Nina And Other Stories | ✔

Kachi and Luna

"Where are you two going?" Ugochi yelled at her friends as they ran away from her.

"Don't be such a scaredy cat," Kachi stopped to tease her.

"You're such a chicken, Ugochi. Let's go and play in front of the house," Luna twirled and shook her long skirt.

"But my mummy said we should stay inside and play. It's too dark to go outside," she looked up at the dark sky and bit her fingernails.

"Nothing will happen. The moon is out, we'll be able to see," Kachi's head snapped up towards the glowing satellite making her long pigtails swing.

Ugochi hesitated. Her mother had specifically warned her and her friends to stay inside the house and she knew exactly what her mother was capable of. She'd skin her alive and flog her dead body.

Beside that, she felt a terrible sense of foreboding and worst of all, undiluted fear.

"Why can't we just stay here and play with Maria?" she raised a tattered plastic Barbie doll that was missing an arm.

"Let's go outside!" Luna yelled into the night.

"You better stop this your nonsense, Ugochi." Kachi warned with a shake of her finger. "We are going with or without you. So are you coming or not?"

It was hard to believe the girl was just seven.

Ugochi sighed and resigned to her fate. By morning she wouldn't see either Kachi or Luna for another two weeks due to their parents stressful jobs, so might as well enjoy every minute she had with them.

"OK, but my mother will not be too happy we disobeyed her."

Luna stuck her tongue out and the trio proceeded outside the huge black gate.

Once outside they formed a circle and began singing.

A slight breeze blew and made a low moaning sound that caused Ugochi to turn. Despite the light of the moon, the street behind her was filled with impregnable darkness, the fear returned in full force.

"Luna, Kachi, let's go inside." her voice showed the immense fear she felt and she clutched Maria tighter.

Luna and Kachi weren't listening to her. They were staring off into the darkness behind her, unmoving.

"Luna," she tugged at her chiffon top. "Let's go. It's too dark and I'm scared."

Luna didn't so much as blink and as Ugochi stood wondering why they weren't moving, they both started walking off into the night.

"Kachi, Luna, where do you think you're going? Come back, it's too dark."

They didn't listen to her and moved further into the street.

"Luna! Kachi! Please come back!" her voice cracked and she let the hot tears flow down her cheek.

She cried because she knew exactly what her mother would do to her. She left the compound and lost Kachi and Luna.

If she didn't know any better, she'd say that Luna and Kachi were possessed.

When she finally regained her senses she ran into her house, to the kitchen and broke down in front of the three adult females.

"Ugo, what is it?" her mother demanded getting up from the stool. She knelt beside her and wiped the tears.

"Lu ... Lu ... Luna and Ka ... chi! They're gone!"

"Gone!" Kachi's mother exploded from her chair. "Gone where?"

"Down the street. I tried to stop them but they just kept going."

The three women exchanged a look and soon a small search party was organized.

"What did I tell you three about leaving the compound? You see what you've caused?"

"Mummy, I'm sorry," Ugochi's tears came in torrents. She couldn't believe what was happening.

"I'll deal with you later. Now, show us where they went."

She cleaned her tears and led the six people that made up the search party out the gate and down the path that she saw Luna and Kachi take.

They looked around for the missing children.

Ugochi got tired and looked for a place to sit down. Her crying and shouting for her friends really took a lot out of her.

As she looked around for a place to sit, her torch caught a purple garment at the side of a rock.

"Mummy!" she called out.

"Ugo, have you seen them?" she stopped beside her daughter.

"Isn't that part of Luna's skirt?"

They looked at each other and Ugo's mother cautiously walked over to it.

It wasn't the only thing there.

Two half eaten apples, a piece of a purple skirt and on the sand, the word Nina.