Misunderstood

The year was 2022, on the month which supposedly had the most heat, but contrarily had been cold most of the time with light downpours of rain. That year, the month of August had been full of surprises. The day had started as normally as any Saturday had before, even the usual power outage was on time. All that had been changed was Chike, a twenty-one year old, sitting on the bedside instead of being fast asleep, staring at the washed-colored paint on the wall of his room, seeming present but also absent-minded. He had visible signs of not sleeping properly advertised by stress marks on his face and bags in his eyes. Recently, he had been having reoccurring nightmares which had kept him up and unable to sleep, most of which were him not being an accomplished human and few of him dying a meaningless death. He had been having similar nightmares for days unending and had suffered the insomnia with no one to talk to about it.

Chike reached for his phone on his reading table littered with scattered-opened textbooks from accounting, and a half buried novel with only the words '...Tomorrow Comes', visibly appearing from the pile of books.

'Knock! Knock!' sounded from the door attracting his consciousness back to reality.

"Who is it?" He asked rubbing his itching eyelids.

"Isn't it about time you woke up!?" his father yelled furiously "come out now it's time for morning devotion."

Chike had never had a close relationship with his father, neither did he like the way he was spoken to in the early mornings by him, being twenty-one made it even worse of a feeling. But nothing he could do at the moment could change it, because he had to depend on him. This was due to a lot of circumstances, one being his ironic abundance in poverty, even this was not in his power to change. All he could do was grit his teeth and reply, "I'm coming."

He grabbed a pair of trousers hung the night before and covered his hairy chest with his t-shirt. Sluggishly he made his way out of his bedroom, stepping on the cold surfaced cemented floor on the passageway leading to the sitting room, shivers ran up his bones causing him to gnash his teeth.

"Good morning...Brother Koth." Chidera his younger sister greeted, yawning in-between, her mouth opened wide with no effort to restrain from her palm. She had not only been the only feminine child but also the youngest in the family with four kids, and this gave her a wild side.

"Good morning." he replied fighting the urge to yawn as well.

"Good morning everyone." Dozie, the third of the four, greeted walking right through the center of both half-naked and bare chested.

"Couldn't you at least put something on?" Chike asked.

"Doesn't that make sense if he has something to put on?" Dera said making fun of him.

"At least I'm better than someone who doesn't know proper manners, you almost swallowed us whole."

"Don't let your father get angry with you guys because you're late for prayer again today." Their mother cautioned from behind shoving them lightly, as an indication to move faster.

"Alright mom" Dera said, with all four making their way to the sitting room.

"Good morning" Moji greeted. Moji was like many others a course mate of Chike, who were in their second year of the university. Moji had been one of the few friends who stay by his side, at least he was one of the few Chike called friends. Moji was an average Yoruba guy without the Yoruba ascent, but was quite fluent in his language unlike Chike who was from the Igbo tribe but couldn't understand a thing.

"Good morning" Chike replied as they both walked down to their classroom.

"Did you hear?" Moji asked.

"Hear what?"

"Aren't you on the group chat?" Moji asked once more, shocked at his response.

"Which one of the group chat? Cus there's a lot of them on my phone." Chike replied which a stern look.

"The general group for the whole class." Moji said, "The one for both stream one and two."

"Oh I left that ages ago."

"Why?"

"There were a lot of messages with no useful information, so I left."

"Well you sure as well picked the wrong time to leave, you missed a lot, there was a fight and all that" Moji said with a smile. He had always been the type to enjoy trouble in paradise.

"Bro, that's not my problem right now." Chike said.

"And what is?" He asked.

"I'll tell you after class, we are already late for it."

"Then I guess we better hurry." Moji said with of them quickening their pace...