*CH*3*VOWS*

         I ran through the compound as fast as my legs would carry me and I stopped abruptly when I got to the front door, everything felt wrong, i don't know how to describe it but it just felt absolutely wrong and there was only one way to find out why but I was terrified of what I'd find behind that door.

          'Come on Mofe, you're bigger than this.'

I mustered up courage and opened the door and what I found was...................

I fell to the ground on my knees, as I stared at their bodies, my parents, my siblings, all dead, their bodies battered and bloody and I couldn't help but feel like it was my fault, after all ,I wasn't at home when it happened, maybe, I was supposed to die so that they wouldn't but because I didn't ,they did instead, whatever the reason was, it was my fault and the worst part of it all, i didn't shed a single tear, I couldn't....... because....... because, I was....I was ........empty.

      Desolate, blankness, hollowness, emptiness, those are only a few words that could possibly describe my lack of emotion upon finding my family dead, I should have cried, screamed, thrown a tantrum but I didn't ,I couldn't, I didn't feel anything, I was only in shock but I couldn't feel, never in my life have I been so drained of human emotion, I know it's possible to control it but that couldn't be why I felt this way.

        I stood from the ground, and walked to where my father lay, from the looks of things ,he was killed first, his eyes were wide open, his mouth too as though he was screaming before he died, the strange thing was the hole in his body where his heart was supposed to be.

        'What could possibly have done this?'

My father, my hero, my mentor, my best friend, dead on the floor of his on home, like an animal, slaughtered mercilessly, his heart ripped out from his chest.

         'Why would somebody do this to the most loving man there ever was? Why would somebody take my father away from me?'

The more I looked at him, I was taken back into a memory.

I was just coming back from school, I was in secondary school , Junior secondary school to be precise, and I had just come back home crying, some girls bullied me and I couldn't fight back, I got home and the first person I met was my father,he was walking to the parlour , I ran to him and he carried me up and took me to my room, then he sat me on his lap as he sat down , looked me in the eyes and asked.

       "Hey, what's wrong?"

       "The girls in school, they keep bullying me"

        "Well, did you offend them?" 

        "No, they just bullied me for no reason,they said they hated the hairstyle I did to school today"

        "Listen ,Mofe, those girls don't hate you or your hairstyle, they just don't like them selves and it's out of that self hatred that they said those things to you and look, don't ever give anybody the permission to make you angry or sad , nobody deserves that kind of right over your emotions or life, people can't hurt you if you don't give them the permission to, okay?"

        "Okay daddy , thank you." I hugged him tight.

And unfortunately, I came back to the present to see that same man dead and not feel anything, I bent down and closed her eyes and his mouth.

      'Rest in peace dad.'

Then I stood upright and walked to my mother, who lay on the staircase, I couldn't believe that I almost laughed on how fitting her death was for her and then I wanted to cry for laughing, that was an insult to my mother's memory, she wasn't the best person but at least she didn't deserve that treatment, not even in death. My mother's face was to the floor , her shirt at was torn, it looked like she was lashed to death, from the back of her head to her lower back.

        'That must have been painful, rest in peace mother, you weren't the best person but you deserved better than this, I'm sorry we couldn't have ended things on a better note, we didn't even say so much as a goodbye and that is my regret, I  hope you're in a better place now.'

I walked over to Taiwo and Kehinde who where leaning against the wall at the top of the staircase, a long rod, going through both their heads.

         'You were children, both of you, you had barely lived your lives and a tragic demise befell you both,only a monster would do such a thing to children,I cannot imagine the pain you had to endure while watching your parents die and this happened to you at the end, I am so so sorry, this is all my fault.'

Every part of me ached to shed at least one tear, to show that I was in pain and I needed to let it out, I needed to scream, I needed to cry..

..................... most of all, I needed to cry, this was too much for me to bare but still, no matter how I forced, something, anything out, nothing ,no tears not screams, no emotions what so ever, just void, like an empty vessel. I looked around and then I noticed that Idris wasn't here.

       'Where is Idris, wasn't he killed or did he manage to escape, I can't believe, I even just noticed this now'

I looked again and I saw drops of blood on the floor , leading to my room, I followed it and there he was, Idris was leaning against the end of my bed, his body had been decorated with knives as though he was a pin cushion. Idris.....I never really knew him, my older brother, shipped off to military school at the age of ten, I could barely speak then, he came back to weeks ago and we haven't had much of a conversation, other than the usual 'hello' but I'd have liked to get to know him, the man in the military suit. I was about to turn my face away when I saw it,two purple dots on one side of his neck.

        'What? What could have done this?'

I remembered what happened to me in the bathroom,the glowing purple dots on each side of my neck and suddenly I could feel the air in the room move around , running in circular motion, then it all stopped abruptly and I saw it all over my walls, the word 'HOREX' written in bold bloody letters. It was in that moment that I got angry, I was absolutely furious.  

      First of all, I was thrown across my compound like a doll, then my memories where played with, then I come home to find my family dead and I can't feel anything for them, whoever did this was going to pay dearly, I didn't care what I had to do, I'd kill whoever if I had to, this was my vow, I'd avenge my family.