energy and they won’t be able to run right now. Slowly they converged and turned to the sound, but they regained their balanced heart beats when they saw its source. it was only a small rabbit-like white animal, glued to a tree’s torso and emitting a painful bitter howler.the pity moved their hearts, and Ibo turned to it to see what was happening . He bent over and when he saw the reason for the howl, he gasped saying:

- Your mercy, almighty, what is this?

They gathered around him to look at this little dying animal and they shocked by a painful and disgusting scene. The part attached to the tree was completely corroded as if the tree devoured it! , Where fanglike cutters penetrated into his white back , it was an outward digestion and slowly killing manner ! . Ipo rushed and brought his wooden spear, and with experience he used to, he killed the poor animal in one stab so the howling stopped. They stood looking at each other and their intestines had begun to shrink. Ibo said in disgust:

- These trees feed on live meat, this is the secret to the taste of their strange fruits!

A sense of nausea overwhelmed everyone, as Aung walked away to empty her stomach contents on the ground !.

****

He parked his bike near that residential tower, then he carried two pizza packs on the palm of his hand, and entered from the tower gate , to deliver his order to a customer. He pressed on the tenth button of the elevator , so the elevator started to move upwards . in the Mid-trip , the elevator stopped. The door slided. the owner of this giant body came in with confidence. The worker waited for the continuation of the trip. The elevator again proceeded its way up until it reached its destination. the door was opened and just one of the two was out the elevator .

The one who was giant and who slowly headed to that corner of the floor, carrying the delivery boy , like a baby on his shoulder then he piled him in and carried the pizza to the woman waiting!

Doorbell rang. the woman went to see who’s there. The sound came from the tough man:

- pizza my lady!

she opened the door and extended her hand to take her order, then she left him by the opened door to get the money . she entered the room and messed with her bag for money. she turned but before she completed it for the open door, she fell !. She fell with a bloody fountain came out of her neck!. Ibo did it quickly and confidently. he doesn’t like to prolong the moments of dying. The woman’s body was shaking on the floor at secondsas her soul was ascending. Ibo stabbed her heart with one strike so the movement extinguished completely . He doesn’t like to use the knife, but the client, he contacted for the mission, asked him to. the client wanted a slow and painful death, but Ibo killed her quickly, and after he confirmed that she had left this world, he made consecutive stab wounds with her body. Stab wounds won’t hurt anymore, but it will satisfy his client’s masochistic desire!. After he finished, one thing remained . he took his modern phone out of the pocket of his back trousers and took more than a photo of her to send it to his client .

it was just a job, a job that brings him a lot of money that killed his daughter in the past..Little Yaba, who, Ibo doesn’tknow in those seconds , that her baby tooth locket left his pocket when he took his phone out of it, to lie inside next to the torn corpse!.

＊＊＊

They didnot know how long they had been in such a place, but their legs didn’t carry them further more into that land, as they were scared of other monsters prescence. Here there is no danger around, just the hot stifling weather and those trees that feed on their a live prey !. From time to time , some small rodent-like animals pass them by , and from time to time they listen to their groaning while it take out their last breath, under the clutches of trees! ,So they made sure that they got away from it. They ate the fruits and took turns vomiting .it didn’t taste so bad, but the voice of the whining shook their digestive system, like they ate those rodents alive! So the nausea didn’t leave them . Sweat. nausea. Choking... It was a summary of their situation in that land, but none of them ever suggested to leave, as this whining sound is less terrifying than the shimmering fruit land . Next to a small water spring, the three women sat wiping on their faces and bodies to relieve the heat that was increasing day by day. Aung was apparently the most stressful of them, and she had never stopped emptying her stomach since she set foot on that ground.Taqyia saw her running inside then based her knees on the ground and vomited.

Taqyia spoke to Asia:

-Aung will not hold up much, her body clearly rejects that food.

Asia said:

-It’s better to move, What keeps us here anyway?

Taqyia said with a mean smile:

- we are waiting for the commander’s signal!.

- leader?

- Ramo! Didn’t you notice that he was guiding us?

Asia silenced and looked away.

Taqyia said with the same smile:

-Didn’t you also notice his excess interest in you?!

Asia said angrily:

-Do you see this place ? We’re in hell, darling. We’re just lost souls that get their share of agony, we’re not on a trip in the open air and having friendship and romance stories, so I hope you remove this provocative smile from your face , please! .

She finished her words and then got up to leave the place, while Taqyia followed her with smart eyes and a wry smile, and mumbled:

- I saw it, darling, that glitter in your eyes I know! He’s the reason I’m here!.

She closed her eyes and had seen a scene from the past.. red drops fallen from white bedsheet.

He was sitting gasping while squeezed by the weather, his white skin has turned pink approaching the color of his red hair. Ibo passed him and looked at with a glance of contempt, while mumbling audibly:

-The white chicken is boiled in this heat!

Milan looked at him with hatred and he replied with inaudible voice... (Of course he is the most adapted in that weather , I don’t have this mud color!) . Ibo approached a tree and picked some fruits and walked back, then without warning, he found himself on the ground after faltering across something. He got up quickly and found Milan sitting ,with a yellow smile which looked wild on his pink face. The ground shook beneath an angry Ibo who approached Milan and raised him with one fist while saying:

-You seem to be rushing your death , you red rat .The smile did not leave Milan’s lips, Ibo became more angry and threw him to the ground so Milan hit one of the rocks. Ibo then left, while Milan remained on the ground holding his shoulder as he groaned in pain. He then angrily mumbled:-

-Your mind is hen’s mind , you nigger . you don’t know what Milan can do!.He said it as he looked at two animals fighting next to one of the trees, and then suddenly the whining sound went off!.

＊＊＊

Quick clicks with his black finger on the keyboard of his laptop, made him take a tour in the website through which he runs his business. With a smile of satisfaction, he was looking forward to the page.. his own page on which he found many messages from the clients .. Clients who want to kill! . His name seems to have shone high among the hired killers, he had performed all his tasks without one mistake and with high craftsmanship. Strangely, he was moving his clicks between this criminal site in

the deep Web to another as he could communicate socially to follow up on his fake account!. A tap that transports him to an all-black world and a tap that transports him to a natural world filled with colors. And when he looks at his page overlooking the natural world, he realizes how pure it is, even if it seems to the most of people .. black and fake. how will they think if they look at those worlds that have been hidden from them?!. How envious Ibo is of this ignorance that they don’t know its value.of course everyone hears about the heinous crimes in this world, but they don’t imagine how far it reaches .Another click transfers him to that black world, there are many tasks waiting him to communicate with their owners to take all the details and start executing. he closed his computer and sipped the beer in front of him, then he wanted to smoke his cigarettes but suddenly he remembered his locket !

He checked his trouser pocket but he didnot find it . like the crazy, he searched In the floor , on the table, in desk drawers .. but he remembered well that he hasn’t seen it in days!. The siren went off in his mind.He threw his cigarettes at the bed and proceeded to look here and there. In the drawers... No, in the cupboard.. No, down the bed.. No, in the tabletops.. no, under the furniture.. No. he stopped. His mind is beating, it smells the air like a trained guard dog . now he remembers. The beach and the pocket of trouser .. he speeded up to the hanging trousers. He searched well... but he found nothing. Just his mind was painting a drawing .. his hand pulls the phone out of the pocket, and at the same time the locket falls, in the apartment of that woman whose neck was cut off ! .. the evidence which would lead him into the abyss!. Quickly he brought his heavy bag, he collected all he can collect from his belongings, and in the same seconds, his ears was picking up the sound of kicks on his apartment door!.

＊＊＊

She perched on the ground in an embryonic position, although this position brings more heat but it is indispensable. it is defense mechanism against the night with its darkeness and brutality, and against buzz of the usual bee of memories which comes usually at bed time. She’s in this situation, like a turtle hurries into her shell to flee the world. In that nightmare land, the moonlight barely passes through those scattered trees,and the light reflected in nightmarish red shadows. She closed her eyes and tried to call her only saviour from that buzz. Sleeping with his tedious authority, where it carries her soul to that distant land and then returns in the morning and how much she wished to never come back!

The buzz carried her to a picture of the past that made a hot tear slide on the side of her face. The picture of a sleeping child in a dark room, and next to his bedding stands that woman looking at him with eyes that don’t see and holding a pillow in her hands!. She closed her eyes sharply and gasped much more . she begged the great saviour to come to relieve her pain, but something else pulled her out of the buzz.She looked around .. The group was asleep except for Ibo, who was bent over Milan, and she did not know what exactly he was doing, after which he moderated so his eyes met with Asia’s wondering eyes, but he ignored her and walked away , then he piled into Corner to sleep, giving his back to her . she woke up to the sound of screaming and brawling. She took wondering fast steps till she found the next scene in front of her. Milan was completely stained with dirty black material, he was screaming, denouncing and promising , after which the fight began. Ibo and Milan were fighting, but of course it was Milan’s losing battle. He was like a mouse fighting a black and giant beast. He was almost actually to kill by Ibo if it wasn’t for the intervention of Bilal and Ramo.Ibo was barely removed from the place, while the women were looking at the spaniel Milan as he was on the floor moaning in pain.The night after this fight, the crowd drowned in a deep sleep except for two!. In that empty space between the trees, Milan stood waiting, with a disturbed and wounded body but he was stationary to a suspicious extent, after which a giant black ghost began to advance. The two men stood confronted with eyes uttered by sparks and hatred.

Moments of anticipated silence, after which Ibo spoke:

- Indeed I salute you for your bravery, Milan.you are strangely adamant to continue fighting even though you can hardly stand.

Milan said coolly:

- I will not let Nigger put the end word to me!

Ibo angrily snarled and without warning ,he rushed toward Milan violently . at less than a second, Milan slipped out of the way of that human tank so Ibo hit the tree trunk instead of Milan. Milan’s eyes smiled confidently .. his eyes which saw this scene in the past days between the two feuding rodents to give him the idea!.. Hundreds of white blades came out of the tree torso , penetrating the body of Ibo who fired a scream filled the air !.