Revelations

The weekend went by in a flash but it wasn't fast enough for me. I kept thinking about what I saw, why wouldn't Zaynab remember anything, it was unlike her to just forget anything and who would forget about seeing a bunch of fish people with glowing tattoos anyway?

"Fish people?" I thought to myself.

"Hello," Lokun's voice interrupted my thoughts, I turned back, and there he stood with the same smile he always had on his face.

"Lokun? What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Well, we go to school here now."

Kunbi and Shunbunmi appeared from his back and their father was there too. The man looked like an older version of his children. Very good looking and younger than I imagined with the same silver-colored hair which started to seem weird and a strange stare that made it seem like they were looking into your soul.

"This is our Dad, Mr. Omishore," Lokun introduced him to me, and just like we have met before he patted me on my shoulder.

"You must be Bisi. I've heard a lot about you from my daughter, mostly good of course."

I heard the Zaynab's familiar, high-pitched voice scream my name as she joined us.

You must be Mr. Omishore, she shook his hand, smiling radiantly. 

"Who are these people," I kept asking myself.

The bell rang and everybody in the hall started struggling to get to classes. This was the perfect opportunity to escape the scene because I felt trapped there. Lokun's smile, Kunbi's and Shubunbi's weird stabbing stare, the weird hair dye, and the fact that Zaynab didn't remember what we saw at the party somehow made me feel uneasy.

I have to get to class now, it's nice meeting you Mr. Omishore, I turned towards my class and didn't look back.

It felt like an escape, a narrow one. I sat down in class, lost in my mind. I kept visualizing what I had seen in my mind. The scaly skin, the glowing eyes, the sharp teeth, and the way Kunbi moved before everything went dark. It was all so confusing, I tried convincing myself that it might have been the alcohol messing with my mind but it was just too real and haunting to be untrue.

Let's all welcome Mr. Omishore to the class, the teacher's voice and the voices of everyone in the class as they chorused " welcome" interrupted my thoughts, and I paid attention to my surrounding for the first time since I got into the class. Lokun stood in front of the class, clasping a backpack. He seemed unusually serious, it was the first time I would see him not smiling.

"You may have your sit now, Lokun," the teacher said.

"Thank you, Miss Anderson," Lokun replied as he started walking towards my sit. He stared into my eyes as he got closer and started smiling. I held my breath, praying he wouldn't sit near me. He walked past me and I thought "Oh thank God."

"Hey, Bisi. I think we should talk after school," his gentle voice whispered into my ears from my back.

"Oh he sat directly at my back," after all, I whispered to myself.

"Talk about what, Lokun?"

"About what you saw at the party, I know you must be confused."

I immediately turned looked back at him to see how serious he was and he was not joking. He appeared as serious as he was when he first came into the class.

"What did I see?" I asked, trying to pretend as if I couldn't remember.

"Oh, Bisi I know you remember. I know because I didn't allow Kunbi to wipe your memories as he did Zaynab's."

"What the hell?" I screamed and everybody in the class heard me. They all started staring at me and I had to just ignore him for the class. The class then felt so long and I couldn't wait to get out.

The bell finally rang for the end of the class, I shortly grabbed my backpack and was heading for the door when miss Anderson stopped me.

"Hello, Bisi. Wait a moment, please." 

I stopped reluctantly. I was so surprised when I heard her call Lokun's name, I felt like she wanted to catch me for him so that he could carry out his evil plans.

"Bisi, I want you to tutor Lokun for the rest of the semester. He has already missed a lot so you have to get him up to date."

"I'm sorry Miss Anderson, but I don't think that's a good idea."

"You're the best student I have, Bisi and you've got no choice."

Lokun stood there looking confused and it made me feel bad a bit until the memory of the party came rushing back. I didn't want to be in the same place with him, I was afraid of him, I was afraid of all of them.

I left the class and went straight to my locker, I opened it and buried my head inside just to take a long breath.

"You have nothing to fear from me, you know?" I heard him whisper.

"What do you want, Lokun?"

"I just want to talk, Bisi. I would never hurt you."

"What are you?" I asked.

He hesitated for a while and finally said "come with me, Bisi. I have something to show you."

I followed him reluctantly and we made our way out of the school. We got into his car and he drove down to his house. Their place was just a bit smaller than mine. A large white mansion backed by the beach.

"This is your house! I asked" 

The building was owned by a rich family but they mysteriously disappeared some years before. Everybody was surprised when someone started renovations at the house but when they asked the construction workers they said the only thing they knew about the new owners was that they were not from town.

"So you're the new owners?" I asked.

"Well, technically speaking we're the real owners," he said as he opened a door and went into one of the rooms.

"The real owners went missing three years ago and they've not been found since then, Lokun."

"Yeah, I know about that. They were family, our family. See this is actually our family house and we are from here," he offered me a seat on one of the couches.

"How come?" I was more confused than before.

"They held on to the place for us and they were actually murdered, they are not missing."

"What?" I screamed as I jumped off the couch.

"What do you know about the stories of the sea people?" He asked.

"Other than the fact that they're just stories? My grandmother told them to me all the time, just like any other person from around here."

"What if I told you that those stories are not just stories, Bisi? What if I told you that they are real events preserved by your ancestors orally and passed down from generation to generation."

"So you are telling me that stories about merpeople and sea monsters are true?" I grabbed my backpack and started walking towards the door. 

Somehow what he was saying and what I saw at the party was starting to align but I wasn't just going to believe that merpeople existed. What would it all mean? It would mean everything I knew or thought I knew wasn't true, it would mean that all the terrible things in those stories were true too.

"Where are you going?" he asked looking confused.

"I'm leaving, Lokun!"

"I thought you wanted to hear the truth, I don't understand your reaction. I thought the truth would make you feel better."

"Oh, you think telling me that monster stories would make me feel better?"

"Bug you saw us, didn't you?"

"I don't know what I saw, Lokun. I was drunk."

"You know it wasn't the alcohol, but you just don't want to believe me. This must be a human way of coping with things you do not understand?"

He suddenly started taking off his shirt and I froze. He started to search the room for something.

"What are you doing," I asked.

"There should be some seawater here somewhere. Father always keeps it around in case of an emergency."

He emerged from one of the rooms with a jar of water and immediately poured it on his stomach. The surface where the water touched him crackled, turning the flesh scaly and glinting. Two openings then appeared on the right and left side of his stomach.

"Behold, my gills, Bisi. I would fully transform but I don't want to scare you."

My backpack fell from my hands and I felt myself fainting again. He dropped the jar and with such speed, he caught me before I hit the ground.