Hexus

}17{ Reaver

[6:41AM, May 7, UTC ±00:00]

“Where is your sister?”

Olutayo hissed. He rolled out of bed, stumbled in the darkness and tried to find the light switch. He stubbed his toe against a corner and let out a slew of profanities. Sure, his body had been sleeping for the past seven hours but his mind had only slept for two.

“Tayo, I know you can hear me.”

He tried to concentrate on placing one foot in front of the other as he walked down the stairs. Splitting his consciousness came with its side-effects, as he had learned over the past two weeks. There was always a pulsation of fatigue at the back of his mind during the process which only intensified with time. He managed to reach the ground floor without tripping and dragged his feet to the kitchen. He squirmed as Mum scratched the neck of the brown tabby cat – Twist, as Brian had named it – which lay on the kitchen table, flicking its tail lazily. Twist turned to look at the human standing by the kitchen doorway, taking in the disheveled clothes, messy hair and puffy skin under the slightly bloodshot eyes.

Damn, I look like shit.

“Have you seen Sarah?”

Olutayo and Twist yawned at the same time.

“Not since last night.”

“Can you find her?”

“Yeah. But I need to take back the cat so I don’t give myself a headache.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

She took her hand off Twist’s back and nursed her cup of tea. The cat curled into a black ball and slowly disappeared. Olutayo sighed, loosening a knot in his neck as he sat on a kitchen chair. He idly looked around the kitchen as an area of skin on his shoulder darkened and bulged, producing a small black floating blob. It gained a blue lustre, lengthened, shrank slightly and sprouted wings. The dragonfly flitted in the air for a moment before darting out of the room. Olutayo lolled his head back and stared at the ceiling.

“How’s exams coming?”

“Okay. I have four left. I think I’m doing okay though,” he replied. “How’s work?”

“We had some emergency around two A.M. Some stupid kids got drunk and one of them jumped off a balcony. I don’t know if he thought he was superman or what. Got a few fractures but we saved him. And one of our old patients died. Mr. Micah. Prostate cancer. He was a very nice man.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, blinked a few times and sniffed. Olutayo wondered what was going through her mind; she usually didn’t talk about work. Maybe Mr. Micah was more than just a patient. He noticed then that her eyes were pink. She’d been crying. He didn’t know how it felt to lose someone. He wasn’t sure what to say.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Have you found Fola?”

“She’s not in the house.” The dragonfly had found only Alison, Brian and Dad. It disappeared in midflight as he rubbed his eyes.

“What? When last did you see her?”

“Like I said, last night. I remember because she kept telling Alison to shut up. I stayed with Dad until around 3, when he got tired of watching that old series…what was it again…Sopranos. I slept until you came back, so…I don’t know. Unless she left in the middle of the night-”

“Eh? Where would she be going at 3 AM? Is this one of you guys’ magic things?”

“No. If it was, I won’t be here. Don’t worry, she’s fine. If anything had happened to her, I would-”