The first thing she noticed was a thudding sound. It had merely been an annoyance at first but as she became more aware, the sound was all that she could hear. It pierced through her slumbering wakefulness and brought her straight to reality.

“Stop that noise,” She called out loud or at least tried to but could not because her lips were blocked by the body on top of her. All she could taste was rotting skin. She tried to move her head, but she was blocked by obstacles to the side of her. Slowly, as she became more conscious, she realised that she was surrounded by bodies.

Don’t panic, She thought, Just take in a breath, and try to move. She took a moment to collect herself and slowly moved her body to try and find more space. As she slowly moved, she heard the thunk of something heavy hitting the pile of bodies. It sounded like skin hitting skin. Must be another body. Oh no, I think I’m in a mass grave. She quickly ignored the thought and the panic that was building up with it.

She kept on moving and pushing and minutes later she had made her way to the top of the pile. For a second, shivering in fear and disgust, she looked down at all the bodies beneath her thinking of being buried there.

She looked up and above her were six black men sweating in the blinding heat who were looking at her with shock. They were all dressed in loose grey garments and one had paused in his motion of tossing in another body.

“Hello,” She said with a smile, “I think someone put me here by mistake. Could you give me a hand out of here?”

Something she said must have snapped them out of their inaction as they all backed away from the grave and the man with a corpse quickly tossed it aside.

“Demon,” One of them shouted throwing away his shovel, “We’ve got to leave quickly.”

Although the hole had been deep, there were many bodies beneath her, so she didn’t have to do much to get out of it. She simply jumped and she was out of the grave. Her appearance sent the men into a further frenzy and they ran with more energy to the humped animals she saw in the distance. Camels, her mind supplied.

The woman looked at them with puzzlement when she began to hear a shuffling sound behind her. She looked behind her and to her surprise, her companion corpses who she had pushed past and climbed upon had made their way out of the grave. She stared perplexed for a second at this sight which for some reason she was certain was unnatural when she got snapped out of it by the words of the men ahead.

“Fuck it’s worse. It’s not a demon, it’s circlers.”

At that, one of the men whipped out a device from his bag and threw it behind him. She immediately dodged this device and looked in amazement as something came out of the corpses causing several of them to collapse.

But it was all in vain. It was a deep grave that contained around a hundred people. The device the man used was not sufficient enough. The circlers walked slowly for a few seconds before progressing to walking quickly and then running.

“This is your fault, Oyo,” One of them said, “This is why I told you to just rob the bodies and not bury them. Who told you to be a hero?”

The woman did not hear Oyo’s response because the men whipped some devices and aimed them at the advancing corpses. These weapons fired projectiles at the circlers but although it slowed them down, they kept on coming. The deafening sound of these instruments momentarily overcame her hearing, but she was able to quickly readjust and hear what they were saying to each other even though they were metres away.

“You didn’t bless the weapons? You wanted us to do a mass burial and you didn’t bless the weapons?” The man who had spoken before said again. “I swear if I die here, I’ll haunt your family.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, Joseph,” the supposed Oyo responded, “Let’s talk after we’ve killed them all.” He looked at one of the other men. “Sunday, use that weapon we just got, we’ll cover you.” The man he was referring to nodded his head and headed towards the camels while the other five shot at the corpses.

Sunday reached into the bag slung around the camel, looked back at them before putting it back and getting on the camel. “I’m sorry guys but I can’t die with you. I’ll make sure your family gets compensation.” Saying this he turned his camel and rode away.

The other men tried to speak but were distracted by the corpses that were salivating at their bodies. Joseph looked at the circlers and knew they were doomed. They might have had a fighting chance with Oyo’s soul enhancer but even that was doubtful and now they were all going to die. He looked at Oyo with anger then thought about how Sunday was going to walk away from this with his life and all their wealth. Over my dead body, he thought then turned around and aimed his weapon at Sunday ignoring the circler behind him. The weapon might not have been effective at harming the corpses, but it was very useful on humans. It hit Sunday in the dead centre of his back, and he fell from his camel at the same time Joseph fell to the circlers.

The woman turned away from the massacre and walked cautiously towards the direction Sunday was fleeing. She had to believe that he had gone in that direction because there was a place to go. The sound of the men’s weapons stopped and all she could hear was a crunching and slurping sound. Despite the warning her mind was giving her, she turned around to see the aftermath of the battle. She had to see, she had to know.

It was not pleasant. The circlers had converged on these bodies and were voraciously eating them. In a matter of seconds, they had consumed the flesh and meat of these bodies. Only the bones and blood were a sign that there had once been people there.

She backed away slowly, keeping an eye on the horde in case something changed. She was almost near Sunday — who was slowly dragging his body towards his camel that had stopped after realising that there was no one on its body — when one of the circlers raised its head and looked her straight in the eye. She held its gaze for a second until it got to its feet and started running towards her.

“Hell no,” She said. She had no idea what these things were, but she had seen what they had done to those men. No way was it going to happen to her. She stopped walking cautiously and ran towards Sunday.

“I’m so sorry,” She said to him as she ran past him and towards the camel.

“Help me. Help me,” He shouted and crawled towards her. She shook her head and kicked at his hands.

“Don’t come near me,” She said running towards the camel, “I don’t want to die with you.”

“Don’t leave me here,” Sunday shouted before screaming in pain. The Circlers had gotten to him.

She ran to the camel and got on it before realising that she had no idea what to do next. She began to pant in fear, looking behind her to see the corpses gorging themselves on Sunday. They would be coming for her soon.

“Move. I’m telling you to move. I’m going to die here before knowing anything. Move, you silly animal!”

That seemed to do the trick as the camel began to move and just in time as the circler she had locked eyes with tried to grab her arm. The camel took off and it swiped air instead. It growled in anger and began to chase after the camel at a higher speed than before. The rest of the circlers followed at a similar speed. Looks like Sunday would not have been able to escape after all even if his team had forgiven his betrayal.

She held onto the camel for her dear life and prayed for someone, something to help her.

OoO

Lucky Lawal was profoundly annoyed. She had just had a very enjoyable evening with a woman who was very impressed with the breadth of her supplies. It might have also been a way to persuade her for more, but she wouldn’t have minded; the experience had been worth it.

She had been looking forward to a similarly enjoyable morning when she received a message from her leader to check out a suspicious region in West Biafra. Apparently, for a second it had seemed that a powerful soul had appeared out of nowhere in the West African country. However, it had disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived, and they needed someone to search the area and report if something had happened. Unluckily, she was currently in Biafra so who better to send to investigate.

Frankly, Lucky was certain that it was nothing. She was almost sure that this was a weird form of hazing that the head was using to welcome her to her position as one of the Pay Forward African Chapter deputies. He still believed that she was a spy and was keeping an eye on her. But even he couldn’t stop her progress. Pay Forward was, or was supposed to be, a democratic, anti-dictatorial group which aimed to help the common people. She had put in a lot of effort to convince many people that she was a kind, maternal figure — which was helped by her past as a priestess — just for the sake of being voted into this position; she wasn’t going to let Josiah Johnson bait her into doing something wrong.

She’d accepted the order and had regretfully let the gentlewoman know that they had to put their dalliance to an end but that it had been a pleasant one. She’d had to give more supplies than she had planned just to placate the mayor, but it helped maintain the relationship between her organisation and the town.

“Josiah is such an asshole,” She muttered to herself, kissing her teeth but smiled when she saw her hovercar, Gospel. She’d first gotten it when she left the ACIRC and still in two minds about leaving the religious organisation gave it such a name. That had been ten years ago, and it was still as good as new. “I guess its just you and me now, baby. Let’s go find nothing.”

She stepped into the vehicle before placing her hand on the pad and letting it identify her soul and the body it was in. After a few seconds, the machine purred as it started acknowledging her as its driver. Lucky would never admit it to anyone, but this ability was why she loved Gospel. The trend of making vehicles that could identify souls and would only work with the right soul had been dying even around the time the hover had been made but she was very possessive of her items. Besides, this way even if someone spent a lot of resources to soul separate her, she would still be able to use it.

Lucky entered the approximate co-ordinates of the soul appearance and grimaced when she saw it was in the Red Desert. This was going to be tricky. She muttered dark plans of what she would do to Josiah if she found nothing and as she did so, a notification came up on her display.

“What’s up Gospel? Is someone else here? Show me the image.”

Lucky put on a helmet and an image was projected in her mind of a young black woman on a camel. She was dressed in a tattered dress that was too dusty for her to tell the original colour and she was barefoot. Behind her was a crowd of circlers. The circlers were going at top speed but although they were always within close range, they were not able to come near her.

“Do a sweep and calculate where they came from and how far this has been going on,” She said and made a sound of amazement. According to the simulation, the circlers had been chasing the girl for just over thirty minutes. “Impressive. They usually get people at her speed at around ten minutes. Still they’ll get her eventually. What do you think Gospel, should I help her out?”

She wavered about getting involved and sticking her neck out before she saw something bizarre. The woman was laughing. Lucky had seen people being chased by all kinds of supernatural creatures but she had never seen someone laugh while on the edge of death before. That was it; her decision was made.

“Looks like there’s a girl after my own heart.”

OoO

She could not tell what had possessed her to start laughing but as the horde kept on advancing towards her, she had felt more and more the desire to exclaim in excitement. Am I the kind of person who likes being in danger? She wondered but that felt wrong. She was laughing in defiance of the idea that she was in danger. How could she die just like that?

She urged the camel to run a little faster, but she knew that the camel was on its last legs. For some reason, she had been able to make it run faster than a camel ever could, but it was reaching its end. It was going to die soon. Now she began to worry. She’d barely been able to avoid the circlers on the camel; she would be dead the second it stopped.

That was when she heard it. It was barely there but it was a rumbling, purring sound. She had no idea what it was, but it might be of help.

“Is anyone there? I need help please,” She said urgently but that sound had disappeared almost as if it was an illusion. She was beginning to despair when she heard a sound similar to that of the weapon those men had used. The sound came again, and the circlers began to slow down and turn towards it. At the same time, her camel dropped dead and she scrambled away in fear that they were going to attack her but after running a few metres without hearing anything come after her, she turned around to see what was going on.

That was when she first saw her, her saviour. She was a muscular black woman with short curled hair. She was dressed in yellow patterned top and black trousers with black boots. But that was not what got her attention, it was the confident sneer on her face and the weapon in her hand that drew her attention.

“Its gates are wide open so go to hell,” The woman said and with a twitch of her finger a light came from the weapon and blasted through the head of one of the circlers. It felt like time had frozen as everything stood still for a moment. Then all the circlers ran towards her.

It looked effortless. It was almost as if she knew where they were going to appear. She dodged every attack, every swipe, every bite. And any time they came close enough to hurt her what waited for them was a blast from one of her two hand weapons. It was magnificent.

She had wanted to run away but she had been so mesmerised that all she could do was watch her would-be saviour decimate the creatures that had destroyed six men and threatened her. Gradually, her attention shifted to the weapon as with every blast, it shimmered slightly. She narrowed her eyes at the weapon, something about the engravings was familiar to her.

“Admiring Martha?” the woman asked with a smile on her face.

“Hmm, what,” was her response as she focused back on the scene of the battle. On the ground was a pile of bodies most of them missing body parts. It had only taken her minutes for the circlers to be reduced to nothing. This woman was very powerful.

“Martha, my guns. You like it?” She asked and put the two guns in her belt holsters.

“You named both guns Martha. Somehow that seems odd.”

“Why not, I use them together, so I gave them the same name.”

“Okay. Well sure they’re nice weapons. Although I think the dead circlers are enough to make me happy. Thank you so much for saving me.”

“You’re welcome-” Lucky started to say before realising something was odd. This woman was speaking to her in English. It had taken her a while to understand because her translator had automatically translated to Igbo, but she could hear the spoken language underneath the translation. That was odd because the woman could clearly understand Igbo and most people spoke in their local languages relying on their translator to communicate with people from other regions. Although there were some language enthusiasts like herself who enjoyed learning other languages, English was somewhat taboo here with most African countries disavowing the language as a way to separate from their colonial pasts.

This realisation allowed her to notice the other oddities about the woman she had rescued. Although it was covered in sand and dust, Lucky was able to tell that the rubber thread used for her hairstyle had been recently applied. Also, the hairstyle was an intricate one comprising of swoops and swirls with every strand joined together. Someone had, very recently, painstakingly done her hair but there was no one with her. Even though there was sand under her nails, they had been painted purple and she could still see signs of her makeup. Who wore make up and painted their nails when they came to the desert?

“Is anyone here with you,” Lucky casually asked while moving her fingers to her gun.

“Uh,” the mystery said and looked around her, “I don’t think so. I’m sure I’m alone.”

“Alone huh,” Lucky said then pointed Martha at her, “Who are you and why are you here because there’s no way some random barefoot woman shows up in the desert being chased by circlers with those nails and that hairstyle. You must be here for something.”

“Well you know I… Alright. I’ll tell you but believe me okay? Okay. I don’t really know much. I just woke up here and those things started chasing me and I thought I was going to die. Then you saved me.”

Lucky looked at her for a second before looking down at her watch to check her heartbeat. It seemed like she was telling the truth.

“Okay. Fine. I believe you. What’s your name then, who are you? Maybe I can get in touch with someone else who can explain.”

“Ah now that’s a bit difficult. I don’t seem to know who I am,” She replied, “I don’t even know my na—” She stopped as a word appeared insistently in her head. “Actually, it looks like I do know my name. But I’m sorry I can’t tell you who I am or why I am here or even where here is.”

Lucky looked at her watch and then back again at the woman’s face.

“Damn. I knew today was going to be horrible but amnesia? That’s a whole other level,” She said and put down her guns, “Okay. I can deal with this.”

It really was a profoundly annoying day.