I knew the end was near as I could smell its freshness…THE LAST BULLET

BY AMADI IKENNA PASCHAL

I knew the end was near as I could smell its freshness. Beads of sweat engulfed my whole body as I layed on my bed overwhelmed by a sudden fear. It was late in the midnight and It was barely two hours since I came back from CEC as I just finished having sex with a female student of mine. I could hear footsteps in the passage and I was paralysed by fear, wondering who could have had the guts to break into a lecturer quarter.

So many thoughts surrounded my mind as I wondered when odim Street had suddenly become insecured. In my two years as graduate assistant of the University of Nigeria, I had lived in the school lecturer quarter located at Odim Street, due to its well known secured nature. In my confused heart I knew sandra couldn’t have left CEC trailing me not after our wild sex which exhausted her and I had to go home due to my engagement in school the next day. It was definitely not sandra, but who?

As I approached the door shaking like a jelly Fish, the door creaked open and I saw the last face I had expected to see in my life again and not even at this ungodly hour… Chuks.

His tall frame stood facing me as his familiar eyes stared at me blazing like fire. I could see a pistol been held firmly by him and then suddenly I felt like peeing.

I shivered as I knew my past was finally back to haunt me as I stared at this familiar foe. This was my friend whose misfortune had turned to my fortune. I became the only first class graduate at his expense which was why I was automatically employed as a lecturer. My mind quickly dashed to my evil deeds as I stared at chuks.

I recalled how I framed him up in our final year days for being a cultist and how I masterminded the beating of our staff advicer then, leaving a trail on an innocent chuks just for him to be put in the department bad book so that his first class result would be denied of him. We were the only students in our set ready to graduate with first class and I wanted to be the only one with that honour. The department denied him of his first class result after every carefully planned evidence by myself had been layed out, and he was expelled.

I knelt down immediately begging as chuks pointed the gun at me as I remembered vividly how I ruined this Young man’s life because of my greed and insatiable desire of being the only first class graduate from my department. As a bullet pierced my leg, I let out a shriek cry as chuks face remained hard. My heart burnt as his fiery eyes were fixed on me.

I layed on the floor, bleeding from the leg and begging for mercy with chuks keeping quiet except for that gaze. Then, he raised the gun again, pointed it at my forehead and gave a devilish smile, and at that moment, I knew my fate was already sealed.