The Greatest of All Time

Chapter 1: Rewind!

"KOKOKORIKO"

Zachary Bemba was woken from a deep slumber by the crowing of a rooster. His eyes abruptly rolled open, glazed over with the remnants of a dream or rather a nightmare.

Zachary was first aware of the coolness of the air and its fresh fragrance. It was nothing similar to the foul polluted air he'd grown accustomed to in the suburbs of Kinshasha City.

He was lying on an abnormally small mattress that seemed to have been crafted by inserting spiky grass into rigid sacks. It was very uncomfortable and hurt his back when he stirred.

Zachary blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the room before propping himself up and orienting himself to the surroundings.

He was in a room with gray clay walls and a grass roof over his head. Small khaki curtains hid the shabby small window on one side of the cramped chamber—just leaving a shy peek of the banana plantation beyond. One wooden stool and a roughly made bench stood at the foot of his small bed.

'WTF!? Isn't this my small hut back in my ancestral village? Why am I back here?'

He seemed to be hallucinating about his childhood residence back in Bukavu. He had stayed with his grandma until he was sixteen before he gained some small achievements in his soccer career and then went on to waste his life.

'I am not dreaming!' 

He exclaimed inwardly after pinching the dark brown skin on his forearm. The last thing that he could recall was drowning and struggling for a single breath of air in the deep waters of the Congo River. The experience was deeply traumatizing for him.

Zachary had failed to pay back a debt he owed to a local drug lord in Kinshasha and was left to drown in the river by the thug's sycophants. He should have already died and on his way to hell, but here he was, alive and well.

'Could I have gone back in time? Could I have gotten a second chance?'

"Hahaha..." 

Zachary's laughter was a high cold cackle, piercing the silent atmosphere.

"I've got to stop following those soaps and web novels." 

Zachary mumbled while trying to suppress his laughter.

But suddenly, from the small open window came a form. Levitating a foot off the dirt-laden coarse floor was an ash-grey translucent silhouette that shimmered with a hazy glow. Slowly, it came into focus as an object looked at through a telescope, but this phantom was close, very close, just a few meters away.

Now Zachary could see the form of a man, with a silvery ragged line across his neck standing in his room. His skin was the color of charcoal and matched his bottomless soulless eyes. He wore a crown of leaves and grass, plus a tattered regal gown on his person.

Zachary's first impression of him was that he was just a hallucination and thus shook his head, trying to disperse his image from his mind. He was calm as this was not the first time he was getting delusion. His hallucinations had been getting progressively less amusing over the years due to his abuse of drugs.

Despite his efforts, the phantom was still there, before him, laughing and performing a sort of wild – prehistoric dance around his small room.

Zachary wanted to run fast for safety—out of the small wooden door, but instead remained where he was. Let's face it; there was only one thing he could do in such a situation: Pray the phantom wouldn't kill him.

But suddenly, the phantom stopped its manic laughter and started studying Zachary with the unwavering attention of a predator.

The phantom's soulless eyes creeped him out to the point of nearly peeing in his pants. But he clamped down on his fears and prayed that the almighty God (if there was one) could help him out of the situation.