Pantie Rule

37 | Deciphering

I walked towards the police station, taking in the dirty yellow and black wall, and gulping, imagining Martin was there. I hesitated. My heart was beating really fast. I gulped again and walked in. After signing in myself and the food I was bringing. I was bringing food for Fatima's rapist. I shook my head to clear such a thought. Fatima asked me to come, if she did I should trust her.

I sat face to face with him now.

"What really happened?" I said, glueing the cooler in the black nylon to my body.

Martin looked suicidal himself, in his jail cell. He was emaciated, still fine, but emaciated. He

"I'm sorry I did it."

"Sorry wouldn't change the truth Martin. Fatima is dead, and it's because of you."

Martin looked away.

"When Fatima sent me a note, and I discovered she was going to kill herself. I ensured I monitored her and I tried to find out why. One night, I happened to see her while I studied throughout the night in one of the classes. She was headed towards the basketball court. I decided to dump my books, and I stalked her. And there she was, at the net, trying to hang herself."

"So, the hallucination was true." I reasoned.

Martin looked confused.

"After you told me that you... did it," I said, almost in a whisper. "I got transported into this world where it seemed so real. And we tried finding out what happened to Fatima together."

"We both?"

"We both." I gulped. "It was so real." I inhaled. "I think I was able to connect with Fatima, and she showed me some things. A few of the hallucinations were true and others weren't... Like me falling for Chizutere's brother wasn't."

"What did she say about me?" He said.

"Nothing. Not until the past few weeks, I guess." I looked at him. "She's been letting me know it wasn't your fault. When I ask her about you she just smiles. I don't just understand that girl."

Martin's eyes reduced to slits. "You see her?"

"Sort of.

The past few weeks have been paranormal for me, so to speak. From seeing Fatima run around laughingly as though chasing someone, to having her sneak up on me to sit by me when I think about her, to feeling her cover me with a wrapper while I'm asleep in the night. I mean, since I got back from my hallucination I've had no red swellings on every inch of my skin caused by mosquito bites. She's been watching over me too, the best I can do is find out who was behind this all. It's strange. But I've gotten used to it, I've gotten comfortable with it, so to speak. With the truth now revealed, the best thing I want to know is that Fatima is still around somewhere. But there's one more thing she wants me to know.

"Who asked you to rape her?"

Martin's eyes went watery. "I should've been ready to die rather than rape a girl, I'm a coward." Martin turned away.

I wanted to empathize with him, but somehow I couldn't. I felt it was his fault also. For being a boy. For having a penis.

"I can still see her eyes the second she was going to die. I couldn't believe I had killed her. I wasn't even going to do it, she told me it was okay. She told me it was fine." He gulped and looked at me. "She let me. She told me it wasn't my fault, and she was going to thank me for this wherever she went." Tears never stopped flowing and I began to cry too. "The gun was on my head. I tried to be gentle, but it was their movie, I was their plaything and if I didn't do it their way they were going to kill me. She was dead. I couldn't believe I had raped a girl to death!"

I looked at him, weeping and cleaned my face on my arm.

"So who asked you to rape her."

"It wasn't a request Omotara! It was a gunshot, point blank range threat."

"By who?!"

"Five guys in masks."

"Who were they?" I sat more uneasily, moving forward.

"In the note Fatima sent to me, there were only three letters: TSB."

"What does that mean?"

Martin froze, his eyes fuzzy. "I think it means The Secret Boys. It's a secret society in school that nobody knows who exactly are their members."

I clenched my jaw.