My blood ran cold. Frigid chills crawled up my spine as I saw the man begin to shudder. He had a hand pressed behind him, underneath his stubby fingers I saw the red button on his part of the cracked neon walls. The realization dawned on me as Atsu knocked me down.  I fell onto the tiles with a hollow thump. My vision spiralled at the impact. He grabbed the pistol easily from my sweaty hands.

Through tunnel like vision, I saw him point the pistol at the man. Too scared to do anything, I watched the scene in slow motion. The bullets left the pistol with a loud boom. My body froze, my heart and pulse being the only thing that quickened. The man sputtered, the bullet making contact with his stomach.

  I gasped, a hole in his chest, fresh and reeling from the blow. He made a gutteral noise as he began to tilt. His white shirt was stained by the blood that splattered onto the floor. Dots enveloped my vision again. I sucked in two or three breaths, each shakily escaping my chest before bringing any sort of relief. A shiver crawled through me as the consequence piled down to my belly.

  The sirens grew louder as the scent of blood flooded my nostrils. My heart raced as my world spun. I could feel my blood pressure rise as everything around me quaked. A bitter feeling filled my mouth as the darkness grew down towards me, dots growing larger, hollowing out the world around me.

I let him kill someone.

  Before the darkness swallowed me, I felt a sting on my cheek. I sat upright, my chest rising and falling in a fast rhythm. Everything came back to a quick realization, the smell of blood tugging at my heart strings. Atsu pulled me by the collar of my very smelly jumpsuit.

"Small thing you dey do like say it be you I kill." His angry tone was almost masked by the growing sirens. He grabbed my hand before swinging me over his shoulder. My gut churned with queasiness as he began to run. He sped away from the original door as if knowing the police would come from that side.

  I took notice of the tiled floors, his boots smearing it with dirt. All the pent up disgust and sadness twisted inside me. My throat constricted, my world being overrun by dots once again. The adrenaline that swam through me kept me away from vomiting my guts out. Like before, a single mantra swam around my head but this one held a darker presence.

I am an accomplice to a murder.

  Panic rushed through me. I registered a loud crash before I heard the parade of footsteps.

This was even worse than escaping prison.

We were going to get caught and be killed in the worst way possible.

  I tried to gauge all this as my world spiralled. Atsu continued turning corners, rushing down aisles. I could hear the sound of his grunts entwined with the falling of cans.
Behind him, I saw cans and bottles topple to the floor. The cans exploded on hitting the tiled floor, foam coming out of openings.

  The floor behind us turned to a disarray of spilled contents, broken chips and other nonsense forming a mural of chaos. Soon enough, the chilly night air encapsulated me once again. Before I could think, I was flipped over. My vision exploded with stars. Pain conjured up in every fibre of my being, flooding into my whole body. I moaned as I was dragged up once again.

  Gone were the stars, but the blur was there. The smell of soil with decay filled my nostrils before my vision came back to me. A sudden sting overtook onto my face. A yelp escaped my lips as the support on me was loosened. I stumbled, my legs almost numb from being in my previous position for so long. I shook my head as I steadied myself, my eyes adjusting to my environment.

"Abeg better come because me I no go wait for you o." Pulling out of my earlier haze, the backyard of the store was a mess of trash. I could see worms on cans, bottles. The lighting of a replica of its sign at the front, shone at the back also. I saw Atsu running already, my shoulders tensed as I heard the distant footsteps become louder.

  Without any cajoling, I sped behind Atsu as he ran past a large brick wall which was covered in haphazardly set decorations that shimmered with inconsistencies. The land began to slope up, steep bumps unsheathing themselves underneath my footfalls. My joints ached of exertion as the shouting grew louder. I gasped as lactic acid filled my joints. Breaths barely passed the tight  muscles in my chest as my boots padded away at grey rocks in the semi darkness.

  Atsu, despite his impressive build seemed slow because I soon caught up to him, a low rumble of pain enveloping my body. The land form turned came fell flat once again, allowing me some sense of relief. The sand patted underneath me making Atsu glance at me before turning down a steep path, plunging us into a thick patch of darkness that was only broken by the hollow lights that escaped from breaks in the walks of the mart on higher ground. I ran blindly, almost stumbling numerous times as cold blank air hit against my face. 

  I lost Atsu's frame to the darkness a couple of times, coming into sight before fading into the darkness. Soon I ran into what I assumed was his back which brought me to a halt. I could still hear the wails of the sirens which caused ringing in my ears. My heart sped up as I remembered the dead man splayed across the mart floor, his gruesome contents falling. In my mind's eye, I could see him being shot. Metal plunging into his stomach, the screaming before the sputtering of blood. Then his fall, the sound that would envelope my nightmares.

  I was jolted by Atsu's tight grip on my shoulders which forced me to a crouch. Above a raised lump, in which  light grazed its edges before melting away in a successive concession. Atsu peered above it, I held my breath as the mantra swam to mind again.

I am an accomplice to a murder, now on the wanted list.

  My throat bobbed.

How had it come to this?

  Cold sweat trailed down my brow before being wiped away by the cool air.

"It be like say we go steal one of those police cars and use am go back." My breathing hitched. Before I could protest, Atsu started moving. Following after him, I bent low my breaths rushing out in ragged gasps. My heart pressed against my rib cage as we both walked in a crouch, down the steep meandering path. The light became brighter, making me squint under the glare. The light spilled down the sloping paths, marked by grey barren sand in between rocks.

  By the time we had reached the bottom, i saw a large wall before me, light overhead allowing a mud stained wall of soil to flicker to sight. Now, the path seemed to have led into a pothole which had somehow being broken down. Dirty water soaked my overlapping jumpsuit with a stale smell, I wrinkled my nose. Atsu being tall enough, jumped, grabbing a stone at the top before swinging himself out.

  Feeling the walls for any inconsistencies, I felt a few rocks underneath the rhythmic lightning before it disintegrated. Using it as a leverage, I pulled myself up. The familiar flicker of blue white light came, I noticed a small crack etched a little distance to my right. I used it to prop up my right leg before efficiently swinging myself upwards. I landed up with a side roll, thankful at least for the rock climbing that ma had encouraged me to do.

I squinted against the intense light, I saw a car swarming towards me with an alarming speed. My heart leapt into my throat as the light of the olden days headlights proved effective in blinding me for the time being. My heart skipped a beat as my body went rigid. By the time I had my eyes forced open again, I saw the car swerve, shrieking with oil lacking joints before it came to a stop beside me. The mud stained glass window rolled down, revealing Atsu's sharp face.

"See as you dey look at me like lizard. Enter this place jare!" Hearing shouts  with shadows thrown against the paths, I pulled the door open. Ignoring the scratching, I threw myself inside before the car sped off. The floor beneath rolled past as the wail of other sirens shadowed us. My heart in my mouth, still remembering the door hung open, I fumbled with the seat belt as the car jerked and swerved.

  My stomach did all sort of somersaults as I finally able to do the seat belt. I leaned forward, the cold dusty air grabbing my nostrils. I coughed lightly as a queasiness plunged into my gut. I stretched, finally able to pull the door . It clamped shut, relieving me for a moment before the gravity of tonight fell back on my shoulders.

I would be on the wanted list.

  The wanted list was a whole compilation of top criminals with their physical attributes and their crimes that was among the monthly report sent in by the government to all the people through the the Trend app created just for Nue. I never knew whether or not the people of the cities in the lower region had access to that, but since it had to do with murder- my stomach swamped with nausea-then most likely this would be reported to the Laga's divisional police force. Fear crept up to me as the future loomed with a more sinister outlook.

My mind kept on coming short of an answer, a possible solution to this dire situation. The car with the headlights splayed across a few feet from us, continued to twist around unfamiliar paths lined with a few bent away iron railings  shielding the lands garnished by grey sand with brown washed boulders. At a moment's notice, the headlights blinked off. The sudden occurence was followed by a round turning.

Hand to my chest, bile coated my tongue as my stomach somersaulted. The belt being the only thing keeping me from plunging head first into the windscreen, I clutched onto it for dear life. The night time enveloped us as it seemed like we had begun to loose them. The police cars, soon after a whir of maddening turns and dangerously timed swerves that almost led to my apparent demise, disappeared out of sight.

  Despite that heavy blanket removed from my shoulders, one was still left in its wake. In fact two more when recalling. My heart dropped as I was taken through a roller coaster of emotions. The stench of the damp sand coated my nose in its rogue scent. I didn't like the smell. I never liked going to beaches actually, the sand never sat right with me, the coarseness and brusqueness of each particle that looked as though they couldn't be removed but we're easily swept away by the devastating waves, their peace easily shattered by the onslaught of waves.

Somehow I felt that way, like the sand I was once in that bubble, of course trampled by others but never had I thought there was a wave coming in. Like the sand I remained oblivious, allowing the little prickles by others to slide off before the big wave finally crashed down, washing away my frail bubble of peace with it.

The truths I had learnt came to mind again. The dark presence behind them immersed me deeper into their waters.

Daniella is dead.

Dana has been captured by her former companions and I had no single clue to whether they would really keep their word.

I watched a man being murdered for no reason.

I tried to mark him just as a man but I couldn't. For some reason it made me to be enveloped in a burning sensation. I clamped down on my bottom lips, my teeth drew blood but I ignored it.

A husband just died in front of me.

A father just died in front of me.

An uncle died in front of me.

A friend died in front of me.

  I clenched my fists, the world around me falling into nothing but a faint hum to my fierce thoughts. My heart ached as tears came to my eyes, my sorrow too deep to quench so easily. A tear slid down my face as empathy I never thought I had consumed me.

An innocent man died in front of me and I did nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

   Then I hunched over, rivulets of tears streamed down my face as guilt left me in this wounded haze.


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