“Ulileta? (Did you bring it?)” Sarah asked sitting across from her in the dark. Vero, to her right nodded and produced the lighter she had successfully swiped from the watchman. Theresa watched all this in muted silence as she tried to calm herself. She felt like she was underwater. She didn’t hear Sarah calling out to her the first time and only responded after Irene the last member of their party nudged her with a stick. She looked up startled.
‘Ah! Yeah.” She said quickly fumbling around herself and producing the sweater wrapped bundle she had also swiped from the kitchen. Sarah’s intense gaze was difficult to meet so she just looked down. The 4 of them had each snuck out of their respective dorms to meet here. It was this little forest just off the school property at one end of the school, beyond the field.
It was 11 0clock at night and pitch black. Theresa, being the coward she was and the new initiate, was terrified, but determined. She heard the sounds of a cat in a sack next to Irene and thanked her lucky stars that she wasn’t the one who had been given that task. She for sure didn’t have the guts. Just the fact that she had managed to get a knife from the kitchen was amazing enough.
When Sarah had told her about the ritual and how it would be done on a moonless night, she had been petrified. Thankfully, she and Vero were in the dorm and Vero was a year ahead of her so the sneaking out had been softened for her like this. But even as she succeeded in accomplishing all these various tasks she had been given and getting to this point she had to ask herself once again…what was she doing? And why?
Sarah, the leader that she was, seeing that all the parts were gathered, pulled out a folded piece of paper to confirm then spoke.
“Today, we have gathered for out monthly ritual, but with a special objective. We have a new initiate. Let’s give her a warm welcome. The fact that she has successfully completed her tasks this past month is testament to her commitment. And now she is here.” She spoke magnanimously. The other two didn’t say anything, but silently regarded her. She realized after a prolonged silence, that they were waiting for her to say something. Realizing this she hurriedly cleared her throat.
“Hmmm!… Hi. My name is Theresa. I’m in form 2 Nyati house. I’m happy to be here.” She said giving a smile, but it was forced. She was too nervous. They didn’t react. All the sounds, her voice included sounded far away. All she could hear clearly was the pulse in her ears. Why was she here? Why? At this thought, a voice inside her head chuckled.
‘Because you asked to be you idiot!’ It said derisively and she remembered. She recalled her miserable state of being since these past holz. She had found out that her dad was cheating on her mom and that he had a second family. And apparently, her younger brother had a different dad. She wished she hadn’t heard it. That she had just imagined it.
When her mother, that day, had come home distraught and angry and had proceeded to bundle she and her brother into the car muttering something about how she would deal with ‘him’ properly. The way she drove through traffic gripping the steering wheel looking half out of her mind. The way they arrived at the village market and made a bee line for a specific food court.
She could still remember her father’s shocked expression when her mom came charging at him out of the throng of patrons. The confused expression and eventual understanding that washed over the other woman’s face as she bundled her kids to the side. 3 kids, two boys, older than her and one little girl about her little brother’s age.
And the viciousness….
The voice of other the other woman screaming the word ‘Whore’ at her mother. She had been stunned completely immobilized. She had watched the ensuing pandemonium as if it wasn’t her. As if she was a random spectator completely unable to wrap her head around any of it. She hadn’t been the same after that mess. She didn’t even want to remember how horribly out of control things got. How quickly it all escalated.
She took a sudden deep breath and shook her head, refusing to relive it, and grounded herself back in the present. That was why she was doing this.
Sarah had always been strange. She had this unsettling air about her that made people avoid her. She had two friends in the school and they were always known as that clique you just stayed away from. But for all their frequent antisocial behavior, some of which would be enough to get you expelled, nothing ever happened to them. They never got in trouble and they never failed in exams.
There was ongoing talk that it was because of her parents’ money. However her parents were wealthy but not that well off, and frankly, there was always something else in the background. This vibe she carried that suggested there was something more to the story.
When Theresa came back from holz, she was a changed person. She hated everyone and everything. She hated and ostracized her friends, she was rude and mean to whoever crossed her path and she kinda wanted to die. It was little wonder then, that when she approached Sarah, who seemed to be on the same miserable wavelength as her, that she was accepted with a smirk. Misery loves company after all.
They gave her a bunch of tests to prove her commitment, and finally tonight, they would initiate her. To be honest, even in her mindless whirlwind of self-pity and hate there was still that voice of rationality inside her. The voice of reason that had been her before sh*t hit the fan, now very miniscule. It chimed in to warn her in vain with every action she took to act out. The previous her would never had done these things but that her was irrelevant now. And right now, before this final step, that was the voice calling out to her the most. But she had made up her mind. The pain outweighed the reason.
Sarah instructed them to look for firewood as they began the preparations. They soon had a fire going. Next, with some grinded up chalk, Sarah drew a large enough circle around the fire for all of them to sit within. Next, she produced a pot with a lid out of a backpack and held it out, while chanting something quietly. Finally she instructed them to take off all their clothes and start dancing raunchily. Theresa hesitated, but seeing as she wasn’t the only one and not wanting to look uncool, she followed their lead.
As they danced, they sang in some strange tongue and it was during this that they seemed to be taken over by something else. And Theresa thought this because their entire auras distinctly changed. It was like they had checked out, and someone else checked in. They suddenly felt like different people and she suddenly felt very, chillingly alone. She stopped dancing at this and they turned to look at her and she felt goosebumps up and down her whole body, so strong, it hurt. Even their expressions…
They smiled and it was dripping with mocking malice.
“Welcome.” Sarah spoke again, but her voice was different. It was deeper and courser. Theresa pissed herself, frozen. Noticing her clear terror, they cackled.
“Let’s begin…” IT, the thing in Sarah’s body, said.
Putting the pot in front of the fire, Sarah removed the lid and out came a hiss. This sound seemed to make the three of them indescribably happy because they danced and frolicked at it joyfully, almost jubilantly. Slowly a snake emerged. It was something she had never seen before. It had strange markings all over its body and it seemed to be translucent. The moment it came out, the air felt thicker. The three of them proceeded to drop to their knees and at that moment her whole being was one word….RUN!
But she was stuck. She couldn’t move. The moment the 3 girls got possessed and they realized that she had noticed, she knew it was too late for her to do anything but go through with it. Tears flowed freely from her eyes as they turned and glared at her to follow suit and kneel. It was that moment of clarity, just before death, that she imagined every suicidal person must feel, just after they’ve jumped off the bridge and they can’t take it back. The snake turned to look at her and she was thoroughly cowed. It was as if she was in front of something much, much greater than her. She couldn’t think!
“Blood” It was deep voice right inside her head. “Give me your blood” It said and a quiver of terror ran through her. She turned to look at the others and saw all of them taking turns to slash open their palms with the knife she brought and hold it out over the snake, bathing it in their blood. When the knife got to her, she was relieved that that was all she had to do but still terrified. But as if some invisible force was controlling her she couldn’t stop herself. She felt as if there was someone behind her manipulating her hands and body. At this point, she lost all control over everything. She started sobbing, as her body seemed to get a mind of its own.
After this they sacrificed the cat. It was the cook’s cat, she recognized, over the pot. Catching the blood in their cupped palms as the remnants continued to drip into the pot, they drank the blood. Once it was all gone. They beheaded the cat, discarding it into the darkness they split the body into 4 and ate it raw. At least that’s what she saw the other 3 doing. At the blood part, she had wanted to resist and after she drank it, she wanted to wretch it out, but her body was no longer her own. When it got to the eating part, she blacked out.
When she woke up the next day, she was in her bed like nothing happened. She looked at the clock and it was 10 oclock in the morning on a school day. She jumped up in shock and stumbled out of bed. Why had nobody woken her…?!! What was going on?!? She hurriedly got dressed and as she brushed her teeth in front of the mirror she looked largely the same, except for a strange glint in her eye that even she didn’t recognize. It was cold, hard and intense.
The dorm should have been locked, but she found the door open. Breakfast should have been long over but she found Sarah and the girls at the cafeteria counter getting both their breakfast AND break time snacks at the same time. She went to class and the assignment backlog she had since the beginning of the term was gone. It was all done, pristinely. She looked up at her class teacher who hated her and always picked on her, especially this term and it was like she didn’t see her. The considered all this calmly.
‘Looks like the ritual worked.’ She thought. A cold grin spread across her face. The little voice in the background, in her head, was gone.