Kamla Imani, she was always so unusual, some people thought she loved to fake it.
Fake her impassiveness, the coldness of her stare, the emptiness in her touch.

But how could a person fake being broken? How could a person fake the veins of pain that crawled up, red in their eyes?

People just believe what was safest to them, because to see her as more than being their little shock factor is to acknowledge an evil they might possess.

Most of the stories you might've heard are rumors, lies played for their entertainment.
Kamla Imani's story was no different.

✯•Capricious /kəˈprɪʃəs/: given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior•✯

»»———-KAMLA———-««

❝Isn't living the art of wandering the earth in search of hope, belonging, love?
Isn't living the art of distracting oneself for as long as they can from their inevitable end?
Isn't living the art of merely waiting for the moment to stop living?❞

»»-————-✯ •✯ •✯—————-««

✯••✯
»»How could a person fake being broken?««

When I was nine years old my uncle woke up one moonless night, where the sky was naked and the clouds were sullen. He said he sat up on his bed sweating and disheaveled, his dream fading away into the corners of the room, tormenting him with curiosity, he wondered what it was about, who it was about, was it good or was it bad? It drove him crazy.

Then he looked out the window, he let out a scream of all the names of Allah in one single strangled breathe.

There I was, he said, hovering over his window, staring straight at him with the cruelest smile he would ever see.

That very night, he declared me possessed. That very night my so called holy exortion began. That night, he would always tell me, was my beginning.

  ✯•✯•✯

Darkness buried me, from all angles, all I could see was a deep never-ending devouring space of nothingness.

My head was foggy, my mind was between a battle of consciousness and where our souls leave to stay at night. It was in the middle of a cold sea of blackness, digging into my bones, soaking me head to toes, consuming me. I began to swim, as fast as I could, as hard as I could. I was frightened

There was blood in my mouth.

There was blood in my mouth.

There was blood in my mouth.

I burst out of the sea.

It felt like I was hit with a truck, my eyes flung open, greedily I sort for air, swallowing it in heavy gulps, coughing, lost.

I was on the floor, my knees were scrapped, my hands were heavy, my skin felt like little neddles had been dragged over them continuously, in a rage, wickedly.

There was blood in my mouth.

There was fur in my mouth.

The night was cold and silent, the grass I sat on was damped with rain that had fallen earlier. I glared through the blurriness as my eyes adjusted to the light trying to recognize where I was, there were no cars, everywhere was wet, it smelt like dew and horror.

There was a big oak tree and an almost perfect trail of flower beds painting a vibrant mix of lavender and marigold. A sweet scent, a bloody scent, there was a loom so dense, so black with terror that the solar powered lanterns couldn't wade off.

I was at home, right in front of aunt's house.

I looked down at my hands, at the claw marks riding up my arms, fresh and red, painful. My chest felt heavy, dread crept up my neck and dug its thorns into my throat holding my vocal cords in a merciless grip.

What have I done?

The last thing I could remember was sitting at the dinning table, flipping through the mountain of books in front of me, jotting and scribbling, reading and cramming. The time on my phones showed that it was a few minutes past midnight but I had so much work to cover on that made sure to drown in as much caffeine as my aunt would allow me.

That was it.

The dining table, the books, the slight headache, and my aunt's voice.

I had fallen asleep.

I began to get up when something caught my eyes causing me to almost fall on my back, I clasped my hands over my mouth to cover my scream but a sharp metallic smell suffocated me, a sticky liquid smearing across my face.

I stared down at my hands, there was covered in blood and sand and grass and fur.

A few feet away from me a small body laid crushed. Its fur matted and dirtied, its limbs were twisted like its bone were nonexistent, in all directions, unnaturally. A pool of blood grew thicker beneath it, seeping from its crushed trampled chest and scattered skull. Its eyes pierced through me, wide, scared and lifeless, so full of fear, of hurt, of betrayal.

There was fur in my mouth.

I stared at it, memorizing every inch of the horror, there was a hot burn digging into my chest, a chilling feel engulfing me. I allowed it all in, the regret, the shame, the excruciating pain, I allowed it to flood me, pushed my gates opened and allowed it to overcome me.

For that long minute, everything reached out to me, tearing me skin to bone, without relent. I didn't fight, I watched as I shattered into a million pieces and dripping onto the grass, I watched as head split into two and my ribs spat my heart out to the floor.

I was screaming and crying and throwing up in my mind, my body frozen up to respond, I was going mad, insane. Everywhere was vibrating, integrating, melting into each other.

Then I stopped it.

In a single swift second, it all stopped, like a sharp intake, it was all sucked out, sent out into the night like it never existed. The heat, the ache, the screams, the voices, it thinned out and vanished. The feeling broke into a million shards of sliver and withered.

I took a deep breath, it prickled my skin from the inside and let it all go in one silent sigh. I crawled to where the cat drowned in its own misery and for a moment I just couldn't do anything but watch, stare deep into its eyes, searching for life.

That cat had been with my aunt for fifteen years, it had been with her longer than I was, the last gift from her dying impotent husband she had loved too much too leave, loved more than her desire for children.

She would stroke her white fur quietly as she stared out the window of her room, on casual days, on her birthday, on the day she became a widow. She would kiss her head in the mornings and go ahead to dress her in little pretty bows and designer scarves.

She was snobbish and nonchalant most times but whenever aunty was sick she would curl beside her and listen to her breathe, her icy blue eyes never leaving her face.

This cat was her hope. This cat was her child.

There was blood and fur in my mouth.

I pulled off my top leaving me in a sports bra, it was an old one, a black fading baggy shirt that the dance school at Everest gave out. I spread it on the floor, flat and wide. I took in a long shaky breathe before I bundled her mutilated in my hands, her blood trickle down between my fingers and body seemed to be breaking apart from the inside and out.

I placed her on the shirt and tried to wrap her up but it was too little to completely cover her out of sight. It was like the night had grown darker when I lifted her in my arms and began hurrying to the back of the house, my footstep fast, my head a graveyard, and a ghost of sin clinging onto my bare skin to mark its scar.

The lanterns each sprung to life as I raced under them. It felt like I was a criminal, a thief, running and sneaking, the bright orange glow casting down on me to show my shame to the world. But no one could see, even the moon and stars had all turned their faces away in pure disgust.

And with the little body jiggling and almost falling apart, pressed to my bare chest, I was truly a criminal, a thief, a killer.

The garden bloomed with every color of the rainbow and scented of wet soil and faint delicate sugariness. I crashed my knees, they burned and dipped into the soaked grass. I placed her gently beside me and took a quick glance at everywhere.

My aunt loved to seat on the only bench on some evening enjoying the warm feel of the sunset. She would definitely notice a patch of freshly dug up earth but if it was right beneath her, she would forever be oblivious.

I stretched my hands below the bench and began digging, with my bare hands and nails. I tore off the grass, hurried and crazed, my skin peeling, on fire. I couldn't stop, I could afford to stop and think, to fully digest what I was doing. I just kept digging and digging, creating a grave in the heart of the house to bury its soul.

When the hole seemed big enough, I carefully lowered her inside, my shirt was now completely wet in rain and her blood. Her head rolled backwards, in an angle that would've been impossible if I hadn't maimed her neck, and her eyes peaked through.

It was like she was asking me why?

I was asking myself that same question.

I covered her up.

When every last bit of her was out of sight my body weakened, the adrenaline washing off in a big wave off my body. I was panting and sweating, cold and hot. I pulled myself up with the bench and settled on it, my feet mingling with the dewy grass.

There was blood and fur in my mouth.

I spat out, as much as I could, and even if my body was wrecking to slump over and heaving in tears and vomit all I could do was sit still, quietly and calmly and stare out at the flowers ahead of me.

It was like there was a hole in the pit of my stomach swallowing everything and anything, leaving me with an empty hollowing feeling. I felt nothing. No hurt, not regret, no guilt. I was like a little garden norm, molded in a resemblance of a human, with eyes, and a mouth and a button nose, and an echoing silence for a heart.

I didn't know how long I sat there, lost in nothingness, wandering in a plane where existence was a myth when I felt someone seat beside me.

"I don't know what happened." I said, my eyes trained ahead, my voice sounded hoarse like I had been crying, but I had not, it was the fur clogged in my throat.

My aunt reached out to touch me but I moved away, she sighed. "It is cold, come back inside."

"I don't know how I got here."

"I know."

I turned to her finally, she was dark and chubby, with a type of beauty that had to be felt and not seen. It easily got lost between the sternness heavy on her eyebrows and sarcastic witty words that rolled off her tongue. But when she sat, in silence, watching her favorite Indian series, rolling her eyes and criticizing their exaggeration with her sighs, when she got drowned in the sound of the orchestra and melodies of German or French and sometimes Italian words echoing from the stage, from the mouth of the singers straight to her spirit, one couldn't just help but see it.

This woman, made of steel and flowers and little joys had raised me for the past five years she had clothed me, fed me, loved me and even tried to nurse a wound she didn't create, nor understand.

And I had just killed her child.

"Do you want to go inside?" She spoke softly, though her voice wasn't created for softness. "Or do you want to stay here for some time?"

I stared quietly at her, like I could see right through her, straight to the swing. She wasn't blinking, and her lips moved slower than her words, and she was stroking her cat who was sleeping, all curled up in her arms.

"Do you want to go inside?"

Something cold with long piercing nails crept up my side, its lips whispering incoherent words in rapid rushed voices, not distinct to a gender or a being or an entity.

I turned to my side, my uncle sat, his neck a twig, his face made of two hollow holes that had eaten up his cheeks and a little bundle of white strands on his chin. His eyes were black and empty, the hatred in them shun brighter than anything in the garden.

He didn't speak but I could hear him clearly, talking so loud in a space in my head, concentrated venom from his words burning.

Ai na gaya maku, he laughed. Wannan yarinya maiya ce.

And so I sat, without a single peep, without moving an inch, barely breathing in the freezing air and seeing the colors of the numerous petals laid ahead of me, with ghosts of my consciousness huddled by my side.

It is all in my head.

My aunt is up in her room, asleep on her bed. Her cat was under where I sit, nothing but a mess of its former image and my uncle was...gone. I would never see him again, listen to his wailing and curses, or swallow his wrath through my pores.

But as I looked down at the blood on my hands, now feeling like the weight of a thousand cement blocks, dark with a nauseating draw, I imagined it was his.

I imagined it was his blood on my hands and his skin in my mouth, on my tongue and his crushed body of melted bones and dead veins folded below me.

I threw my head back, squinting at the empty sky and cracked a smile.

I heard him again, repeating his words, now his voice weak with fear, shaking, crying.

I told you people, he croaked. This girl is a witch.

✯•✯•✯

A hive of bees was in my head, buzzing and stinging and singing the song of danger. They covered my ears and blocked my sight, fluttering their wings with a choreographed dance.

The air was hot and the room lacked light, the single dying orange flame from the leveled candle barely being able to carry the weight of the darkness.

Falmata was in front of me, her hair half done or was it half made? Thick and overpowering as it puffed above her head like clouds made of smoke. She was holding a broken glass to me, my eyes were bleeding with kohl, lined with so many layers they made me look evil, wicked even.

It was hot and dark and the rest of my cousins were sleeping around us, snoring softly. I pulled my small legs to my chest and wrapped my arms round them. My body hurt, during our earlier match, she had flung me so hard that I had scarped my face on the ground and hit my stomach flat when I landed, but it was worth it because the crowd had gone wild and my uncle had gained double or more than he expected.

Falmata didn't apologize, she never did. And I couldn't blame her, it wasn't her fault, it was her father's, my uncle's. But still I wished she did, I wished didn't she didn't stare blankly at me as I wept or shared her portion of food with me, instead of her words.

"Look," She brought the glass closer to my face, her voice barely a myth to me now, kanuri effortless on her tongue. She switched to hausa. "Look at how pretty you are. You're the prettiest girl in this house."

I didn't say anything, I just watched her and my reflection. In our dynamics, I didn't talk, I just listened, and noted. She was the teacher, the guider, the mastermind. She would speak, swapping between dialects, with short pauses and an undertone of a know it all. She never listened.

"I heard mama saying that boys would start flocking around you, and they have, haven't they?"

I shook my head. I was a bad liar.

She inched closer, the faded chipped walls, frayed curtains and creaking dead chairs watched us with intrest. These two stupid girls, I liked to think they whispered to themselves, they would be the death of each other.

"She said you would like the attention, just like your mother," She blinked at me, a few inches taller. "She said you would become a prostitute, just like your mother."

I shook my head again, this time more vehemently. I would never be like my mother.

Falmata smiled widely, the cut on her lips opening, her eyes were plain, naked. It made her look sick, contrasting with her lean muscular build. But above all, it was the perfect touch up to her mask of innocence.

"Better sleep," She dropped the glass. "Tomorrow is going to be hell for you."

Something landed on my paper and just like that the bees burnt up in flames and their ashes floated to the back of my mind with my memories, waiting for the right time to be reborn, to torment me once more.

"You have 30 minutes more," The exam invigilator spoke into the microphone perched on the high table. "Hall B, you have 30 minutes left. You should be rounding up, make sure to recheck your work as much as you can, dot your Is and cross your Ts. Hall B you have 30 minutes left."

I let out a short shaky breath, I was in the middle of answering the last question when I zoned out. I looked down on my paper and finally notice what had brought me out of my trance. A polished black fountain pen, inlaid with veins of gold that swirled around an engraved name H.Talha.

Talha.

H.Talha.

I looked to my right and I immediately caught sight of Hussain, sitting next to me. I hadn't even paid attention to his presence earlier, too stuck in the muddy waters in my mind. He was flipping through his script, which was neat and heavy tattooed in his handwriting, seemingly done.

He paused and turned to me, slowly. Our eyes met, his calm and settled, I could even call it kind. But they were unreadable, like a painting used to cover a hole. And I for one should know that was the worst thing a person would be, unreadable.

I picked up the pen, my stare growing hotter, I stabbed it into my desk and snapped it in half, never breaking sight of him. I was taking my frustration on him, my frustration on my inability to control myself, to control my mind, to control my memories, to control my thoughts, to control my unconsciousness

He watched me, his regality towering over the hall, tall and lean, the impenetrable Talha, their little perfect heir. He narrowed his deep set eyes and for a second, and as if on purpose, he let a peep of concern break through and the corners of his lips lifted into a smile. He looked away.

It'll be fine, his smile said, It'll pass.

"You have 30 minutes, Hall B. Dot your Is and cross yout Ts."

ROSE'S LITTLE RANT;

A short chapter to end a short year, I hope you enjoyed itttttttt!!!

Kamla has to be one of my most complicated characters. She's so interesting to write and think about🤭

Nothing much to say.

Byeeeee. See you next year!💐

Love, Rose❤️.