Dedicated tololah8 and AgiFavor , my oldest and newest readers respectively.

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The majority of this chapter is going to be told from the third person point of view, which will continue from the last excerpt from Chioma's life.

Enjoy!

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_Chidinma_

The next day was hell for me. I couldn't even sleep well the previous night, my head ached badly from crying too much and my eyes felt heavy from staring at one spot for too long. I just sat other floor, phone in my hand and stared at my family portrait on the wall of my bedroom, wondering what it would look like without me in it.  By today's end, it was either I went to the address the witch would send and give up my life, or Kel would go. The latter wasn't even an option.

I was going to give myself up. At least if I died everyone would be safe. Sitting on the floor in my bedroom, on the same spot I had been since ten-thirty last night, I started making calls to people I loved.

I called my parents and Bennie, Funmi and Samuel, Ruona and Dari, and various colleagues at work. When they asked why I called, I just said I called to let them know that I loved them. When I had called almost everyone on my contact list and cried my eyes out again for a long time, the time read one o'clock, approximately ten hours, thirty minutes till I met my death.

I was then I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I knew it was Bintu again. She had come three times before and I had ignored her and she couldn't let herself in because I had bolted the door from inside.

When she knocked again, I sighed and let her in. I needed someone to talk to and someone to tell what was happening and she was the only one around. When she came in she didn't even say anything, she just sat on my bed and gestured with her hands that she was ready to listen. I told her about everything that transpired last night.

Bintu was absolutely livid.

"I will follow you." She said simply.

I shook my head vigorously and told her no. "I think she'll be watching me. I know they'll be watching me, she said if anyone followed and they noticed, they would shoot my brother. I don't want him to die Bintu. He's too young, I won't forgive myself if he did."

"So you'll die in his place!?" She screamed frustrated.

"It's the only way." I said quietly. "So please, Bintu you have to let me go. You have to let me go by the time she send the address. You have to let me go, alone. I know that if by some way you follow and they noticed, they'd kill him , you and I. Please let me go so that he can live. So that everyone else can live. Please." I begged, crying silently.

Bintu shook her head vigorously as tears gathered in her eyes. "There must be another way. There must be something, there must be something.."

"There is nothing." I said softly.

She just looked at me in the eyes for two long seconds before getting up abruptly from the bed and rushed out of the room, leaving me absolutely confused. It was very strange and it seemed like she suddenly remembered something. Maybe she forgot food on fire.

I willed myself to get up from the floor and sit on the bed when she came into the room with a carton box. My confusion intensified when she set the box down at my feet. I raised an eyebrow in question. When she replied, she rubbed the back of her neck nervously and shrugged.

"A few days back, maybe two, a man came to drop this off at the station. A fellow colleague came over to give it to me and said it was for you, that the parents of your deceased friend wanted you to have it. The things in this box belong to her. I'm really sorry I forgot."

I just looked at her in shock. I didn't even have the strength to ask her questions. I took the box and looked at the things inside. It contained many of her design drafts, posters, CD's and jewellery. I even stumbled upon an old card I had written to Chioma on one of her birthdays. I smiled fondly and sadly at all the memories the contents of the two feet box brought.

"I'll just leave you to it then. Maybe, you just might find something that could help you." I heard Bintu say somewhere in the background before I heard the door close softly.

I kept drawing memories upon memories out of the box, some bringing back memories I'm sure were lost until now. I was almost getting to the end of the box when I saw it.

Chioma's diary.

My heart started pounding loudly. This was Providence. Bintu was right. I could find something that would help me in it.

I opened it. It seemed to start from when she entered uni and talked about everyday experiences and the visits we had. I flipped frantically through the pages, till I found something.

She had started it like a normal entry but her handwriting changed and looked very hasty. Chioma had told me once that her script usually depended on what she was feeling at the moment and I did notice that it was true sometimes when I looked at her notes.

Once, I saw a poem she had written the moment she realized that her aunt had passed. It was hasty, shaky and portrayed emotions. Fear, sorrow and confusion.

Just like the one I saw now.

I settled in my bed and looked at the time on my phone.

3:05

I had seven hours and twenty-five minutes left.

I started to read.

~~~~~~

Approximately two years earlier,
Excerpt from Chioma's life,
~In her diary~

~September 21, 2018~

I'm scared, D. I don't know what to feel.
After I had seen Deji look like that last week Thursday, I don't know how to feel around him.
The truth is, I have started to notice other things about him. Like his eyes, how sometimes, they always look devoid of emotion, or how they only seem to light up with some eerie , sick inhumane glint whenever they landed on me.

I've also started to notice the reactions of others when they're around us. People literally run away whenever he's walking along the walkway, like he has some disease or sumtin, but when I looked closer at Dem, I saw fear in their eyes and actions.

They weren't avoiding him, they where scared of him.

And D, I noticed it was worse in the girls. They wud move so fast, you'd think he was coming after them with a chainsaw, and when their eyes met mine, I legit saw disgust, pity n fear in their eyes, all at once.

Once when I looked up at his handsome face after I began noticing these things, I realized that he was aware. He was aware of what was happening and he fed on it, their fear.

I wonder what kind of relationship I have gotten myself into D. I wonder.

~~~~~~

I looked up, my head buzzing with information.

Relationship!? Chioma said she had never had any relationship to she met Samuel. Could she have been lying?

And who was Deji? Why was she so scared of him? The way she described him sent chills down my spine. Following the date of the entry, she must have been in two hundred level.

Why didn't I know about this? Why didn't she tell me?

I needed to find out. I needed to know more. I flipped the pages again and stopped at an entry with a similar handwriting.

~~~~~~

~October 13, 2018~

D, what happened today shocked me to the bone. I can't even find a reasonable explanation for it. I don't know what is happening honestly. Could it be him could it be Deji?

D, I was coming out of D general girls bathroom today when some girl pushed me back in, her actions panicky and hasty. She pinned me to d wall n looked me straight in the eyes. Her face was calm, but her eyes were raging with emotions I couldn't describe.
I'm going to tell you this, xactly how it was said. In a hushed whisper she said,

"Chioma, please I'm begging you, if you like yourself and your life you will stay away from Terror!"

D, I was shocked. Who the hell was Terror? So I started laughing and asked if she was joking and who terror was. She didn't even blink.

"I'm telling you Chioma!" She whispered violently. "He's bad news! You don't know? You don't know what he does to us!? Please, please stay away from him, now that you still have the chance!!"

By now she was already shaking me by my shoulders and I was scared D. Very scared. I was shakin and sweatin and I wntd to ask her again who Terror was wen Queen witch entered the bathroom.
Immediately, the strange girl flung herself away from me n tried 2 act busy with her hair.

Fega just glared at her and I wondered if she heard or if she knew Terror. She then took the shampoo and while she was going back out, she told me,

"Don't mind Kosi, her village people are disturbing her." She den smiled that her stupid , creepy smile n walked out of the bathroom. Immediately she did, I tried to talk to Kosi, but she had already curled herself up on d batroom floor, rocking hersef back n forth.

She didn't even look at me when she said "save yourself , n us while you still can." And got up and left the bathroom, leaving me very confused.

D. Could Terror be Deji?

~~~~~~

I was more than confused now. Whoever Deji was, he was not a good guy and Chioma sensed it. It was obvious that he was Terror, whoever he was and he did bad things to people for the strange girl to be acting like that.

He did bad things to girls.

And Fega? Just what was her standing in this whole thing? It was obvious from the way Chioma referred to her that they weren't even pretending to like each other. Did she know Terror?

Could Terror be the person she called boo yesterday on the phone? Terror was Deji yes, but who was Deji?

The only Deji I knew was..Rex!.

No. It couldn't be him.

Chioma would have told me if they went to the same Uni, and besides, Rex's eyes never seemed devoid of emotion, they were always filled with light and love and other things.

It wasn't Rex, and it definitely wasn't Samuel because he was fully Igbo and they didn't meet in Uni.

So just who was Deji? And what was his connection with Queen witch?

I opened the diary again, I felt a headache coming on but I fought it. I turned the next page. This was her last entry into this diary and there wasn't another one.

I started to read again.

This entry was just two days after the last one.

~~~~~~

~October 15, 2018~

Kosi was found dead behind the boys hostel today, and I know who killed her.

It was him.

It was Deji.

Deji is Terror.

And Fega helped him too.

D, I think I'm next. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

Who will I talk to ? Who will I tell?

I don't know, I can't do this.

~~~~~~

I covered my mouth in shock. They had killed the strange girl. They had killed Kosi and Chioma knew.

So why didn't she say anything? Why didn't she tell me? I could have..I..

She couldn't tell me because she didn't want me or her family hurt, just like the way I was keeping my investigation secret. That's why. She wanted to protect the ones she loved.

God.

Why did she stop writing? October 15th was her last entry, by late November she was on vacation yes, but how did she handle it through her remaining two years of school? How?

My thoughts were cut shut when I heard someone come in.

"You might want to check the time Chi." Bintu said softly after taking in my shaken state. The time was seven o'clock. Three hours thirty minutes left.

Just then my phone pinged.

It was an unknown number.

Fega had sent the address.

~~~~~~

Okay, I know the diary was a little cliche, but I made sure it didn't clear everything up.

How did you guys like this chapter?

Now, I can write my exams in peace😁

Thanks you guys. Do vote, comment and share.

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