Chapter 78 MYSTERY 101

Sobrina loved to jog early in the morning. She discovered a long time ago, around when she newly returned home, that jogging helped her mental health a great deal.

It was her routine to leave her house by 5am in the morning, take a seat on a large dwarfed stone wall used in demarcating the tarred road, and there she would pray for 30 minutes before taking off.

Praying had now gradually died from her lips, she had a lot of worries and uncertainties, but she never stopped taking a seat in the middle of the lonely road to go around her thoughts before resuming each day's jogging activity.

There were only a few people who knew about her morning routine - members of her family and Pastor Melvin. She had once texted him about it.

Pastor Sheddy had called the attention of his circular cult members to the problem he needed taken care of. He had promised a huge amount of money to anyone who would bring him the news about Sobrina's demise. The amount wasn't so huge, but there were members of the cult who were still low lives and homeless in Bosgon, those members were usually the ones who carried out cheap, dirty duties, for other members of the cult.

Sobrina was not aware that Pastor Melvin was now directly reporting to Pastor Sheddy, since after their meeting at the restaurant. He had forwarded Sobrina's text message about her morning routine to Pastor Sheddy, who was glad to receive the news, and had in turn, shared the information to the cult members, who had indicated interest in his offer.

The once lonely road gradually became active. Sobrina began to find strange tattered looking young men, who were neither joggers - evident from the way they dressed - nor performing any form of exercises, following her. Sobrina decided that something must be wrong.

"I've noticed I'm being followed by different strange young men during my morning jogging, no one else outside my family knows I leave the house around this early, but you. Well, I'm not afraid, I trust that God can protect me, therefore I'm not quitting", she had once texted Pastor Melvin.

She noticed that the numerous encounters of strange young men actually reduced a great deal after that text message, but she wasn't paying any attention. Apart from the fact that she understood that God could protect her, and had He been doing so? She was also suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and depended seriously on her jogging routine, while secretly hoping for sudden death to release her from so much suffering.

Another reason that made her prefer to leave her house that early, every morning, was the regular morning devotion her religious family observed. Her father who was the only speaker in the gathering had made his topic 'Sobrina'. He said things she didn't wish to hear.

Their relationship had so deteriorated, that Sobrina wished them death. They had started denying her food and general care as always. She was taking her medication and jogging regularly on empty stomach.

Her father and few of her siblings ceased every opportunity to beat her up in group. In turn, she didn't care to visit her father at the hospital when he fell sick few months ago. Her father had returned home, and turned her into the enemy. Being home had become so terrible, but Sobrina persevered, hoping against hope, that Pastor Melvin would be true to his words and come for her.

Sobrina refused to leave her home or involve herself in activities that would make her feel unworthy of him. She also continued to go to church at Saint's Perfection.

Seeing her every Sunday became an insult to Pastor Sheddy, he began to take matters into his hands. He had once sent an assassin who came back to report that while Sobrina jogged alone on the road, she was unreachable.

"Oga, that girl dey fly. If I say make I catch am, before I go know, I go see her one mile in front of me. I no understand the thing. She be witch", the assassin had reported in Pidgin.

It happened that he had pretended to be a jogger. Sobrina had noticed him behind her during the time, she'd wondered how someone could comfortably jog in tight jeans and pone slippers. But had ignored the unknown jogger and continued on her path.

Pastor Sheddy's other contracted assassins - who had followed Sobrina home and who had been instructed to watch her house from an uncompleted two storey building nearby - were sent to poison the entire family when his plan 'A' had failed.

Sobrina constantly reported to Pastor Melvin about the evil treatment she was receiving from her people at home. Therefore, they planned to leave a note in the house signed by Sobrina saying she had poisoned everyone including herself, because of the evils of her family members.

The assassins had noticed - and reported back to Pastor Sheddy - long ago that the family hid the keys to their apartment under a flower pot outside the house, and the only time no one was present in the building was always on Sundays.

They first poisoned a pot of stew in Sobrina's house and hid the note under one of the sofas in the sitting room. The family returned and ate the stew, but weren't harmed.

Then they secondly opened a bottle of wine in the refrigerator the following Sunday, and poisoned it.

"Who opened this bottle of wine", Sobrina's mother questioned later that day. Nobody in the family agreed to have opened it, and therefore it was disposed.

In their third attempt, they began to break things in the house, attempting to make it look like it was Sobrina who'd done it in anger.

Sobrina who was always the first to return home on Sundays, would return to find broken plastic buckets or plates everywhere in the kitchen, and no one would agree to have done it.

She began to wonder if she'd done it out of anger, and without knowing when. Which would mean that she was actually crazier than she thought.