CHAPTER 9 – “CORDELIA”

©️ Opeyemi Akintunde
As Inspired by the DEEP ONE

Cordelia didn’t come out for days.

And when I say days, I mean days…three long nights that stretched like three years.

After She had been summoned to Father’s quarters just vanished.

And Guess What?

No one spoke about her.
No one even flinched.
It was as if the entire Household had collectively erased her existence like chalk from a blackboard.

But me? I was going bunkers.

By day, I tried to blend in…prayers, chants, forced smiles, the endless “holy” talks. But my spirit wasn’t in it.

By night, I became a sentry.

I barely slept. My mattress remained untouched while I sat by the window, eyes fixed on that dreadful building…Father’s quarters.

I searched for clues. A flicker of light. A shadow in the window. A voice carried on the wind. Something…anything…to tell me what she was enduring inside.

But the house sat there, silent, smug, like a lion’s den with no Daniel to testify.

Every hour I asked MS Laura, my Mentor Saint, where Cordelia was.

“MS Laura… do you know what’s happening in there?”

She acted deaf.
Like my words evaporated mid-air.
She’d quickly change the topic…ask about my reflections, my chants, my “alignment.”

Her silence screamed louder than any confession.

I prayed, but my prayers were weak.
I whispered, but heaven felt far.
The silence of the Household was eating me alive.

I kept thinking:
Was Cordelia crying?
Was she being punished?
Was she… even alive?

Three nights.
My eyes red.
My chest heavy.
I was losing myself.

Then, on the morning of the fourth day…

I saw her.

Cordelia stepped out of Father’s quarters.

My legs carried me before my brain caught up. I ran toward her, bracing for the tears, the shaking, the brokenness.

But she wasn’t crying.
She was smiling.

Oh, but not the Cordelia smile I knew.

This one didn’t touch her eyes. Her lips curved upward, but her eyes were glassy. Empty. Like the kind of smile dolls wear in haunted houses.

I stopped short, my breath catching.

“Cordelia! What happened in there?” I asked, my voice trembling.

She tilted her head, that strange smile glued to her face.

“Realignment,” she said simply.

Realignment?

The word bounced around my skull like a rock in an empty drum.

Realignment with what? With who?

God?
No. This didn’t look like God’s work.

I searched her face. I begged her eyes for truth.
But her gaze slid right past me, like a curtain had been drawn across her soul.

Cordelia…the Cordelia I came for….was slipping away.

I wanted to shake her, scream at her, drag her out of there by force.
Instead, I just stood there, torn between hugging her and running from her.

Because that smile terrified me more than tears ever could.

Lord, what have they done to her?

And in that moment, it dawned on me:
Father’s quarters wasn’t just a room.
It was an altar.
And whatever happened inside was more than mentoring.

It was reshaping.
It was reprogramming.
It was… realignment.

That evening, they had us gather in the dome for what they called “Visual Edification.”

Drama.
But not drama like our youth fellowships used to do.

This was theatre for the mind. A stage play engineered to indoctrinate.

A veiled girl crawled across the stage, clutching a Bible. Above her, another actor…representing “Christ”…stood in white robes, silent and still, arms stretched in a crucifix.

Midway, the girl froze and screamed:

“My heart is torn! I still love the world!”

Instantly, red lights bathed the hall. Thunder roared from hidden speakers.

Two masked “saints” in black ran out, dragging her down the stage. Father’s voice, amplified and booming, thundered over us: “No one who puts hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom!”

The hall erupted in shouts of “Kairos! Kairos!”

But me?
I sat there shaking.

Because I finally understood what had happened to Cordelia.

This wasn’t “realignment.”
It was reprogramming.

Her tears, her doubts, her willpower…all dragged into that invisible red light and drowned with thunder.
And what came out?
A smiling doll.
A puppet on a holy string.

I stared at Cordelia that night as she prayed quietly in a corner.

Was she really praying?
Or was she just reciting lines like an actress who had finally learned her role?

Lord, what have they done to her?

I lay on my bed, eyes wide open, whispering like a madwoman.
“Don’t let them reset me. Don’t let me become a smiling puppet. Don’t let me forget who I am.”

Because in that moment, it hit me…
Cordelia wasn’t saved.
She wasn’t strengthened.

She was realigned.

And realignment, in this place, didn’t mean walking straighter.
It meant walking in circles until you forgot you were trapped.

To be continued….

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