Home. - Eniyan

The Persona known as Eniyan.

Who am I

Why am I? Why was I born? What is my purpose?
What did I do to deserve this kind of treatment?
Whom did I offend to earn this kind of condemnation?

Was I a thief? But I don’t remember taking anything that wasn’t mine.

Did I bear false witness on an innocent man condemned to die?

I cannot remember a time when I lied at the expense of a friend.
However, in the eyes of the grown-ups, all truths are made into lies

I am presently on a ship sailing towards certain doom
My heart is racing and I can feel the cold shiver wash throughout my body
So this is where my time comes to an end
So this is where I am going to meet with fate,

Never to live to the fullness of my life
Never to be wedded
Never to bring forth children
Never to be loved
Oh, what a wretched life this is,
Oh, what a wretched life I have lived.
To be born without achieving anything
To be unworthy of your own name

This is the day that I renounce myself
This is the day that I am unworthy of my name
Today, I become a stranger to myself
Today my name shall be taken from me
I renounce my past, and I embrace my future
This day I shall be known as the stranger with no name.

The boy sat down close to one of the oars at the foremost part of the boat. Judging from the dark shade beneath his eyes, he had been crying for a while; none of the guards dared to lay a finger on him, for fear of incurring the wrath of the warden, and a few of them pitied him. He was chained just like all the other criminals, only the guards gave him special treatment considering his age and frail nature.

“What’s your name?” Someone asked

“It doesn't matter” the boy replied, “I’ll be dead soon”,

“So you’ve given up already”, the man mocked.

“Is there any use in fighting a losing battle”

“A man must do what he can, what he must, to survive”, the captain said, “stop behaving like a boy, and become a man”

“How can I survive on an island of death?” The boy asked in a trembling voice,

“By changing into something that can survive the island, you do know how to hunt?”

“Yes, my father taught me”, the boy replied,

“Then live, that is the only way to prove to everyone who has stabbed you in the back, show them that you are innocent, show them that you are not easily broken; show them that you will return and you will triumph”, the captain whispered, “survive, and demand justice”,

The boy nodded, his countenance had changed. The boy now knew what his immediate goal was, it was to demand justice.

“That’s not enough boy; promise me that you will survive”

“I promise”, the boy repeated.

“Now, promise yourself”, the captain pressed.

“I will survive”, the boy pronounced in a determined tone.

“Good!” the captain smiled, “don’t forget to survive, no matter what”

“I will,” the boy said, his tone filled with a stronger sense of self.

“I will try to help you in any way that I can”. The captain said, “But promise me that you will fight to survive” he continued, pestering the boy with his insistence.

“I promise”. The captain smiled briefly, then walked quietly towards his cabin. For some reason, the boy’s countenance had improved slightly.

****

The ship arrived at the destination 3 hours later, and the guards were quick in executing their duties, no one wanted to remain on the cursed island any more than necessary. They lined all the condemned in a single file, then gave each of them a small sack filled with food and supplies that would last them at least 3 weeks. One of the prisoners tried to attack the guards, but his feeble attempt at freedom cost him his life. Three of the other guards shot him down in an instant. The boy was also handed a sack filled with rations for the next 3 weeks, but the sack was a little heavy for the boy, and he almost fell under the weight of the sack.

“Welcome to the island of death”, the Warden announced from a vantage point, “this is where your life ends. The rations given to you are supposed to last for about 3 weeks, but I doubt any of you will even survive the day”

There was a lot of uncomfortable murmuring among the convicts, many of them had not heard of the island of Kirikiri. To be exact, the island of Kirikiri was a government secret, an island that is a treasure trove of biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction; most of all, the happenings on such an island remain a mystery to the common person. The island was given the highest priority where security is concerned, the electromagnetic shield, which renders all modern tech unresponsive, was initiated to prevent the use of spy cams and satellite surveillance; and the exile of prisoners on death row here was to test the effectiveness of the biological weapons. The perfect arrangement, unfortunately, most political leaders were using the system for their own means and sometimes the innocent fall into the trap, just like this innocent boy who was being sentenced to death for the crime of being born.

“You are all nothing but fodder here on this island”, the warden continued, “if you can survive a week on this island, then I will be impressed, but for now,” he gestured towards his men and they responded by aiming their guns towards the now shocked prisoners. “We will be unlocking your chains and releasing you into the wild.”

“Are you not going to give us some weapons to survive the horrors of this island?” One of the prisoners inquired.

The warden actually laughed at those words, “Freemen, and the innocent, will be given weapons, convicts? I don’t think so.”

There was a loud protest among the prisoners, which was silenced by the warden making a headshot on one of the prisoners. The convict’s head disintegrated immediately, splattering blood all over the place. Because the boy stood next to the prisoner, some of the blood was spilt on him.

“Stay here and argue, with a survival rate of 0%, or run into the island and struggle to survive and I promise a survival rate of 5%”. The warden mocked. Now, all the convicts were silent, each one looking at the warden with the promise of vengeance in their eyes mixed with fear. The boy, on the other hand, was panting, gazing horrifically at the corpse that lay at his feet.

Soon, every chain was unlocked, and every man released, without a second thought, all the prisoners ran off into the bush preparing their minds for the worst. The boy gathered his wits together and heaved the sack on his back. He heard the jangling of metal within the sack but discredited it from his mind. Now, his major priority was to find a place to stay, but the racing of his heart and the upcoming dread made his walk uneasy.

The boy had barely gone 3 feet away from the seashore before another convict assailed him, he suddenly felt someone trip him from behind.

“So, because the captain and the other soldiers have given you the royal treatment that makes you think that you are better than the rest of us” the assailant shouted in hatred,

“I'm sorry,” the boy said as he rolled over to see his oppressor, the man was the physical representation of a brute, with large bulging muscles and an unstable temperament. “I promise not to offend you aga…”

“Shut up!” The brute snapped, “Now hand me your sack,” he growled,

“But, I need it to survive”

“It’s obvious that you'll be dead in a few minutes”, the brute continued, “so why let such good supplies go to waste?” The brute grabbed the sack filled with supplies to the boy’s horror and ran off with such speed that the boy was amazed. The greedy bastard had taken his only means of survival, the only hope he had to make his way off this island. No, there must be a way to reclaim his possession, the man simply stole his sack of supplies because he judged the boy smaller and weaker. This caused a wave of anger to wash through the boy’s entire being, and then he followed the thief with only one goal, to reclaim his possession.

The thief might have been faster, but the speed of an elderly muscled brute was no match for the stamina of a child in the springtime of his youth, stalking his oppressor was easy, the fool had started to lose speed as he progressed into the forest, in no time at all the man would need to stop and rest.

As they journeyed, the boy played several scenarios in his mind, should he encounter the brute, judging from his bulky structure, a frontal challenge was out of the question; to sneak up on such a person was also out of the question. ‘Only an established thief can steal from a thief’. Criminals were highly distrustful and manipulative; they had their own idea of how the world works. If he is to claim his prize, he needs to shed his formal personality and abandon the naive boy he once was; he must become a savage to survive.

There was a sudden roar in the background that echoed into the night. The sounds were then followed by the cry of a man suffering in agony. The boy and the man froze in fear. Then the sound was followed by another successive sound, and then another, and then it started coming in waves, some roars, filled with blood lust, and others the cry of men, either in a fierce battle or in agonising pain.

The boy’s blood suddenly began to congeal. Something told him that there were some things far more important than his stolen sack of supplies; the man ahead of him started to tremble, and with each new footstep he made, he was moving closer to danger. The boy cautiously jumped into a tree to watch his brutish friend let his guard down, then the roar sounded again, this time it was accompanied by a stampeding herd of wild antelopes. That’s what they looked like at first but a closer look would definitely reveal that these animals had been tampered with on a cellular level. These antelopes had three horns, the third horn protruding from the centre of their skull like that of a rhino; they were as large as a full-grown buffalo, far more muscled with sharp teeth, and they all had eyes filled with rage.

“Olodumare o!” the boy exclaimed,

The brute that the boy had been tailing for the past few minutes stood in their way, the ground suddenly started to tremble with the force of their stamping. In a matter of moments, one of the rampaging beasts impaled the brute, and then he was tossed aside like a worthless ragdoll. The boy watched in horror from the safety of his tree as the monsters passed by, then he crept down from the tree and walked over to his now dead oppressor. The man’s body was a ruined waste, the pool of blood nauseated the boy and the smell threatened to discourage him from looting the dead.

“If monsters like that lived on this island, then it would take a miracle for me to survive,” the boy thought

Luckily for him, the sack was unharmed by the stampede. The thief lives up to his reputation, willing to die with the property that he had stolen. The thief still had the sack firmly in his grip, but the boy began to struggle, picking the brute's fingers off his possession. After a few minutes, he finally pried it free from the grasp of the dead, then he decided to go his way but stopped in his tracks. He suddenly eyed the second sack filled with supplies, the one belonging to the brute and had a bright, greedy idea.

The unconscious man suddenly coughed, which gave the boy a sudden fright, so, the man was still alive after all that. Then he studied the damaged body of the brute and concluded that there was no saving him from wounds this serious.

“I thought you were dead”, the boy said,

“I’beg you, Help Me,” the brute pleaded

“Sorry,” the boy mocked, “it’s obvious that you'll be dead in a few minutes, so I’ll be taking your sack and the rest of your supplies. Thank you for dying so that I can live”,

The brute gave the boy the face of horrific realisation, then closed his eyes for the last time in death, his grip loosened around the second sack, and the boy wasted no time in grabbing it, then he dashed away from the scene. All over the island, the boy heard the screams of various prisoners crying out in agony and the roars of various monstrosities moving in for the kill; despite himself, he could tell that over half of the men who had arrived on the island were dead. He managed to climb up a tree to hide his treasures. It would be better if the sack filled with supplies were in a safe place where only he knew and could have access to easily, that way he could come back when it was much safer.

The first thing he needed was a safe place to stay for the night, where the wild animals wouldn’t be able to reach, so he carefully picked his way through the forest and journeyed towards the centre of the island. For some reason, he believed a building of some sort might come in handy. At first, he didn’t realise it, but he suddenly felt his hair stand on end, then he heard the silent growl coming from something behind, and the boy cursed himself for being so careless. The antelopes are animals that majorly move in a herd, but there are also some animals in this cursed land, which prefer the company of solitude. The boy cautiously turned his head to see what manner of beast had tracked him down, and the result made his heart sink.

The great chase

It was a giant white buffalo, the largest, meanest beast he had ever seen. How such a magnificent specimen could have snuck up on him would remain a mystery, the only thing his survival instincts told him at that crucial moment was. ‘RUN’.

Never had he been as terrified as he was now, the beast matched his speed on four legs easily closing the distance between them like a wild cat of prey. But the boy also had an advantage, the beast’s heavy body composition and the strength of its momentum, made it difficult for it to make sharp turns. As soon as the beast was able to close the distance between them, the boy would simply grab the stem of a small tree and use it as a brace to help him make a quick turn. In an attempt to make a turn that would match the boy’s, the buffalo would crash right into the trees ahead then stumble and roll several times, giving the boy enough time to lengthen the distance between them; this might be a game that young children would play, but for the boy, it’s a game of life and death.

The slightest miscalculation can turn the tide of this death race, the boy was conscious of his environment and of every feeble attempt that this monster was trying to make at his life. There was definitely a flaw in its design. Yes, it looks large and formidable, and its speed was a force to be reckoned with, but for some reason, it seems like this monster lacked the ability to control its highly unstable strength. Therein lies the opportunity, ‘I am not going to die’ the boy whispered to himself. Seeking refuge in a tree was definitely a suicidal move. With its raw power, the buffalo might be able to knock the tree down from its roots, and he can’t keep up this chase indefinitely. If enhanced stamina was part of its modifications, then he was definitely at a disadvantage. Which means that the plan was to dispatch this beast as soon as possible, ‘Easier thought than done.’

The boy decided to expand his running space, hoping to find something that would help him fell this mighty beast, at first he thought the island was a small geographical territory, but he was wrong, Kirikiri was a country of its own with high hills, trees and grasslands, everything a super-evolved genetically altered hybrid needs to survive. Who was the twisted monster that came up with such an idea anyway, the boy finally found something useful. The buffalo suddenly attacked from behind without the boy noticing, nearly knocking all the air out of him and sending him flying. He was saved by a thick bush, which softened his fall and might have even saved his life. It took the boy a few moments to regain his composure and to get back to his feet. Surprisingly, the buffalo stood by watching silently, and the realisation struck him. The buffalo could have killed him at any time, the speed he had once assumed to be its highest was only a deception, this monster was only chasing him around for its own amusement, and the moment it struck him, that was its own way of saying ‘I'm getting bored with this rat race’

This meant that he was not up against a wild animal that could not tell the difference between right and wrong, friend and foe; no, he was up against an intelligent beast with a sadistic nature and an insatiable lust for human blood. The monster had been leading in this game since the very beginning. It purposely growled when it had first spotted him to initiate the chase, and judging from the angle at which it had landed its last blow, it had done it purposely to make him land in the bush. The beast was far more manoeuvrable than it had led him to believe. If he planned to work then he must use his superior intelligence to solve this situation, but first:

“Are you enjoying this chase?” he taunted

The Buffalo roared, and then it gave its own form of a nod in acknowledgement of the chase. This confirmed its intelligence

“So can we be friends?” he inquired wishfully, as he scanned the environment with his eyes trying to regain his bearing.

The beast replied with a deafening roar of hatred that would make a full-grown lion flinch, and the boy nodded in acknowledgement. The only reason he was alive was for the beast’s personal entertainment, it was giving him time to come up with a new strategy so the chase would be more entertaining.

“Alright”, the boy said with a sinister smile, “I'm going to run off now, and you give me a 5-second head start”, The beast nodded in acknowledgement, its eyes hungry for the second round of entertainment

In an instant, the boy ran off towards the ruins of an old structure probably built during the technological age of the Yoruba Empire, during the reign of Alaafin Akinyode Oduduwa. ‘Those were the days’ at least that was what his history teacher said; now this old metallic structure is going to act as his shield against this rampaging beast. If he were lucky, he might even acquire a weapon that would help him fell this mighty beast.

He ran straight into the ruins of the great city with his hybrid friend in hot pursuit, most of the passageways were narrow, hence limiting the movements and speed of his larger companion. This turned out to be an advantage for the boy and then he noticed a staircase designed for human usage and thanked his lucky stars that the buffalo was too big to fit.

“I have bested you, foul beast”, he cried from the top of the staircase with a laugh

He was made to regret his taunt immediately. The buffalo charged the metallic staircase with a vengeance; metal had no power over it, everything was knocked away by its powerful horns and well-muscled leather hide. The scientist really went out of his way to design this monster, nothing can stop it. The boy actually panicked for a moment and then he remembered the words that the captain had said to him. ‘Survive’.

“You want to enjoy this race, well come, come for your prize”, he taunted and then ran off, knowing that the beast would follow him in its desire to kill. To his horror, the boy burst out into a large hall, probably a dining hall, judging from the plates and spoons that cluttered the surroundings. Now, the buffalo had enough space to increase its hunting speed and rampage to its liking.

The moment the beast emerged from the narrow corridor, it roared triumphantly and then charged towards its helpless victim energetically. The boy noticed an open area towards his right and turned towards it at the same moment that the beast was about to land the killing blow; and as usual, the beast stumbled and fell as it tried to make the difficult turn, crashing into several tables that stood in its way.

The boy dashed towards the room and noticed a small cage dividing the room into two small sections. The second section had a door leading towards the kitchen area. Without thinking twice, the boy ran towards the cage and locked it using the bolt. The buffalo, now recovered from its fall, smashed right through the wall and charged savagely towards the boy. The beast collided with the iron bars but was unable to drive its way through the puny metallic barrier. The monster was, however, able to land a direct hit; the right horn on its head slashed the boy across the face, leaving a large scar. The collision pushed the boy away from the cage door and practically left him dazed for a slight moment; every muscle in his body had started to voice its objection to this meaningless race, and he could tell from his weakness that he was almost out of stamina.

As soon as he was able to gather his wits, he found it hard to believe that he was still alive, the buffalo was still there, ramming into the cage like a vexed dragon, and for some reason, the cage refused to give the raging beast safe passage to its helpless prey, the boy chuckled.

“I guess I'm the lucky one,” he mocked hoping that the stupid beast would kill itself in the futile attempt to gain access to him, but he was wrong. The buffalo stopped to gather its wits as primal as it looked, and then it gazed intently into the boy’s eyes. There was unspeakable hatred in those eyes and this made the boy tremble. Then the beast looked towards the wall beside the metal cage, and the beast’s thoughts became clear. The boy took to his heels once again, and the beast smashed its way into the next room, then made a big turn and smashed back into the first room at the other side of the cage.

‘This beast is persistent’, the boy helplessly acknowledged, but if this chase should continue, he was as good as dead. The boy was lucky enough to spot another staircase, and he wasted no time in using it, since this was the only strategy that could slow a monster of this nature down. The beast, in its intent to rip the boy asunder, charged onto the staircase and roared defiantly. The blood that leaked out of the boy's wound blinded one of his eyes and made it a little difficult for him to navigate. To worsen the situation, he had started to have dizzy spells. It was only a matter of time before he passed out from exhaustion; only a miracle could save him now. The buffalo had finally closed the distance between them, as it made a move to pounce on its prey, the ground beneath gave way to their combined weight, the boy instinctively reached out and grabbed the nearest electric wire to break his fall while the buffalo plunged towards the earth with its last desperate cry of despair.

It took the boy some time to regain his consciousness, and even more time for his blurry vision to clear, but once it did. he knew that it was going to take him a few weeks to recover from such an ordeal. He gathered his wits and summoned the strength to rise to his feet; only then was he able to measure the extent of the fall. There was a network of wires dangling from the roof, one of which saved his life, and not too far ahead was the buffalo, still alive but immobilised. The beast brayed out in pain as it struggled against its bonds, which would inevitably kill it in the end. The boy could not help but pity the wretched thing. The buffalo might have been determined to end his life but the fault solely rests on the shoulders of the monster that created it.

“I'm sorry,” he said as he observed the beast more closely. It had landed upon a bed of makeshift spikes, 7 feet long; the beast was impaled through its tender underbelly all the way to its lumpy back. His father had once told him to apologise after killing a beast of the forest, claiming that God created all things and every aspect of his creation must be respected. Now, he can finally rest, the boy thought. Little did he know that there was something else hidden within the shadows, waiting to make a kill. As he sat down to close his eyes in sleep the beast attacked, it made its move and charged the unwary, exhausted victim. The boy only had time to turn his head before the beast came down on him. There was a splatter of red blood, and then everything became silent.

⏪PREFACE

Chapter 2⏩