UWANA [MY NEW FOUND LOVE]

UWANA

My New Found Love Life

Written by: Gumewrites

CHAPTER ONE

Uwana is a Calabar name which means Bright. That was the name my dear parent gave to me and I liked it. I was a girl of nineteen years of age, not tall in height, slim, dark and quiet.

I am the third child in a family of seven children, six girls and a boy. I love my family very much even though they could be annoying sometimes, but like they say “blood is thicker than water”

I want to tell you guys small part of what happened to me in my new found love life. You see my 18th birthday was so special to me. Imagine being in a family where they don’t count you as a matured person if you are not yet 18 years of age. Just imagine that! That was why I said my 18th birthday was so special to me.

Just imagine the freedom I would get, the opportunities. I would be like a bird, free to fly to any destination of my choice. This very thought landed me in a deep trouble that I could not come out of it.

On that day I found myself amongst friends and well wishers. Just as we entered into the sweetest part of the celebration I suddenly felt a tap on my back, when I turned it was Daniel.

Daniel was a guy who had done everything to woo me but all his effort was just nothing to me. I continued telling him I’m not ready to date anybody because my parents are against such, simply because I was less than 18 years of age.

There was a time he came to my house with flowers and some other gifts but he ran away only because of the kind of eyes he saw from my dad. My father was really that kind of a person.

So he took me by the hands and said “Bright” yea, he prefers calling me Bright because he usually finds it hard to call it the native way “I am here to let you know that I am so much in love with you. Now that you are 18 can today be the day I finally woo you to myself?’’ I stood there looking at him like a confused element and I was thinking deep within me “how can this guy wait till I’m 18 just because he wants to date me? Is this true love or there is a hidden agenda?” “Bright” I heard him called my name again. “yes, Daniel” I responded with a shy voice “what say ya?” he asked and I just moved closer to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. He just stood there like a big Iroko tree.

So I ran away in pretence but he followed me and offered to take me somewhere. I reluctantly said no but he insisted, so I followed him. We drove off in his car. Actually the car belonged to his elder brother. We were just driving and suddenly he stopped the car. I looked at him and he said we should rest here and I asked “why? But this place look like a grave yard” the place was so quiet that you could possibly hear the sound of papers, birds singing in the thick forest but he told me he felt we could use a quiet atmosphere then I said ok.

We both sat in the car for sometime waiting for each other to break the silence but just as I was about to break the silence we heard a voice “Please help me, somebody help me” the voice continued repeating the same phrase so I suggested to Daniel that we should go check the person calling for help. He said it could be dangerous but I told him that we had to do something in order to save the person.

We both alighted from the car and we began following the voice “somebody help me” the voice shouted again, it’s beginning to sound like the voice of a child. “Please whoever you are continue shouting so that we can trace where you are” said Daniel.

We continued walking deep into the forest not for once thinking of the step we were taking. Suddenly the voice stopped crying and after a lot of search we decided to head back to the car it was then we found out that we had already gone far into the forest and all our efforts to find our way back to the car looked like we were just moving in circles.

My heart began to beat faster than usual. I became so worried “Bright” Daniel called my name “yes” I answered “come over here” he said I went and right in front of us was a huge rock with lots of written alphabets and drawings, it looked like a message but we could not understand why we were able to read it because it was written in a strange way. Definitely not English language or any natural human language.

Just as we were reading it we came to understand that everything written there was coming to pass “a girl and a boy will be outside the forest in a car, they will hear the voice of a crying child, they will enter the forest to rescue the child but the ground will swallow them as long as they continued reading this piece of message” we tried to take our eyes off the rock but it looked as if we’ve been hypnotized. We could not take our eyes of it and suddenly the ground opened and I saw the ground covering Daniel. I shouted with tears rolling down from my eyes just as I was about to be swallowed by the ground, I heard a song in my ears “Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, happy birthday happy birthday to you” I opened my eyes and saw the whole of my family in my room, singing the happy birthday song to me.

Alas! It was all a dream.