May 13, 2081

The sound of someone calling my name woke me up. I opened my eyes to see Mrs. Abimbola sitting beside me. After eating yesterday, I had gone straight to bed. Normally, she would have said I should wait for the food to digest before going to bed but this time she let me sleep immediately.

"Someone is here to see you," she said, a smile on her face.

I frowned, wondering who it was. I followed her out of the room, my brows furrowed and then my eyes lit up when I saw Wunmi Adeyemi, my best friend, poking her head through the door opening of the hut. I burst out into laughter. She raised a brow at me but after a few seconds joined me in laughing. Mrs. Abimbola looked at us for a few seconds before shaking her head and walking away.

"Why are you laughing?" I asked.

"Because your laughter is making me laugh. Why are you laughing?"

I sobered up. "Seeing you like that just reminds me of years ago when Mrs. Abimbola first brought me here and you snuck into the hut to talk to me." When Mrs. Abimbola had brought me to the village, I had stayed in the room locked up, refusing to eat or drink anything. But despite my bratty attitude, she still took care of me. One day, I was sitting in the room, hungry and tired when Wunmi poked her head through the door and smiled at me. She had snuck into the hut. She came to sit beside me and started talking even though I tried to ignore her. Her parents were looking for her in the village and didn't know she was sitting with me in the room. In the end, she got me to come out and eat and since then, we had become best of friends.

Wunmi smiled, revealing her ink coloured teeth. They had turned a shade of deep blue. Despite the ink covering her melanin skin, she still looked pretty. "How are you?"

I shrugged. "I'm fine." She knew I always mourned my parents on 12th of May each year and each day after that she tried to make me feel better.

"Well. Go and freshen up. We're going out."

I raised a brow. "Out? Where?" The village was really small and there was hardly any place of attraction in it so I wondered what Wunmi meant.

"Stop asking questions and just go and freshen up."

I grabbed my bag of toiletries and a bucket of water and went to take my bath, then I returned to the room to put on a dress. When I came out of the hut, Wunmi was standing outside with a few of our friends; Yemilade, Chidinma and Precious. They waved at me and I waved back shyly. Although Wunmi and I were not as close to them as we were close to each other, we sometimes hung out together.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, looking at each of them and then returning my gaze back to Wunmi.

"You'll find out soon," Wunmi said.

They winked at each other and then Wunmi grabbed me as they all ran towards the village square, pulling me along. For the first time since the inky rain, I completely forgot about my worries. We played several games, including the childish ones. We played hide and seek and even dress up. We even used the ink swirling around to draw make up on our faces. We were like children with no care in the world. For us, right now, we had no issues, we had no fear of being infected with ink and dying, we had no fear of the ink killing everyone on earth, we had no fear at all. My cheeks hurt from crying and laughing so much.

A few children and teenagers joined us while the adults watched. We paused a few times to snack on some things the girls had brought. Wunmi's mum had also prepared food for us and put it in coolers so they were still warm when we were ready to eat. For a while, everything was just normal and I was happy for that.

Towards evening, the crowd that had come to watch us started thinning out and after a few minutes, we were the only ones left.

I turned to the girls as we got ready to part ways. "Thank you so much. You don't know how much this means to me."

"You're welcome. I'm glad we did this," Precious said.

"Me too, even though it feels like my arms are going to fall off any minute," Chidinma added, holding out her hands.

Yemilade nodded. "I feel like my legs can't carry me again."

I chuckled and waved as the girls linked their hands together and walked away. Their houses were at a different part of the village from ours.
Wunmi and I walked silently back to the house. When we stopped in front of my house, I turned and wrapped her in a tight hug. She returned the hug.

When we pulled back, she wiped a tear I hadn't noticed had escaped from my eyes. "No crying today."

I smiled and nodded. She waved and walked away and I watched her as she disappeared from view. As I turned to enter the hut, Mrs. Abimbola stepped out and we almost crashed into each other.

"Ivy, you're back. How was your day? Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Yes, ma. People even came to watch us as we played games..."

We walked inside and I narrated all that had happened to her, excitedly. From the smile spreading on her face, I knew she could sense my excitement.

"I'm glad you're happy," she said hugging me. "Now eat your food before it gets cold. I need to go and see mummy Shade, we were supposed to talk about something but she just returned from the market. I'll be back soon."

"What about Tobi?" I asked.

"He went out to get something for me, he'll soon be back."

I nodded. Though I had eaten earlier in the day, I hungrily devoured the rice and stew Mrs. Abimbola had kept for me. A few minutes later, after I had changed into my sleeping wear, my eyes went to my bag at the corner of the room I shared with Mrs. Abimbola. I went to the door of the hut and looked out, there was no sign of Mrs. Abimbola and Tobi had not yet returned so I rushed to the room and fumbled with my bag, searching frantically for the phone I had. It was one of RICCO CORP's invention. A phone that could connect to any network in the world and call anybody if you said their name into it. It had caused a lot of controversy when Erik Coal released it to the public. People had started getting unwanted calls but once again we had disregarded the disadvantages because of the 'greater good'. I had to use the phone before Mrs. Abimbola and Tobi got back and I hoped I would finally get to Angela Cassey. I pulled the phone out of my bag and held it to my mouth.

"Angela Cassey, my name is Ivy Adekoya," I whispered into it. "I don't know if you are hearing me but we need your help. We are a group of uninfected people and you can find us by tracing this line. I have the location on." It was my rehearsed speech, a speech I said every day.

There was no reply, only the dial tone. A spurt of ink was released from the phone just as I heard the door open. I quickly stuffed the phone into the bottom of my bag and laid on the bed, pretending to be sleeping. Mrs. Abimbola entered the room minutes later and I heard her moving around. Few minutes later, I drifted off to sleep, my mind on Angela Cassey.

©Jesutofunmi Fekoya

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Hmm...Who is Angela Cassey? Continue reading to find out. ; )

If you like this chapter, please remember to vote, comment and share.