The blood trail was a challenge, a dare that was too tempting not to accept, even though Lekan knew nothing good could come out of it. Her death might even lay at the end but Lekan had played for time, she had stopped to rest and rest had brought nothing but restlessness.

It was time to put an end to the games, and the thought was as scary as taking her next steps. Lekan turned back, entering her room and heading straight for her backpack, survival kit, Nehemiah had joking referred to it as that when he had helped her pack and now she would make it one. She took one look at her seemingly asleep roommates and began to unload the contents of her backpack, she pushed away the clothing and tucked her small knife in the waistband of her bum shorts.

She considered her options, eyeing the bottle of water she usually kept near her bed at night in case she woke up thirsty and after a moment she took the bottle and shove it into the backpack, she took the small first aid kit Alisha had gifted her and put it in, she had never had to use it before and a shiver snaked down her spine as she imagined situations that would force her to.

Then she rose to pick up the broken piece of wood that Julianna kept to use to bully the younger children. Lekan felt the short piece of wood - it was barely as long as her arm - and felt it for nails, grinning grimly when a sharp edge jabbed her finger.

Zipping the backpack and slinging it over her shoulder, Lekan stood and checked on her roommates again, she tapped Julianna harshly, bracing herself for the blow she would receive from the taller girl but she flinched away when Julianna remained motionless. Panic began to grow as she repeated the same process with the other girls, it was only when she felt the hollow of their necks for a pulse did she relax slightly.

They weren't dead. Yet. But something was definitely wrong.

Lekan inhaled a shaky breath and walked out the room, tiptoeing as if there was something staring at her in the dark, she headed for the next room, and the room after that one, finding all its occupants the same way; not quite asleep but also not awake.

She hurried her steps, carefully avoiding stepping on the drying trail of blood.

She gagged as a pungent smell hit her nose, and when she turned sharply at the end of the hallway, she was not surprised to see the slouched body of a girl at the base of the stairway, when she bent to check, she saw that the dead girl was with half of her face ripped off with teeth.

Lekan stood, shaking off her fear and when she reached the brightly lit lobby, she was grateful for the electricity. It would be harder to hide when the whole compound was lit. Still she remembered the catatonic state of the girls and wondered if something was roaming the floor above her head.

Lekan scanned the lobby, finding it empty, and stiffening when she caught sight of the muted television set, as if someone had just been watching. The matron was dead and not one student was allowed access to the television, nobody except for the staff.

There was nothing too when Lekan stepped out into the open air, or so she thought until she heard the distinct hoot of the owl.

Before she could let the addictive fear course through and take over, Lekan dashed away, running towards the gate, and stopping a few times to hide behinds shrubs of flowers. At the gate, the police officers in uniform were lying on the sand, and there was so much blood that Lekan couldn't bear to look for longer.

They were dead, something had gotten through to them. Something was coming for her, for all of them.

Lekan couldn't summon the courage to head to the staffs quarters, she was afraid she couldn't stomach what she saw. With slouched shoulders, she returned back into the girls dormitory, noting the dark boys dormitory and hoping it was because nothing had gone into it yet.

Please be safe, she prayed, she hoped.

She should have been surprised to see Cook standing in the middle of the lobby, glancing at the television casually but she wasn't, she had worried more that the woman would never show her face, now it was a confirmation, there was no mistaking who was the villain who was now.

"Lekan." The woman remarked flippantly, looking away from the TV in time to see Lekan enter. Lekan felt her chest swell with hatred, a novel feeling that she felt was no different from fear.

People only hated what they couldn't control, what they feared.

She swung the wood in her right hand, letting Cook see it, letting her know that she wouldn't make easy prey.

"I thought you were taking the day off tomorrow." Lekan said, if this woman wanted to play casually, then so would she.

Cook's gaze suddenly turned serious, her lips pursed tight and her forehead pinched together. She looked nothing evil, just a woman too serious, there was nothing sinister in them and Lekan was disappointed when she looked, she had thought seeing a certain madness might explain Cook's obsession with bringing back the dead but there was none.

She just looked . . . determined, as determined as she would look if she decided to clean the whole kitchen, it was casual, it was scary.

"This has gone too far, and I have done this for eight years now, letting my brother drink slowly." Cook said, when she spoke, there was a rising anger in her voice, defiance, justification as if she were talking about her dead brother's right to drinking water not blood. "But my patience has rewarded me with a brother half alive, and you saved me from having one less mouth to feed."

Lekan jolted, remembering the revenant Noah had killed. They had thought then that they had a chance, it seemed like Cook had wanted to get rid of that one. One less mouth to feed blood.

Lekan took an unwitting step back.

"Now, tonight, they have the liberty to feed to their heart's content, tonight, my brother will be in my arms again." Cook gave a shudder, one that spoke of grief that had been left to fester to madness. "I am only sorry I did not save him sooner."

Now was the second part of Lekan's made up plan.

"Wait! Don't you see what you're doing, everybody here is somebody's family, you are killing people that matter to other people." Lekan begged.

Cook didn't laugh, she didn't smile, only shook her head.

"You are all forgotten, nobody will miss Mary Slessor when I burn it to the ground after this." It was the cold truth, and it made Lekan angry.

"You and Dr. Caleb." Lekan accused.

For a second, something like surprise flashed in the woman's eyes before they faded back to that blank stare.

"He has as much to gain than to lose, and it benefits my purpose."

"Whatever you know will not save you this night, it does not matter anymore. After this night, my August will return and you will burn."

Cook took a step back and as she did, a revenant stepped out of the shadows underneath the staircase.

Lekan didn't have time to scream, not when it was reaching for her with its iron grip and taking a small chunk of her arm beneath its teeth. It let go to lick the blood dripping down its chin and Lekan fled, she didn't bite down her scream, she let it out like the blood oozing down her right arm.

She stumbled on the steps back, turning back briefly to hit the thing behind her with the wood in her hand. She didn't wait for its scream, she just ran.

The ground swayed beneath her feet but she wasn't sure if it was the fear or the adrenaline but when her knees buckled and gave way, she let herself lie on the cold sand, let her arm bleed out freely.

For a moment she was content, she wanted to close her eyes and let go for once, death could be peaceful. But then she heard a scream rip the air and she was standing again, stumbling to the big bell in front of the boys dormitory, screams meant somebody was still inside, awake, possibly alive and she was willing to bet on that probability.

Leaning against the bell, she braced herself and let it swing loudly, pushing hard and hard until the sound echoed in the night, then she began to run again, not stopping to breath, until she was in front of the cafeteria building, pushing against the doors and letting herself breath an inch when the doors creaked open, she was done with silence.

The lights switched on a beat later and there Zeke was standing, fading in and out of her vision.

"Hey, wake up, Lekan." He seemed to be shaking her, she couldn't tell because she felt herself dozing off. "I swear if you die, I won't let your have peace in the afterlife. Then you'll be really stuck with me for life - or rather, in death."

"Fire." Lekan breath out, she could see Dr. Munachi's prophecy in her head as if she had dreamt it up herself. "She's going to burn Mary Slessor."

Zeke was still shaking her.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked. "You might not see me doing it but tell me what I can do to help."

The words were enough to catch her attention for the briefest second.

"Water, run all the taps in the compound, Zeke, every damn tap, in the bathrooms, in the staffs quarters if you can get it." Lekan said, urgency making her words slur, Zeke seemed to have heard because a second later, he was gone.

Lekan forced herself to take a look at her bleeding arm and it didn't look good at all, it was like a thousand rats had taken a gradual gnaw at her arm.

She forced herself to sit, leaning against the wall and tried to think.

What Cook had done to everybody?

***

Noah had a pretty good idea as he stared at the slouched bodies in their beds, the bell had woken him up, a bell he was sure Lekan had rang. Which meant something was wrong, something must have gone wrong if she wanted to wake everybody up.

Noah took another look at his snoozing roommates and nodded at the children behind him, all seven of them rubbing their eyes in exhaustion, they didn't know what was happening yet.

Jordan was standing behind them, an irritated look on his face. It had turned out that the only other person that would turn out to be awake was one of his sworn enemies.

"Quick question, who ate yesterday's beans?" Noah asked.

"We didn't." Malik answered, he was arguably the spokesperson for the younger children, he was the loudest one and had the most influence for a twelve year old. "They say that the beans was bad."

"So we didn't eat it." Malik finished.

Noah cast a glare at Jordan and the later shrugged.

"I didn't eat it."

Noah thought it was too much of a coincidence that only the ones who hadn't eaten was awake, but when he looked closer, he saw that the boys in their bed were not asleep, they were paralysed.

It was clear in the way their bodies were stiff and unmoving in their supposed sleep, they had eaten poison in their food, albeit in small doses, or they wouldn't be alive by now.

"Curare." Jordan said the same thing Noah was thinking and they shared a knowing glance. It was a plant they were both familiar with, back then when Noah was a wild child, they used to experiment with all kinds of drugs, curare had been one of them, usually a plant made into a drug that was used as a muscle relaxant, Jordan had gotten some from his surgeon sister and it hadn't ended well for the other boys.

Noah stood up, leveling a tough stare at the younger boys.

"Lock yourself in here and don't come out even if you hear anything." He told them sternly, resisting the urge to explain when Malik scratched his head in confusion.

"I don't think that is a good idea." Jordan said quietly.

Noah turned, ready to flare up and hit the other boy but he stopped, fists halted mid air. Jordan was rarely ever quiet.

"Smell that?" Jordan asked, sniffing the air.

Noah paused then lifted his face to do the same, it was so thick in the air that Noah wondered how he had missed it.

Smoke and fuel.

Something was burning.