TAIYE AND OTHER STORIES

LIVES WITH ME

Sofia woke up at four with a start and nearly fell off the bed. Yep she was naked, sweaty and she had had a nightmare but had no idea what it was about.

She shrugged, and walked to her bathroom to freshen up for the day, after that it was staring at the ceiling till seven and then heading straight to work.

Sofia entered the office and the smell of coffee assaulted her nostril, it gave her pleasure. She got a cup for herself and sat in her little office. Nobody bothered to greet her today, finally they were tired of being friendly.

She just brushed it off and payed attention to the orders she had been instructed to carry out by the boss and started typing away at her computer. She was a content writer for the second best publishing firm in forth lane and she took pride in staring at her name at the beginning of an article.

When it had gotten to two in the evening and her usual pest who was the only person that still barged into her office, refusing to leave her to her shell hadn't done that she frowned and went to the receptionist.

"Where's Alva?" She asked and watched as her face lost all color.

"You don't know?" She croaked out.

"Don't know what?"

"The choker strikes again," she said pointing to the newspaper for this morning.

"What?" Sofia froze as her eyes scanned through the article before landing on a gruesome looking picture of Alva at the bottom page looking very dead with a pink choker on her neck. That was weird. "Why does Alva have a pink choker on her neck?" She questions snatching the paper to get a better look.

"We don't know, in fact the homicide department is going crazy, we thought you were in mourning, thats why we left you alone." She said with a hint of sympathy.

"Why would I be sad?" Sofia asked tilting her head to the side.

"She's, she was, she-friend right?"

"More like an aquantance, but this is sad, I need a drink," she said walking away as if it was quite normal for a colleague to turn up dead.

Sofia got into her office with a calm she knew could win her an Oscar and slammed the door shut. She started hyperventilating and collapsed on the floor, her legs shaking as if she had been electrocuted, she dragged herself across the room to her desk and stretched her hand to open the drawers when her vision blurred and she collapsed.

When Sofia awoke she was in the sickbay with a very pissed off looking boss.

"I finished the article and sent it to you." Was the first thing to leave her thick lips.

"You nearly had a heart attack and that's the first thing to say?" He snapped which had her giggling. He looked like an angry turkey with the multiple rows of flesh on his thick neck bubbing in anger.

She only shrugged by the time he finished his scolding match.

"I will see you at work next week Sofia, not tomorrow, not the day after, you take a break unless," he threatened and she nodded.

"I won't sir," she assured him as he huffed and left the room.

Sofia groaned and flexed her fingers, it looked like she did manual labor, cuts here and there and pin pricks, oh well.

She left to her office to pick up her bag and went straight home, it was the same thing, windows open, cold apartment except for the shiny note on her bed.

Sofia held her umbrella close to her chest as she cautiously walked to the bed, she poked the note and when it didn't explode she picked it up and her blood ran cold when she saw what was written in it.