6TH DECEMBER 2034

6.45 AM

...................................................

My eyelids slowly split open and the brightness of 8 a.m shines bright tgrough the open windows of the sitting room. I shut my eyes tight, wishing that morning never comes because I still feel sleepy and my whole body aches. I sense someone sniffing me and poking fingers into my nostrils.

"Daddy" her tiny voice calls as she slaps my cheek lighty.

I peep through one eye to see who this diciplinarian is and behold; it is my beautiful daughter Fil who is slapping my cheeks to wake me up while I desperatately crave for more sleep.

"Go to Grandpa Fil" I reply under my breath, I do not want to wake up.

"Daddy" She calls again nonetheless, slapping my cheek again.

"M-hmm?" I finally answer and grab her forcefully into an embrace, hugging her tight so that she lies with me on the couch in my father's small sitting room.

The sitting room is far from beautiful, it is an old school style with three brown sofas sitting around a brown wooden centre table with a blue flower vase on top of it. An old school flat screen televsion sits at the extreme end of the light yellow wall in front of the sofas.

I begin to wonder how I got to the sutting room in the first place because I slept off in my room last night.

"I am sleepwalking again, am I not?" I ask my three years old Fil as she laughs in my arms. She then sits on my chest and begins to press my nose. She has clearly missed me.

I look into her light brown eyes and shake off the thoughts of her mother. She has a striking resemblance with her late Caucasian mother. Her hair is very curly and brown, it grows so fast that I had to buy a special scissors for it since I cannot afford a kiddies saloon frequently. Her skin is light and her lips are full and well shaped like mine.

Her nose looks exactly like mine, although it is pointed and mine is... a bit depressed, one would know she is my daughter just by looling at her fancy nose though.

Little me.

So far, I have managed to feed her well with the little I have and now she is all chubby and cheeky. I left her in the care of my father since he has long retired from his underpaid job at the National Laboratory for BioSciences where he was an underpaid bigshot. My father takes good care of Fil, she gives him a handful of activities for a day.

"Where is your grandpa?" I ask, carrying her up in my arms so that her hands cannot reach my nose but she is about to cry because she wants my nose, she just likes to touch it so I let her have it.

I have missed her.

I leave her with Grandpa and only come back some weekends or weekdays , depending on how busy I am or how much I earn that week. I keep playing with Fil as thoughts of the previous night replay in my head. I try to shake off these thoughts and focus on playing with my daughter until the front door forcefully goes ajar and voila! Ann bursts in...

I literally jump up from where I lie with my daughter on the couch, cradling her in my arms and thinking of where to hide her from Annalise.

"How the fuck did you get in?"

She grins with her whole dentition on display, her arms are spread wide beckoning on me to give her a make up hug.

No, I do not trust this. It is unlike her.

First of all, was she not the one who slapped the hell out of my face and walked out on me last night?

"Awwn... My baby!"

My face is wrinced in puzzle but she does not mind, she smiles as she approaches me. She wears a white flair jumpsuit designed with colored flowers which are attractive to the eyes.

"Baby? But you were mad at me last night-"

She hugs me irrespective, with Fil in my arms. She suddenly does not care about the fact that I kept a secret from her for years. A secret of a child with another woman.

"Oh my gosh! She is beautiful!" she exclaims, carrying Fil from my arms to hers with her face radiating with ecstatic joy!

What has come over Annalise?

I am not comfortable with her happiness so I stand with my mouth agape and my face riddled with strange puzzle.

"What the fuck is going on?" I ask as Fil starts playing with her nose too, like they have known each other for so long.

"Oh my! Zach, she has the best eyes!" Ann exclaims dancing with Fil in her arms.

She suddenly stops when she notices how I stare at them flabaggasted.

"Close your mouth Zach or flies will go in there..." She pats my cheek and continues to dance around with Fil in her arms.

In my heart I admire them; "My two beauties"

"Aurora, please switch TV to Channel twenty-five" She voices a command to the virtual assistant we have installed in the house but there is no response.

It is faulty

"Does your TV use a special voice recognition?" She asks.

"It uses a remote control Ann"

"Who on earth still uses a remote control in 2034?"

"Yeah, asks Mrs Bougie..." I reply while searching for the remote control until I find it under the table.

"No, do not do that Zach" She frowns.

"Do what?"

"The whole pity party thing"

"What pity party thing?" I sense an arguement brewing so I quicky press a button on the remote control and the TV comes on.

"You know I have been with you through it all without complaining, so why bring it up?"

"Bring what up?" I play ignorant so she drops Fil gently on the wooden table and pounces on me so we fall on the sofa with her sitting on me and her faces aligning with mine.

I land a peck on her lips;

"I love you, bitch" I say to her but her face is fumming in disapproval.

"Bitch?"

Yes, for yesterday night!

"Okay, sorry. Witch?"

She hits my chest playfully; "No"

"Alright. My sweet creamy chocolate, my amazing, beautiful..."

"M-hmm..." She choruses in response smiling sheepishly in anticipation of futher sweet words.

But I increase the volumn of the TV instead...

"You are such a prick! Jeez!" she cusses; "my goodness! I just ordered for one good boyfriend, that's all, one good boyfriend. Now see what I got." She taunts me.

I reply with my tongue out as the news begins to blast out loud and clear with a headline;

"Close the boarders: Nigerian youths begin protests"

Then a video of me shouting at the reporters show up with me shouting;

"... Over a million people have died in Paris alone!... Close the boarders you prostitutes!"

Annalise stares at me as my eyes widen in surprise!

"Yes baby! You are leading the protest! You are in the freaking news!!"

"Daddy!" Fil calls as she sees me on TV, she keeps pointing at the TV screen and calling "Daddy" until the video goes away, giving way to the news reporter...

But before I can respond to this surprise, my father barges into the sitting room.

Ann and I begin to squabble and scurry until we adjust into a less promiscuos posture. In fact, we stand on our feet like soldiers asked to stand at attention to their commander.

My father is flashing judgental glares at us, foldong his lips in self righyeous pity. He is also staring at us suspiciously with his circle shaped spectacles sitting on his nose and his walking stick firm on the ground. His totally white hair is growing into a full afro matching his wild moustache and his back is begining to bend.

He is wearing a max sized baseball jersey with a red colored joggers trouser inside his unbuttoned white lab coat and he holds a small bottle of liquid medicine in his hands. One of his potions and concussions. His eyes look weary and stressed from lack of sleep too.

"Good morning sir" Ann greets him and he manages a smile. He knows her.

"You stopped visiting and sending me gifts..." he begins with a complain, he is a pretty straight forward man.

"Um-" Ann stammars, turning to me to help her out.

"Dad, I asked her to stop"

"It was not supposed to be your business young man, we were in love" He jokes and begins to laugh at his dry joke so Ann and I, we look at each other before we join him in a fake unsure laughter.

"Daddy!" Fil calls again pointing at the TV when a photo of me pops out again in the news.

We turn and look at it, then turn back to my father.

"Um-" I stammer.

"I saw" He responds and his face becomes plain and serious.

"Take this" He says to me handing a glass bottle of disgusting green liquid to me. I take it from him.

It is not like I have a choice though.

"What is this?" I ask him.

"Immunity. This virus is going to eat deep into the cores of the earth, it is going to eat up populations of the earth like wide fire. But with this, the family is safe..."

"And how did you come up with this so fast dad?" I taunt him.

"I have been working on this since I met her" His eyes point at Ann.

Her face turns to me, accusing me with her stare.

"Her?"

"Yes. That was the day I stumbled upon the prototype, that was four years ago at that dinner..."

"Oh."

" Now drink that..."

"Drink what?"

"Not you" he says to me.

"It is for Ann and Fil" He points his staff at them.

"What about me dad?"

"You take them and leave quickly. Run to the ends of the earth because a chaos is coming. A war is coming to tear up what is left of the earth. You two need to take Fil and leave, get ahead of it..."

He stops speaking because we simply stand there like mindless cows listening to his blabbings and understanding nothing.

"Now!" He stresses out loud and we jerk back to reality.

"But dad, we cannot just leave. There is no money, food..."

"You might not need any of that" he cuts in.

"Okay then, what about you?"

"Ah, me?" He begins to walk accross the room until he gets to the lobby; "I just need to get some sleep, I will join you all later... And you better leave, now-" Then he suddenly collapses on the floor and the glass bottles in his hands shatter!

"Dad!" I dash towards him and Ann grabs Fil who starts crying when she is shocked by the sudden loud crash.

When I reach him, I hold his hands trying to raise him up. He nods at me assuring me that he is fine while the look on his face and his eyes say other wise.

I try to help him up but he collapses again but I catch him in my arms. Looking at his face I see a seriousness plastered on it, it is the look I see on his face when he shouts at me or when he is afraid of something lethal.

"Run Zach Orji, Run" he says to me sternly.

I refuse.

He senses that I refuse.

"I was too exposed to radioactivity for so many years so, I am not going to make it son. But I have given your new family a life, a survival from this disease. You have to make them drink from the bottle, you have to keep them safe, far away from human population"

I see in his eyes that he is sick and is not going to make it.

"But dad-"

"The longer you stay, the more dangers you face. Let me go son..."

He manages to stand to his feet, I pick up his staff and hand it over to him.

"Make sure you tell my grand daughter tales of me, because I am the true hero of this conflict..." He concludes and slowly walks away, leaving me standing and staring at him.

It is now I actually believe that this shit is real, for my father is no joker. He is the smartest man alive and I know better than to doubt him.

Many years he worked with high level bioscientists and top government officials, many years he experimented his science theories and discoveries on me and they all worked, many years he worked on pandemics and outbreaks in different locations in the world. He was even a volunteer during the COVID and Ebola virus outbreaks years ago.

He is the most unappreciated and underachieving genius, a specialist in epidermiology and genetics and I cannot doubt his theories. If he says destruction is coming, then it is definitely coming.

This shit is real, chaos is coming.

But if a war is coming also, then it must be World War three, the end of the world. I pinch myself to ensure that I am not dreaming and all this is real.

"Ouch! It is real"

.........

Let's Talk:

Any favorite characters yet?

Do you think the events here could be real? Relatable?

Do you think we could face this anytime soon?