The queue was backed up for several miles, lines and lines of desperate people seeking passage into the promised land before it was too late. Arikan wrapped the moth-eaten cloak tighter around her sick mother as they trudged ahead among the multitude of humans and CNG powered vehicles. They had come a long way, all of them, and they were nearly at the end of their journey. They had been assured that no one would turn them back at the toll gates leading to the Island of Banana; the last air-safe colony in the United Western Federation of Mainland, Ikorodu, Lekki and the Island of Banana. Arikan was hopeful for her mother’s sake. She was hopeful because she had no other choice. An acid storm was coming; meteorologists predicted it would be the biggest storm to hit the western federation in over a decade. The last major storm had hit just after the grand secession and the Ikorodu colony had never been the same after that. She and her mother had traveled for two months to reach the Island of Banana toll gates. They had to cross; they had been through too much to get here, they would not get turned back at the crossing, she would make sure of it.

A man rammed into her mother from behind and almost knocked the older woman over. Arikan was at the man’s throat in an instant, beating him back, creating as much room for her mother as she possibly could in the tightly packed humdrum of human bodies. The man glared at her. She could see nothing but his red eyes behind his face mask, angry eyes, eyes that told a million stories of how far he had travelled to get there. He hissed at her.

“Touch me again and you die, little girl” he growled in an elegant mix of Hausa and Pidgin. Arikan stood her ground. She got right in his face, looking up into those furious, red eyes.

“Push my mother again and see what happens.”

The man spared her mother a cursory glance. The movement of his eyes caught something that surprised him, something that made him take a step back despite the mountain of people pressing up on him from behind, urging him to go forward. Arikan held a dagger to his groin, barely concealed beneath her cloak, her eyes never leaving his face, daring him to do something, anything, to her or her mother. He took another step back and decided there was no need for this. The girl clearly had her own problems, there was no need to get in the mix, whatever lay ahead was greater than all three of them combined. He threw his head to the side, muttered an apology under his breath, and marched on, creating distance between them.

Arikan watched him go. She put her arms around her mother again, tightening her cloak around her. The air was stale, dusty and bitingly cold. She adjusted their face masks and together they surged forward with the crowd. Her mother leaned into her.

“Thank you, my Ada.”

Arikan’s nod was barely perceptible. It had been a long journey getting here but they would have arrived weeks earlier if only they left home when she insisted they did, if only her mother had not delayed their exit from the Ikorodu colony by clinging to hope that no longer existed. The two months travelling together had made Arikan wish she could simply leave her behind; it was a thought she was deeply ashamed of, yet, it refused to depart from her mind. It would solve all of her problems. But she made a promise to her father a long time ago, and promises were worth their weight in gold in this new world.

There were eighteen of them travelling together when they left the Ikorodu colony. Now, they were down to four. JP and Tomiwa were several yards in front, scouting ahead. Arikan’s backpack was filled with the belongings of those they had left behind, lost to the perils of the journey. Their CNG powered vehicle had made it as far as the Falomo militarized zone before giving up the ghost, finally unable to respond to JP’s frequent mechanical interventions. They had battled clans of raiders and other undesirables across wastelands of the western federation and now they were almost at the crossing. Arikan was on her last legs of hope. The ever rising wind carried dust and dirt into her eyes as it chilled her bones. She could feel her mother clinging to her, shivering tightly.

“Just hold on, mama. We’re almost there.” It won’t be too long now, she thought. They would reach the toll gates in two hours if they continued at their current speed. She pulled her mother around a CNG vehicle that had broken down in the middle of the weather-beaten road, the driver screaming a fanciful mouthful of curses at the wheel while the pregnant woman beside him and the twins in the back seat looked on with anxious eyes. The man’s voice reminded Arikan of her father but not in its harshness or despair, no, in the quality and color of language used, the deliberateness of every invective and carefully chosen word. Her father had also been a man of well-chosen words: he was a professor of engineering before the grand secession and missed nothing more than his lecture room of eager students hanging onto every word from his lips. Many of his students had been forced to enlist in the western federation’s army or join the regionalized farmland workforce producing crops and grains to feed the colonies. Her father would often be found staring out of his window in the early mornings, muttering to himself as he watched the world outside pass by. She was still quite young then and once in a while, he would regale her with lectures on the intricacies of structural engineering that she could never hope to understand, but she had never forgotten that sonorous voice, going on and on while she giggled, listening attentively as if they both understood the importance of this ritual to her as well as to him. It all seemed like such a long time ago now. She shivered a little as she looked up at the sky. The temperature was dropping and dark clouds competed with the red sun smiling down from above, dark clouds which seemed to be creeping in faster and faster. Meteorologists predicted the storm would hit in three days; they would need to be under the protection of the Island of Banana and its Dome long before then.

The man beside her carried a little girl in his arms as he marched ahead, as fast as the surging crowd would let him, looking for the tiniest space to exploit and gain more momentum. The girl could not be more than five-years old. She bore all the tell-tale signs of malnutrition, her face mask bulging in and out as she breathed rapidly. Then she started to cough and Arikan’s heart broke into a million pieces. The little girl might have been five but she coughed like a seventy-years old, life-long smoker. Arikan could see tiny specs of blood decorating her mask while her face contorted in pain. She tried to look away and couldn’t. The girl’s father finally caught Arikan staring and she smiled at him underneath her mask but he would never know it.

“Is she okay?”

Sadness glazed over his eyes. He shook his head. “No. I’m hoping that once we cross, I can get her the help she needs.”

Arikan nodded slowly, she could understand this. “What stage is she in?”

“Stage three, her last scans showed the virus has invaded her lungs completely. But that was almost a year ago, before the Mainland colony fell. That’s where we were. We haven’t been able to find a doctor ever since.”

The virus was an offshoot of the coronavirus, a mutation, or so the experts said. Nothing to worry about, all existing vaccinations would be sufficient to protect mankind against this new threat. But they could not be more wrong. All the experts and all their science and they failed to consider that it had been half a century since the whole world was forced into lockdowns and in that time, the level of pollution on planet earth had reached impossible levels. The virus continued to mutate and mutate, bolstered by the toxic environment, and by the time science caught on it was already too late. Irreparable damage had been done for several generations to come, ushering the world into a new age; a cold, dusty, bleak age, with humans living with a virus that lay waiting in the blood cells, a dormant killer until triggered. Clean air soon became a much sought after commodity. Then the storms came.

After a century of oil exploration, gas flaring, pollution of the air, land and sea, the acid storms hit the former republic of Nigeria harder than other countries in the global south. Bitingly cold rain pouring from the sky accompanied by winds of hurricane-like proportions. Rain so cold it started to burn hot when it made contact with anything for a while, anything from rough, corrugated roofing to supple human flesh. The country had just survived the grand secession, breaking up into smaller federations and units as the struggle for resource control escalated into a civil war. The Western Federation of Mainland, Ikorodu, Lekki and the Island of Banana had done its best to thrive for some time, refusing to bow to the killer virus, the dust or the storms. But the storms just kept on coming, increasing in strength and frequency over the years. And everything else eventually fell apart. Still, that was the only world Arikan had ever known. She had been born long after it all went to hell and had learned to navigate the chaos as she grew older. Until the Ikorodu colony finally fell, forcing her to leave her home.

The little girl ended another bout of painful coughing. She turned to peer at Arikan and she could sense the curiosity behind her eyes, despite the weakness of the rest of the little girl’s body. Arikan smiled at her.

“What’s your name?”

“Rukewe. It’s my mommy’s name too.”

The man smiled at his daughter, then he lowered sad eyes to meet Arikan’s. “She’s no longer with us. Her mother. The journey was – it was too much on her. She was pregnant with our second child. It was too much. Maybe we never should have left. Maybe if we had stayed back…”

His voice trailed off. Arikan tightened her grip around her mother’s shoulders, absorbing the pressure bouncing off the surging crowd. She shook her head at the man.

“You and Rukewe would be gone too if you had stayed. We had people in the Mainland colony, extended family members. We heard the reports. It was catastrophic. You’re lucky you made it out at all.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…” A tear escaped his eye, rolling down his dusty cheek and disappearing behind his mask. “I don’t know what to do without her. I don’t know how to carry on. What do I know about raising a child?”

“You’ll learn, you’ll adapt. You must! For her sake. There’s no other choice.”

It was a mantra her father had drummed into her head repeatedly over the years. Learn and adapt. The bare-knuckle basics of human evolution. The reason mankind had outlasted every other species of creation. He had taught her to survive and to take care of her mother. His deliberate training over the years had saved their lives multiple times since they set out. It was just a shame that she would never get to thank him for all he had done. When the Island of Banana tollgates were being considered along with the atmospheric Dome, her father had been consulted as a foremost professor of structural engineering in the western federation. He had jumped at the chance to escape the cloud of depression choking him after being away from teaching and the lecture hall for years. Every day, his protection detail picked him from the Ikorodu colony and delivered him to the Island of Banana. And every night, his detail brought him safely back home. The tollgates and the Dome were nearing completion at a record speed when he got exposed to acid rain during a heavy storm that caught everyone by surprise. The doctors gave him six months at most. Arikan’s mother suffered a breakdown of her own soon after. Arikan had taken care of them both until her father died. Then, despite her mother’s reluctance, she finally managed to convince her to leave and they packed up their necessary belongings and set out on their journey. Right before the Ikorodu colony fell.

She felt the temperature rising as it grew even colder around her, the dust in the air making it hard to breathe. The sun was still a red ball of fire in the sky but the dark clouds were on the verge of overshadowing it and blanketing the world in darkness. She reached out and rubbed the little girl’s hand reassuringly.

“We’re almost at the crossing, okay? Everything is going to be fine soon. You have all her vaccination records abi?

The man nodded vigorously. “Since the day she was born. I just hope her cough doesn’t draw any attention from the authorities. I heard that they find the smallest excuse to turn people back.”

Arikan knew this for a fact, but they were here already and they would cross. They would walk through the tollgates and finally find safe haven on the other side. She would make sure of this, she would take care of her mother and fulfil her promise to her father. Nothing else mattered.

In the midst of the rising wind and the awful noise generated by the pulsing crowd, she could hear something else, coming closer and closer; a voice, loud enough to rise over the ruckus, issuing loud commands. She looked ahead and saw JP and Tomiwa backtracking, making their way through the crowd to meet her. They instantly blended by her side, falling into step. JP tipped his cap as was his habit as he leaned into her.

“We’re almost at the link-bridge. The soldiers dey arrange people into six lines. Them go scan your eye with infrared to make sure you no be stage four or five.”

“I saw them throw one man’s vaccination papers for ground,” Tomiwa cut in. “Him and his family kneel down for mud dey beg, soldiers they flog them koboko, dey talk say make them comot for here, them no go ever cross.”

Arikan shook her head. Even as the men spoke, she could see the tip of the tollgates and the Dome rising up to meet them a kilometer away. The link-bridge had been built over the ocean and it was the only way to cross, past the tollgates, and gain access to the Island of Banana; the last air-safe colony in the western federation. The Island was a marvel of bio-engineering and the Dome was the peak of its wonders, stretching out over all two million square feet of the Island. Everything the Dome covered was protected. Beyond the Dome, they would need no masks, the air filtration and purification system was beyond anything the world had ever seen and breathing fresh, clean air was possible. Citizens of the Island were given the latest booster shots, the only thing capable of slowing down the steady progression of the virus, elongating the lives of even the sickest people for many years. Most importantly, the Dome was a shield against the storms. Since it went up more than a decade ago, not a single drop of acid rain had penetrated its environmental defenses. It was a safe-haven for its citizens and a promised land for travelers from far and wide.

They joined the long queues of six lines marching forward. Arikan saw that pavilions had been set up on both sides of the road, manned by armed sentries watching the teeming crowd like hawks. A soldier was screaming into a bullhorn, his voice amplified by the loudspeakers and carrying far and wide:

“SIX LINES ONLY! NO MORE THAN SIX LINES! PREPARE TO PRESENT YOUR VACCINATION PAPERS! OBEY ALL INSTRUCTIONS! REMAIN ORDERLY AND ORGANIZED! SIX LINES ONLY!”

Arikan watched the soldiers inspect the lines and randomly pull out people for a strip search, right in front of everyone, under the pretext of looking for any materials that could “threaten the security and sovereignty of the Island.” People were turned away. Grown men and women wept and begged in the dust, some even growing hysterical and taking off for the gates as fast as they can. But they never got far; the sentries shot them down before they were half way across the bridge. Gunshots rang out steadily in the air, but the crowd continued to surge forward, as bodies dropped side by side with the living.

Arikan turned to JP. “Get the papers out of my backpack.”

He did as instructed, opening the bag and retrieving all their vaccination documents. He handed Tomiwa his papers. Arikan collected her and her mother’s documents. The older woman was now shivering badly underneath her cloak, Arikan could feel that ice-cold dread once again, clutching at her throat and tightening her insides, making it even harder to breathe. She managed to pull her mother even closer in reassurance.

“Don’t worry, mama. We’re at the bridge now. We’ll be crossing soon. We’re going to make it, mama, we’re almost there.”

“We’re crossing?” The relief in her voice did nothing to soothe Arikan’s troubled mind.

“Soon, mama. Just hold on.”

The skies had darkened, the cold and the wind howled fiercely and the red of the sun had faded to the background of the sky. Arikan saw Rukewe and her father, their documents shaking ever so slightly in one hand as he carried Rukewe with the other arm. The soldier was right ahead of them, riffling through the clothes and bags of the woman in front. Arikan turned to JP to say something and that’s when she heard it, a cry of pain that filled her heart with terror and anguish.

“IT’S RAIN!”

A hush instantly passed through the crowd, followed by murmurings of “rain” spreading among them in fearful whispers, growing louder and louder until it erupted in a frenzy. Arikan looked up at the sky. A large drop of water fell from above, directly onto her forehead. It was bitingly cold and she felt her heart sink even further. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four… the drop of water started to itch and burn her skin. As the terror and panic completely engulfed the crowd. Screams of horror erupted through them like volcanoes as human bodies surged ahead without regard for any more protocols.

Tomiwa turned to Arikan, tears mixing with the fear in his eyes. “It’s not possible, the meteorologists talk say the storm no go show for another three days. It’s not – it no fit dey possible.”

But the drops of rain continued to fall, one by one, growing in speed, as the crowd abandoned all pretense at decorum.

“ORDER! ORDER! EVERYBODY REMAIN CALM! OBEY INSTRUCTIONS OR WE SHALL OPEN FIRE! ORDER! ORDER!”

The crowd barely paid attention to the soldier with the bullhorn. Arikan trudged ahead with the rest, propelling her mother as fast as she could. The soldiers looked bewildered. And then their confusion was replaced by another look, a look which broke her heart even more.

“TURN BACK! EVERYBODY TURN AROUND! THE BRIDGE IS NOW CLOSED. THE TOLLGATES ARE CLOSED! NO MORE CROSSING! TURN BACK!

The crowd marched on as fast as it could, the six lines completely disrupted as the soldiers retreated back across the bridge to the safety of their Dome, pursued by the desperate travelers who had come a long way and were now too close to be denied. Fearing a stampede, the soldiers opened fire into the crowd, shooting and shooting randomly at the ever-approaching sea of humans. Arikan dived to the ground, bringing her mother down with her. JP and Tomiwa were by her side. The crowd continued to push ahead, as if reasoning that it would be better to die by bullets than be caught in the incoming storm, as the rain came down even harder all around them. Time slowed down for Arikan as she remained low, dodging the melee of bodies and keeping safe from flying bullets. Then she turned to the side and saw Rukewe and her father on the ground beside them, only this time the man was no longer carrying his daughter. He was lying on the bare earth, his hands crumpled in an unnatural position under his body. He was not moving. Rukewe knelt beside him, shaking him repeatedly and screaming his name.

Arikan’s vision was blurry; it took a moment for her to realize that the man was dead and that the wetness she felt on her face was not just the rain but also the tears rushing down her face. She watched Rukewe shake her father over and over again, pleading with him to get up, just as the crowd continued to rush forward all around her, several of them brought down by the bullets from the soldiers.

Arikan’s hands were shaking. She was ready to lie down in the mud and let go of everything. She had tried her best; they had made it this far despite all the dangers and loss they faced on their way. But maybe it was never meant to be, maybe this was where their journey was supposed to end and they were never meant to cross, never meant to make it to the promised land. She felt the chaos and fear all around her, she heard the screams and saw the men, women and children fighting for their lives, hoping against all hope for a chance at a better tomorrow, as the rain fell even heavier all around them. And she made up her mind.

She got to her feet and moving as quickly as she could, she snatched Rukewe with one hand and pulled her close. Then she put her other hand around her mother and again started to propel her forward. The little girl struggled against Arikan, pulling her hand, not wanting to leave her father behind, but Arikan held on steadily, never letting go. They surged ahead with the rest of the crowd, moving as fast as the storm would let them, storming the bridge, headed for the tollgates, on the back of the retreating soldiers. They would cross. They would all cross. She would make sure of it. They had come this far, nothing was going to stop them. She had made a promise to her father and she was going to keep it. Nothing else mattered.

About the Author:

Great Opara is a Nigerian screenwriter, director and culture journalist whose fiction and non-fiction work chronicle the human condition through the lens of lifestyle, culture and entertainment, while addressing the existential angst of being alive in these times. His words have appeared in Native Mag, the International Journalists’ Network, the Kalahari Review, Bella Naija and others.

*Featured image by Nigel Hoare at Unsplash