1 Chapter One: Retrospect

I feel the wind blush across my face, the ghosts of my indifference whisper in my ears. I am haunted by them, tormented by denial and regret. My choices are finally pulling me down to my end. There is an intolerable pain in my chest as my heart tries to pump more streams of blood to my brain to make sense of my predicament.

"This must be what a panic attack feels like" I think to myself, as confusion, self-loathing and a feeling of hopelessness get their grip on me.

The distinction between a human brain to any memory related device is undeniably vast. No comparison is even worth the try between the two. Indeed, there must be a genuine grand design behind it all.

I say this due to my ability to distinctively recall the events that led to the meeting of the love of my life. I still have the full picture of the first day i saw her, that first glance that changed it all. I still remember the smell of the air on the day and the soft breeze blowing her hair and sending a cold shiver filled with emotions down my spine and piercing right to my soul.

As much as having a keen sense of retrospect is a blessing, it can also be a curse as I get to relive each regrettable moment of my life.

It all goes back to May 28, 2019, i remember it so vividly. It was the first semester of my fourth year at the University was just four weeks in. What a wonderful youthful time it was. I Spent most of my days in lectures, doing assignment and all the usual school nonsense. Not being much of a team player, I found solace in reading a good number of books in the school library.

My support system as it were, consisted of five of my closest friends.

Adam was the ladies' man and also the dumb one, no offence to the guy. He always gave the craziest and insane advice on girls and everything. I cannot stress this enough, his advice always seemed to end up back firing on whom ever was dumb enough to follow it.

I remember at one time, he told Dave our other friend that some girl in Production Management second year liked him and he should go ahead and ask her out. All i can say is, later that night, Dave came back and went straight to sleep and we never talked about it. Am still not clear on the details, but the jubilant Dave that left that evening heading to find love came back later that night looking like he had just met the grim reaper himself.

Since then, no one ever took Adam seriously but things did seem to be working out very well for him as far as I knew. At least Dave was in a way the morally upright one in comparison to the rest of us he was the saint.

Chikondi also known as Bourne because of his love for the spy movie with the same title, the third piece on the board was the ideas guy and the resource manager. If you wanted something, you went to this guy and before long he would have it for you. He was dating

Lilian our fourth cast member who also happened to be my childhood friend, way before we all became friends a clique. Lilian and I came from the same area in fact, we grew up in the same neighbourhood and we eventually ended up in the same institution.

Last but not least Beauty. And then there was Beauty. As the final piece of our group, she was the story teller. She was loud but boy could she tell a story. Sometimes the rumbling went on and on for hours, or so it seemed. I couldn't tell because my thoughts would wander elsewhere and all I had left were a couple of nods across the monologue.

What we loved so much about her, is that she managed to keep the group up to date with all the biggest events on the campus. Latest breakups, new couples, lecturers' scandals and all the juiciest buzz. Whatever it may have been she was ready to serve us some soup.

And lastly, the final piece to the group me but my story is for another day.

I refer to my group of friends to a squad is because just like a military squad, everyone had a specific undefined role and purpose they brought to the group. The absence of one of the pieces meant distress and unfunctionally to the whole group. We all leaned on each other even more than we realized and we all cared about each other. But our story had not been sunshine and roses all the time.

We started off in the darkness we were more of enemies except me and Lily as we knew each other from way back. Initially, we just found hating each other's guts for no apparent reason. As to how we all ended up being tighter than a dead man's grip, no one can recollect. But I think it all begun with Lily dating Chicco which automatically meant that i became friends with him and i guess the rest of the squad followed and are still going strong to date.

We spent most of our free time together. One would think that we were practically together all the time. We went to the Cafeteria together, went out to town together and on the happiest of days, we would choose one church for us all to visit during the weekend. We also would go shopping at DAPP during happy hour, we had a lot of fun.

Most weekends we spend playing games and watching movies in my room, this was because it had better WIFI, it was faster in my room compared to the others'. My roommate was never around and that was a bonus for us, as we got to hangout as much as we wanted without disturbing him.

Food fights, truth or dare, show and tell, Karaoke. These are just some of the many games that kept us up for hours on. We never got bored of each other's company.

At this point, you might be wondering how i come up in this story and how it relates to May 28. Well, it all comes down to the weekend of the 25th to the 27th of May it was a three-day weekend for us. There was an emergency faculty meeting on the 27th so as usual we spent the whole weekend messing around on campus.

On the night of the 27th i overdid myself and I stayed up till around 05:00. For the day, we got ourselves caught up hunting down and eliminating other players online in PUBG.

The girls and the other guys left at around midnight and i was left alone but still could not find the urge to drop the game pad and turn off my devices in preparation for the morning's class. Incidentally, the class begun at exactly 8:00am and the lecturer did not tolerate any tardiness or truancy, he was the kind that could take away your marks just for writing with too much ink. So, imagine what coming later to his lecture would get you.

Grr! Grr! The annoying sound of my always punctual alarm set at 06:00 am. Eyes closed, i searched for the dreadful device and managed to snooze the alarm.

About an hour and a half later i abruptly jump out of my school issued bed. Weirdly, i had a smile on my face. Maybe it had something to do with the dream I had just interrupted myself from.

By that time, it had already faded.

I noticed the time which was now close to 8 o'clock. I had no time to check the precise minutes.

I quickly rushed into the bathroom for a quick shower to try and wipe the apparent sleep off my face and maybe use my toothbrush. No one wants bad breath, unless you want to be in Beauty's news updates.

I managed to get a change of clothes and get some perfume on me. I was in such a hurry that i forgot to comb my hair. Some unrinsed foam was still in my hair from my bath and I had no idea how bad it was.

I grabbed my backpack, thank heavens i readily packed for all my morning classes. In one hand I was holding my phone and laptop charger. In the other i was frantically trying to hold my unconventionally heavy backpack over the shoulder, at the same time trying to tie my belt as I sped out the door on my way to class.