When the demon Duiwel sent us off, the words he said stuck in my head for days after. Words that were both a command and a warning. He sent us off, promising whoever found the artefact that would return all his stolen powers to him even before he had fully recovered from his imprisonment would survive alongside their families. He told us not to return until we had found it, or our families would pay the price. He told us we had until he'd recovered what strength had not been sealed separately, which would most likely be towards the end of December, the year Mudiwa, Nyah and I turned 21.
So the clock was ticking. We were scattered, still with parts of the broken shrine in hand. My skin had paled and flaked, became as sand, and as I travelled and searched, I became acquainted with my new body, and in turn with my new abilities.
That was when I made a dire mistake.
Duiwel had called himself weak, or weakened, and I'd remembered that the most. If he was weak, and he'd gifted some of his powers to the four of us, then maybe there was a chance to save our families, the very ones he held hostage.
Thinking back on it all, I wasn't thinking straight. I missed my family. My mother, my sisters...I was the only male left in our family, the only one fully educated, the best my rather small family had for support. I was the man of the house, and suddenly I had disappeared without a trace. The idea that they were worrying about me, the idea that they might be afraid, or suffering in any way, it was unbearable. It kept me up at nights.
So I returned to our little rural village. I returned with a plan. I would find my sisters, my mother, my family, help them escape the village, escape the demon's reach, and then face him myself. I had no idea where he had sent the other three, but he had given me his powers, powers that could send anyone to sleep, and even before these powers were mine I was a strong guy. A big guy.
I genuinely, stupidly thought I had a chance.
I didn't even make it to my family.
The demon headed me off by one of the fields, one I'd cut across many times as a child between school and my home, and I had raised my fists, ready to fight. Anything for my family. Anything for my friends.
~
As the sun rose over the village, recently rocked by the sudden unexplained disappearance of four teenagers, a strange sound called the villagers out to the field, gouged deep overnight. There stood the fearsome creature known as Duiwel, and in his claws was me. I was injured, faint, held upright only by his grip on my hair, and when everyone was gathered, he spoke.
"Ladies and gentlemen. As you know, young Boipelo Hassan and his friends went missing just last month. The good news is, though you may not recognise him straight away, I have young Boipelo right here! The bad news here is, well...he and I had a deal. I would keep you all alive and completely unharmed provided he went and got something of mine before coming back here. He, unfortunately, did not keep his end of the deal, so now I see no reason why I should." With his other hand, he beckoned to the frightened crowd. "I think I shall start with his family, then move to the loving families of his young friends. What are their names, boy?"
Instead of answering, I spat, and he yanked my head back hard.
"No matter. It's these four lovely ladies here, correct?"
He brought them forward, though I don't know how, and paraded me before them. Let them see the injuries I'd sustained fighting him. And true to his word, he destroyed them.
It was a massacre. People ran and screamed, tried to escape the moment he began to tear into and torture the first victim, my own mother. Each and every one of them was caught, even as the previous victim's screams still pierced the air. Through it all, he kept my eyes open, made me watch every single one, each and every kill.
It was my fault. I wanted to hang out by the old shrine, I started playing rough, and I went back despite the warnings and caused all of those deaths. At the end of it all, I was kneeling on the floor, surrounded by swathes of blood and chunks of what had once been people. My people.
