The Past

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“Father?” Afoke subtly calls out to her father.

“Yes baby?” Her Father Oak responded, barely turning his neck as he's fixated on the vegetables he's cutting to make dinner.

“What lies within the mine?” Afoke questioned curiously.

Her question threw Oak off balance that he immediately put a halt to the cutting of the veggies.

He drew in a deep breath and like a flash of lightening in his mind's eye, the face of a monster came forth in his subconscious taunting him with these words, “I told you, she will come to me, you cannot protect her forever”.

The scaly monster laughed psychotically as Oak's vision faded into darkness, regaining consciousness to his daughter calling out to him “Father, father, are you ok?”

With a false smile, Oak responded, “I'm ok, little beloved”.

A long silence ensued, but oak was itchy as he needed to know what brought about the mine and how Afoke came to the knowledge of it because it has been deserted, lying in rubbles and ruins for the past two decades.

“Baby?” Oak calls out to Afoke, as he was bent on getting to the bottom of it all.

“Yes Father?” Afoke answered sharply.

“How did you come about the mine?” Oak Questioned.

“Whispers Father, the wind talks” Afoke giggled.

“What do you mean the wind talks?” Oak questioned, feeling rather irritated, and this unsettles Afoke as she couldn't help but wonder what was offensive in her utterances that her father would respond to her in such a tone.

But then, Afoke knew better than to have her father in a grumpy state, so she quickly let the cat out of the bag and told her father about her visions and nightmares.

She told her father how she sees tiny lights and hears the wind whispers. She also told him how she had followed the sound and tiny light sparkle down a rabbit hole, or so she thought as she came face to face with the old mine.

“Whispers? Tiny light flakes?” Oak questioned in agitation.

He continued and muttered under his breath: “It can't be”.

Afoke saw her father in a state she had never seen him before, as he scolded her for wandering off and not relating her awkward experiences to him before now.

“I do not want you near those mines' child in fact, I forbid you, keep out of there!” Oak roared.

As Oak fumed, the teenage rebellious hormones were kicking in and Afoke would rather not have her father speak to her in such a manner or address her as a child.

Yet, she respects her father too much and holds him in high esteem to show the slightest disrespect.

So she kept quiet and let him burn out, but she knew within her that she was not going to keep off the mines as her father's reaction even made her more curious.

Afoke had no friends, it's just been her and Oak since she was born, so she settled within herself that if she was to uncover what lies in the heart of the mines, and what called out to her, she needed to be brave, so she could successfully pull off the one-man squad invasion.

As Afoke was resolving her next move inwardly, Oak also had one or two plans up his sleeves.

Night fell rapidly, with Afoke lying on her bed and reflecting on what transpired between her father and her, she couldn't help but feel if it had any connection with her mother she never got to meet.

She wondered if she could just talk to her father about it and demand answers, but seeing how her father's eyes turned red, such a decision wouldn't be wise, so she stuck to her already preconceived plan.

While the town slept, Oak visited the mine and mystically cleared off the footpath, shielding the mine’s location from Afoke. Unknowingly to him, Afoke followed him and was right on his trail.

As he turned to leave, he was shocked to see Afoke and this angered him greatly.

“You are not supposed to be here, come let’s leave at once” Oak said, grabbing Afoke violently by the arm.

At this point, Afoke has had it with the secret and her father, constantly forgetting she’s no longer a child.

She forcefully freed herself from his grip and questioned him with traces of anger in her tone: “What is going on Father, why are you mystically shielding the mine?”

“Stop this foolishness at once child and come with me,” Oak grabbed her by the arms again so they could leave, but Afoke wasn’t going to be bullied, not when she’s already by the mine and close to the truth.

She stood her ground and suddenly started absorbing the energy from the heart of the mine.

As Oak made efforts to neutralize the magic, the scaly monster came forth.

“It's too late now” the monster from Oak’s vision whispered in his ear.

“Whispering wind, light flakes? I knew it was you, Drizella" Oak said in disgust.

He continued: “You managed to get into Afoke's head and wiggled your way out of Oblivion”

“I told you, you can’t keep her away from me and thanks to your stubbornness, you lead her right back where we left off 20 years ago.”

As Afoke got overwhelmed by the energy, she screamed and called out to her father to help her, but there was nothing much he could do as she had absorbed too much energy for it to be neutralized.

“Don’t do this Drizella I beg of you,” Oak pleaded as he fell on his knees.

He continued in tears: “Afoke is all I have, please don’t hurt our child”

“There is no our here Oak, this girl here is my only opportunity to freedom, if you had allowed the exchange take place at the time she was born it wouldn’t hurt this bad" Drizella responded to Oak in disdain.

She continued with a sad undertone: "We would have had more children by now.”

While Afoke got drained, the shocking revelation of her mother being a monster and willing to sacrifice her for whatever selfish reason struck her even more than the energy current going into her system.

“What sort of mother would sacrifice her child” Afoke yelled in pain and anguish.

“The type that wants to be free.” Drizella responded in such a way one could tell she had been longing for freedom.

Drizella used to be the mine's keeper until she fell in love with Oak, as a punishment for breaking her chastity vow with the gods, she started loosing her beauty.

At the point Oak wanted to abandon her due to her unfortunate predicament, he discovered Drizella was with child, and he stayed, but then Drizella knew once the child was born, he would take the child from her and leave.

So she reached an agreement with the gods to give them Afoke in exchange for her beauty, believing that she can always have more children, and Oak might prove her wrong to actually love her enough to go through the process of exchange with her.

But then, like she rightly predicted, Oak stole the child and imprisoned her in the mine, never to come in contact with him or Afoke again.

Twenty years later, the exchange was right in front of Oak and his daughter is paying the heavy price.