3 Chapter Three

The bright sun peeking through the cloud gave a warm hue to land and gradually depleted the bone-chilling cold of the previous night. Despite the bright warm day, the necropolis was misty and cold and could easily pass off as eerie to anyone who came around.

An old woman wobbled through, pulling a string of keys from her coat to open the heavy iron gates of the graveyard. She pushed the gates aside leaving them wide open before walking inside. Parts of songs poured from her mouth as she whistled while clearing the fallen leaves around the graves.

She suddenly stopped when she noticed a hooded figure sitting by the grave and resting on it by her side.

Armed with her broom, she carefully walked towards the figure and questioned. "Hello, who are you? How did you get here?" She asked.

The figure stood up, it turned out to be a woman. She patted her jeans and pulled down her hood exposing a delicate face with sharp features."Hello, I'm sorry. I met the back gate opened so I let myself in." The woman explained.

"Old man Paul always forgets to close that gate."The old caretaker muttered. She looked at the grave behind the woman and asked."Are you here to see someone?"

Before the woman could reply, she gave her a pitiful look. The woman's brows twitched.

"And you look so young, who did you lose?" The old woman further queried in a gossiping tone.

The young woman shot the caretaker a cold and distasteful glare. "None of your business."She replied curtly. She picked up her satchel, ignored the surprised expression etched on the woman's face, and left the necropolis.

The old woman sneered behind her and muttered in a low voice. "Young people are so rude nowadays. Just showing a bit of concern and she rudely shot me down. This old woman has daughters older than you." She huffed bitterly and turned back to her sweeping.

Fidal walked out of the necropolis with a picture in her hand.

She caressed the face lightly before placing a gentle kiss on it. Carefully, she put the picture inside a protective cover before hiding it in a compartment in her satchel.

The warm sun shined down but she felt cold.

The wicked cold seeped in through her feet and hands. No matter how much she wore or tried to keep warm, the eerie chill kept seeping into her heart. Everything felt different to her and she felt like she was just wandering. She was lost because she no longer had an anchor. She owed a lot.

Somehow, everything she owned wasn't her's and she had to pay it back. "Step by Step, we will get there."She told herself.

*

The high bells chimed, a warning signal, ten minutes to class. Loitering students begin to make their way to their various classrooms and faculties balancing their books and running ahead of their lecturer into the classroom.

Lilibeth Maxen, a history professor at the university stood by the door of her attending class with a big clock timer in hand. The timer had already started its countdown to ten minutes immediately after the bell rang.

"You have five minutes to get to class." She said with an ill-meaning smile on her lips as she stood prim and proper with a white shirt, blue jeans, and black knitted sweater. The basic colors suited her brown eyes, tall nose, and mature feminine features. Her curly hair was held on top of her head allowing the naughty ones to frame her face.

"Two minutes left."She said. The students begin to troop in, taking their seats and bringing out their books.

"Twenty seconds left." She said. Those chewing gums tossed them into the waste bin, those with headphones took them off, and phones were turned off and shoved in the space underneath each desk provided for such.

"Ten, nine, eight...." She started counting down.

"Four." She placed the clock timer on the teacher's desk.

"Three." Took out her laptop.

"Two." Placed it on the podium and stood by.

"One." The shrill loud alarm rang as well as the chiming of the bell.

"Class starts now, Good morning everyone." Lilibeth greeted her class of twenty students.

"Good morning professor."The students replied.

"I won't wonder which state of mind you're in right now but I do comprehend that you all will leave behind your slacking spirits and pay a hundred percent attention to this class.

If any of you is going to be a nuisance, you can also take your leave and I'll be glad to mark you absent in the attendance which is better than me sending you out because that becomes an automatic minus ten points in the final year exams." She said with a radiant smile.

The student looked at each other and then back at her, no one made a move to stand up.

Taking that as a cue, she commenced her class. "Today we'll be talking about primordial deities." She said taking in the expression of everyone in the class before she continued. "The word primordial easily stems from Latin prīmōrdiālis which means ' of the beginning'.

The primordial deities are the first and earliest deities of which their stories or myths originated to man as an embodiment of beliefs regarding them. Symbolically, they were several deities, each unique and wielding their characteristics, symbols, beliefs, likes, and dislikes. It was believed that those deities once lived on earth and once walked the soil we walk today."

"Then where are they?" A female student in the front row asked.

"We are getting to that. Besides, I used the word ' believed' so it might not be true or there is no scientific proof to that." Lilibeth answered before she continued.

"It was believed that they walked the earth, had wives, a harem of beautiful women, and had children too. As the race begin to expand, the world became too filthy for them so they moved to a rather supernatural realm."

"We are going to look at five of the most influential deities so pick up your pen and write." She said, "The old deities were believed to have started an empire....."

Two hours later, class ended and Lilibeth took a seat by the window of a cafe practically inhaling the coffee she was holding. She sighed and looked out particularly lost in the bustling city.

The feeling of peace, normalcy, and regularity washed through her soul. She loved her job, her simple life, and loved the bustling city. She was easily able to predict and manage her time. She had no boyfriend because she hated the commitment and it felt like bondage. Without a boyfriend, she can easily pack up and move to another city whenever she felt like it.

The only commitment she had was her students and that barely lasted a year. Her one true love was history and she devoted her life and time to it.

Having grown up in a family where her parents had more children than they could easily cater to, it was pretty easy to slip through the cracks and get unnoticed. Besides, her twelve siblings were more than enough to keep her parents' thoughts away from her.

The chair in front of her was pulled back breaking her away from her thoughts. A beautiful young woman took the seat causing her forming frown to fade away immediately.

After all, everyone likes beautiful things and she was a face con.

The woman had elegant and sharp features and her ink-black eyes felt like staring into deep waters. "You were wrong about Sango." The woman started.

"Excuse me?" Lilibeth asked, confused.

"In your class today, you were wrong about the primordial deity Sango." She answered.

Lilibeth frowned. This lady was not a student of hers but she couldn't rule out the fact that she might be a student of the school and she might have overheard her lecture.

"Oh, where was I wrong?" Lilibeth asked in a tone that said she didn't believe the woman and was one step away from yelling ' blasphemy' at her face.

The woman didn't mind. "He was a king, a revered one, he was the third king of the prehistoric Oyo empire. He did have the ability to control thunder and is the god of lightning and thunder. A great warrior, perhaps one of the greatest. He wields a two-edged ax which he uses for war and to swiftly deliver justice.

He is associated with the color red; blood,vibrance, and passion. He is a passionate lover too. Had many women to attest to that." She said.

Lilibeth blinked once, twice, and bit her lips in surprise and doubt. "But that isn't recorded in history." She said

"Who says?" The woman asked calmly, her eyes trained on Lilibeth.

"People can't control thunder." Lilibeth reasoned.

"Don't confuse yourself," The woman said. "He is not a person, he is a god."

"But...."

"That's by the way." The woman interrupted sharply, her calm voice turning cold."There's something you have that I want. Normally I'll kill you then take it but, I have use for you."

Lilibeth's doubt vanished and she paled while a cold smile settled on the woman's lips from her reaction.

"I'll give you a week, then I'm taking you with me. You can try to run and hide and probably report to the police but I'll find you and the police won't find me." She said. Her cold hands patted Lilibeth's shoulder like a snake wrapping around her throat. "Don't ask what I want, You'll find out eventually. Lilibeth." She said.

Maintaining eye contact, she smile falsely and stood up. "Don't you love history? I'll take you to watch history being re-created," she said.

"Till then," she called over her shoulders as she walked away.

Lilibeth shrank on the chair with her hands hugging herself. She was petrified and confused. She didn't think she had anything of value. She needed to get out of there.

Twenty minutes later she ran from the cafe to her apartment not caring about the looks she received along the way. Bolting her door lock, she hugged herself and shivered. "oh my God," She said to herself.